15 April, 2008...8:29 am
Bolt’s priorities
Guest post by Ross Sharp
Old Andy has a problem with this.
Taxpayers have invested $104.36 million since 2000 on film and documentary projects through the Australian Film Commission, its financial statements show. Just $12.29 million has been returned. Millions of dollars in other grants are available through state agencies, including the NSW Film and Television Office, which last financial year spent $6.749m and got returns of $948,000.
Yet this is of no concern.
PRIME Minister John Howard has spent nearly $2 billion on government advertising and information campaigns since coming to power 11 years ago.
A Sunday Age investigation has found that just weeks from calling an election, the Government has 18 advertising campaigns on the air, with a $23 million climate change campaign to air after this week’s APEC conference.
The Sunday Age investigation has also shown that since the last election in 2004, Mr Howard has spent a record $850 million of taxpayers’ money on government advertising. The Government disputes this figure. “It’s probably closer to $400 million,” said Peter Phelps, chief of staff to Special Minister of State Gary Nairn.
Spending this year is expected to peak at $200 million before Mr Howard calls the election. After that, the Government will be prevented from airing any communication campaigns because they could influence the election.
At least film investment generates some return. The government advertisements, on the other hand, generate f**k all but landfill.
24 Comments
15 April, 2008 at 9:53 am
Bolt criticises X. Instead of evaluating this criticism (and there was plenty of scope for that), why not just call him a hypocrite for not also criticising Y?
Jeremy recently and rightly commented on the stupidity of this approach in his own blog comments.
When you lot eventually get around to making some devastating criticism of BoBlair, it will be too late. The never-ending nitpicking will have driven most readers away and so bored the few remaining that they will miss it in the haze of trivia.
15 April, 2008 at 10:07 am
Love the new site. hate to ask an obvious question, but is Mr lefty also Jeremy? Coming from Bolt’s site, Jeremy was the editor, but obviously that is not the case now. Short on time, have to go too uni, but BTW, has anyone noticed Bolt’s outrageously imbecilic and juvenile post, attempting to take the shine off the the fact we have the first female GG, by whingeing that there havent been any male federal sex discriminators. Surely worth a note. Get a life and persepctive Bolt, you prize moron. His praising of the corrupt criminal Berlusconi is also worthy of note.
15 April, 2008 at 10:21 am
Oh, please. He’s not criticising the film industry because it loses money, he’s criticising it because it’s the dreaded arts.
Andrew has a terrible habit of criticising films he hasn’t seen, based on their box office return.
15 April, 2008 at 10:28 am
SB - It is about perspective. Bolt himself has used the same methodology you complain about (as Chris of Bris pointed out) on the GG appointment.
15 April, 2008 at 10:29 am
John Surname - But he will post a You tube video of some Hungarian pianist that no one has ever seen or will likely to see. Because it is his type of Arts!
15 April, 2008 at 10:46 am
he likes that shit cause it makes him feel important. he’s the worst kind of snob. the one that’s not sure that he’s excepted and makes us all carry the chip on his shoulder with him.
now if the australian film commission also invested in porn then it could recoup its losses on non profitable films. that way our culture can be recorded from some artists perspective not at a loss. also if some director wants to make a ridiculous idea into a film he or she has to do a scene being doubled by lex and peter north as punishment.
15 April, 2008 at 1:31 pm
The ability to not discern the difference in these two forms of government expenditure highlights the lack of cognitive clarity amongst the left.
The vast majority of what Jeremy describes as government “advertising”, is in fact “informative” communication between elected representatives and the public. It is actually information detailing the state of new programs, new legislation, new initiatives and the like. This communication is not resented by the general community, and is vital in promoting a transparent and fluid relationship between the people and their servants who occupy office.
I must say, that if you indeed look deeper, you will see that most of this expenditure is in fact directed towards electronic media such as television, not landfil as you describe.
This essential public service is in extreme contrast to arts funding, something better left to the free market and something conservatives believe government has no business getting involved with. Only regimes that try to control the national mood need to attempt to pump out state sanctioned propaganda.
Films such as “Kenny” and “The Dish” attest to fact that Australian films made by Australian private investments will be watched by Australian audiences and will in turn generated a healthy profit.
To equate these two polar opposites of government expenditure is flabbergasting.
15 April, 2008 at 2:02 pm
and it’s not as if howard pumped billions of dollars into to sport to effect the “national mood” now is it pj?
the fact that we punch well above our weight in so many sporting arenas is directly related to the money spent.
this money is for nothing other then trying to build up a sense on patriotism which then usually leads to more consevative voting patterns. not to mention the photo oppurtunities that sucsessful teams provide.
15 April, 2008 at 2:07 pm
Since you value ‘cognitive clarity’ so highly, P.J., you might want to note that Lefty didn’t write this article.
The rest of your condescending fluff is simply substance-free assertion. You have absolutely no basis for claiming that the ridiculous levels of government advertising expenditure reached under Howard were ‘essential’ to our functioning democracy nor that the majority of the public supported such expenditure. You’re simply making up shit and using it as authority for your own argument.
