Julia Gillard rightly draws attention to the government’s extraordinary expenditure of tax payer’s money on advertising campaigns. This is, after all, a regime that, since 1996, has spent $1.42 billion of our money hymning its own virtues.

The results from these campaigns are, however, a quite different question.

Consider the latest National Security Public Information Campaign. Most tram and bus stops now feature a map of Australia made up entirely from pieces of scurrilous gossip.

“They have a lot of pool supplies in their courtyard,: reads the first line of dialogue, taken, one presumes, from a dutiful citizen on the emergency hotline, “but they don’t have room for a pool.”

In other words, the poster represents someone craning over your fence – and then calling the Feds on you.

Another line runs: “It’s unusual for him to be receiving deliveries like that, especially at that time of night.”

Uh huh. The local tattle-tale not only knows what mail you get – they’re keeping tabs on when you get it!

No civil libertarian could expose the vicious absurdity of the national security hysteria than this collage of petty dobbers. And yet it’s all paid for by the government!

The Workplace Relations ads are even more remarkable. Every fifteen minutes when you’re watching Australian Idol, a worried worker pops up on your screen and says, “I hear we no longer have any rights!”

Sure, a calming voice quickly explains that the new system provides rights by the bucket-load. But that doesn’t matter. As George Lakoff explains, when you ask a friend not to think about elephants, her minds inevitably fills with trunks and tusks.

Same thing here. The Howard government is spending millions of dollars to tell TV viewers that some people think the new system will screw them over. Not surprisingly, TV watchers conclude that there’s no smoke without fire.

The Kevin07 shirts and websites are very nice. But, given the concern out there about industrial relations, one suspects that the government’s own campaign sends nearly as many votes to Labor.