A Government that keeps you informed of the important things ...

Yes, that's what we have. And they want you to know about it.

Take for example the Working for Families package - 50,000 families are entitled to assistance they previously didn't get. Another 200,000 are getting increases to existing assistance.

So to tell 200,000 families about their increases, they don't write to them - they have TV and Radio advertisements. To make sure 50,000 families know about the new entitlements, they have lots of TV and radio ads. After all, together we're talking about 400,000 adults that are effected by this! It's well know that the total cost of all this advertising is $17,000,000. Works out at $42.50 per person.

Now, take for instance the changes to the Road Code. 2,910,717 licensed drivers are effected by changes to rules for roundabouts, cycle lanes and pedestrians. Thats almost five times the number of people that Working for Families covers. So how much does the Government spend on telling them of these changes?

$10,000,000 - No, not that much.

$2,000,000 - Not even close!

$1,000,000 - Getting closer.

$500,000 - nope, even less

$110,000 - Yes. Land Transport spent $110,000 on a print only (i.e Newspapers and flyers) to tell almost three million people about how the road rules had changed. That's $0.04 per licensed driver.

How do I know this? I asked the LTSA myself, and they gave me the figures. (I can email them to you if you want.)

So am I being cynical or is the $17,000,000 worth of advertising just pro-Labour propaganda?