Only regimes that try to control the national mood need to attempt to pump out state sanctioned propaganda.
What a fucking idiot you are. Describing the output of the AFI as state sanctioned propoganda is hysterical nonsense.
15 April, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Howard in his uniquely hypocritical way complained about Keating’s (relatively tiny) government advertising spend, and promised to have the auditor general publish reports on government advertising.
Lying rodentry triumphed yet again.
15 April, 2008 at 4:48 pm
I love the way this guy Bolt heavily criticizes the Aussie film industry for making very nice looking well crafted films with tons of talent that do not suit his taste but falls over himself to support his idea of a good film -> Fitna. Fitna was not a “film” just a load of cheap ass internet vid tripe. My mates make better you tube vids with a couple of helmet cams.
Bolty is so out there he cannot tell the difference between a film by Geobels and a film by Gillian Armstrong. Hint: One is art.
And if we screened films based on what made money our cinemas would play Happy Gilmore but not Punch Drunk Love. If you get my meaning.
15 April, 2008 at 4:49 pm
can someone pls do a piece on bolt’s exultation of berlusconi’s electoral victory.
15 April, 2008 at 6:12 pm
What is there to know, notallright?
Bolt is attracted to 70 year old fops with a penchant for plastic surgery and political corruption.
Don’t get me wrong, he still loves Little Johnny, but power is such a potent and irresistible aphrodisiac!!
Don’t be such a wowser. Let Andy play away.
Nobody’s getting hurt.
15 April, 2008 at 10:14 pm
i agree marek but i actually enjoyed reading his blog today when i read that page. everyone got stuck into him in a very sarcastic way and the bolterators let it through
15 April, 2008 at 10:56 pm
Since you value ‘cognitive clarity’ so highly, P.J., you might want to note that Lefty didn’t write this article.
Mondo Rock
He he.
Nice catch.
15 April, 2008 at 11:52 pm
My bad, apologies Ross. I must admit though, it read as a classic lefty groupthink post.
A question for Ross. Do you know what Bolt’s position is on government spending? Or have just randomly selected a pet article and concluded that, since Bolt has not written a piece on government informative spending, (that you have read), he must be for it?
Let’s try and debate him on what he has said. Not on baseless assumptions on what you think his position might be.
16 April, 2008 at 12:13 am
I like free-market, Hollywood-made, non-subsidised, mass-produced films with plenty of sex and violence…unlike those perverted, public-subsidised ‘think pieces’! Excuse me while I go consume alcohol and cause moral panic on Melbourne’s streets…
16 April, 2008 at 11:35 am
What is the point in putting money into something that no-one goes to see? Even if you accept the idea that the government has a role in defining or promoting culture - it seems odd to be funding things that are unwatched.
16 April, 2008 at 2:23 pm
About the film industry, Jim Schembri has a good article in the Age today on just this issue.
We make good TV drama but (mostly) shit films.
Our (government funded) filmmakers lack storytelling skills, something that I believe stems from the way filmmaking is taught to the producers and directors who get the funding. While producers of TV drama have to prove a financial return before they get to even pick up a camera.
17 April, 2008 at 11:39 am
We really do make shit films - there’s just no denying it.
There seems (to me) to be an almost total absence of fun in Australian cinema. Everything is so serious (with the notable, and highly commercially successful, exceptions of The Castle and Crocodile Dundee).
17 April, 2008 at 1:07 pm
It is interesting that the man who has had a crack about the state of Australian Films re-posts a video from You-Tube showing a well endowed woman talking.
I tell you he is getting closer to Sam’s Mailbag every day.
17 April, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Everything is so serious….
Except for the humorous stuff like Strictly Ballroom, Muriel’s Wedding, Priscilla, Babe, Shine, The Dish, Bootmen, Looking For Alibrandi, Moulin Rouge, Harvey Crumpet, Gettin’ Square, Kenny(!), Happy Feet and Lucky Miles to name a few.
But the rest of the serious stuff really is shit.
Like Breaker Morant, Gallipoli, The Man From Snowy River, Bliss, The Year My Voice Broke, Evil Angels, Proof, Romper Stomper, The Piano, Angel Baby, The Sum of Us, The Interview, Two Hands, Chopper, The Tracker, Rabbit Proof Fence, Japanese Story (*swoons for Toni Collette*), Somersault, Little Fish, Ten Canoes, Jindabyne and Romulus, My Father.
Yes, Mondo, there’s no denying that we really do make shit films.
There is also no denying that we also make some brilliant stuff too.
Just because people tend not to notice Australian cinematic achievements amidst the fanfare of multi-million dollar Hollywood blockbusters, doesn’t mean they’re not there.
17 April, 2008 at 4:13 pm
There is also no denying that we also make some brilliant stuff too.
I can’t believe I wrote such an ugly and clumsy sentence.
Let me try again…
There is no denying that we also make some brilliant stuff.
Yeah. That’s better.
17 April, 2008 at 9:08 pm
Its a bit hypocritical of Bolt to criticise the arts, given he’s appeared in so much midget scat porn.
ZING!
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