ACCC Asked to Act on GST Adverts

Date: 19 April 2000

The Federal Opposition today called on the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and the Federation of Australian Commercial Television Stations to take action against misleading and deceptive advertisements published as part of the Commonwealth government's $80 million GST marketing campaign.

This action has been taken after the government failed to explain or justify the false assertions that have been made in the advertisements.

The first ad falsely claims that a "typical" family will be $40-$50 better off as a result of the tax system changes.

However this $40-$50 figure is before the impact of the GST. An independent analysis of the net impact of the tax system changes has shown that the following families will not benefit to the extent claimed by the government:

· All single income couples without children;
· All single income couples with one child aged between 5 and 12 with incomes below $55,000;
· All single income couples with one child aged less than 5 with incomes below $50,000 except for those earning $30,000;
· All single income couples with two children (of any age) earning less than $30,000;
· Single income couples with three children (one of whom is under 5) with incomes less than $30,000;
· All dual income couples with no children earning less than $90,000;
· All dual income couples with one child earning less than $70,000;
· All dual income couples with two children earning less than $75,000 except some earning between $25,000 and $35,000;
· All dual income couples with three children earning less than $75,000 except some earning between $25,000 and $40,000;
· All single self-funded retirees; and
· All self-funded retiree couples earning less than $90,000.

The second ad falsely claims that the government is providing additional assistance for the costs of raising children - by using the example of John and Wendy who have two children under 5.

However, due to changes to family assistance arrangements, families like John and Wendy can actually be substantially worse off - even before allowing for the impact of the GST.

It is the ultimate act of hypocrisy for the government to impose fines of up to $10 million on the private sector for misleading and deceptive conduct in respect to the GST, when its own conduct is both misleading and deceiving the Australian people.

The government's conduct will be used as a benchmark by the private sector. If the ACCC and industry bodies do not subject the government to its own standards, it will significantly undermine the enforcement of the price exploitation provisions which are intended to protect Australian consumers.

These advertisements are not mere political puffery during the course of an election campaign. The government is making false representations about the impact of its tax changes on the Australian people.

Failure to terminate the advertisements has the potential to expose media organisations to substantial penalties for publishing the misleading and deceptive material.

We have asked the ACCC and industry bodies to apply the government's own standards to its flawed GST campaign.

Kim Beazley and Robert McClelland

For further information

Contact:	Kim Beazley
Union:	ALP Federal
WWW:	http://www.alp.org.au

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