Here is the ACCC describing Misleading & deceptive conduct.
There is a very broad provision in the Australian Consumer Law that prohibits conduct by a corporation that is misleading or deceptive, or would be likely to mislead or deceive you.
It makes no difference whether the business intended to mislead or deceive you—it is how the conduct of the business affected your thoughts and beliefs that matters.
If the overall impression left by an advertisement, promotion, quotation, statement or other representation made by a business creates a misleading impression in your mind—such as to the price, value or the quality of any goods and services—then the conduct is likely to breach the law.
Here is the Age describing the outcome of an Audit Office investigation into the government’s climate change policy promotions.
The department established a fact-checking matrix purporting to allow it to reference each of the 142 claims made in the radio, television, print and mailout campaign but, when checked by the Audit Office, 52 of the references were found to fall short.
Of those 32 were in the What a Carbon Price Means for You document mailed to every household in Australia. That is 32 false claims in a 19 page document.
No doubt the government has exempted its own public communication from ACCC scrutiny.
Government may make any regulation it likes but it doesn’t have to obey them!
Been like that since year dot
Mike of Marion
9 Feb 12 at 8:47 am
What’s the problem? Hundreds of mistakes when you only have 12,000 public servants in that Department to do this work. All while they are under such pressure tinkering with the world’s climate!!
On a less serious note, the legislation you refer to only applies to conduct in the course of trade or commerce – something the Government was not in the course of (see the Noah’s Ark case). However, when it comes to newspapers selling such rubbish information, life could be more interesting. Could be a most interesting proceeding – what about a class action? Happy to act and put the boots in.
Big Al of Melbourne
9 Feb 12 at 8:57 am
I see my subtle alluding to hypocrisy isn’t getting through.
Sinclair Davidson
9 Feb 12 at 9:30 am
There’s a footnote 345 in the report:
To say there were 32 “false” statements in the mail out is therefore not at all likely to be correct, given that only 8 of those are said to be “inconsistent” with a reference given. 18 are said to have “insufficient reference”, but that does not necessarily mean they are wrong.
steve from brisbane
9 Feb 12 at 9:49 am
I can only guess the Cats have become as de-sensitised as the ever vigilent media guardians that we all know are ferocious in their job protecting our democracy & freedoms.
Token
9 Feb 12 at 9:52 am
This is clearly the fault of the mad monk Tony Abbot and his relentless negativity.
.
9 Feb 12 at 9:54 am
So Steve, you are saying they were just indulging in “puffery” in that document. Very good.
Token
9 Feb 12 at 9:56 am
Token I vaguely recall in my distant student past learning that in advertising puffery is to be expected – or to put it another way people expect outlandish claims in an ad
The majority of the people I know treated that mailout as a joke
have we learned yet who the 500 biggest polluters are?
val majkus
9 Feb 12 at 10:28 am
Absolutely. They were only false at the time of publication. Subsequent rule changes and removal from ACCC scrutiny means the document is 100% accurate, and I think it is disgusting of Tony Abbott to impugn the good works of public servants for his base politics.
ar
9 Feb 12 at 10:32 am
I guess we can assume Alcoa is one of them.
twostix
9 Feb 12 at 10:34 am
499 now…
ar
9 Feb 12 at 10:34 am
Ahhah you try that defence in front of the ACCC:
“Well yes the sources that we provided didn’t support our statements, but there might be sources somewhere that agree with us so we weren’t really lying”.
twostix
9 Feb 12 at 10:37 am
I wouldn’t know
Any Labor, Green or government missives arriving here, other than from Centerlink, go straight out ,unopened, to the recycle bin.
Any TV news is studiously avoided,as balderdash for the brain dead,and reading any “reports” it in print media is undertaken only when unavoidable.
Time was that reporting meant telling the 5W’s, and allowing folk to make up their own minds about the facts–apparently taboo in our “progressive(read leftist) ” Universities and media study course at our wonderful TAFE..S!
Thank God for the internet!
Jazza
9 Feb 12 at 11:07 am
The Guardian has the latest on the ‘global warming’ fraud:
C.L.
9 Feb 12 at 11:18 am
I looked at the Report and it said
’8.43 Of the 142 campaign statements referenced in the matrix, 52 of the
sources (37 percent) cited were found to be insufficient341, inconsistent342 or
indirect.343 While acknowledging the significant effort invested by DCCEE in
preparing and updating the matrix344, DCCEE did not in all cases establish a
clear line of sight between the statements appearing in the campaign and the
sources of support recorded in the matrix.345 Table 8.3 summarises the ANAO’s
review of the matrix.’
‘Footnote
345 It is important to note that while issues were identified with the sources cited by DCCEE for campaign
statements, this did not mean that the statements themselves were wrong or could not be supported by
other sources of information.’
If you actually read the footnotes in the table 8.3 above a statement that there were 32 false claims is in itself false.
Ironic.
On your Marx
9 Feb 12 at 11:33 am
Yes, yes, the false statements which would qualify as offenses under the TPA are all ok because it was the team you barrack for that made them…we get that.
Along those lines…
If you read the article you’ll find this statement as reliable as the excuses tendered above…
Token
9 Feb 12 at 1:17 pm
The government may be a company of thieves, but fortunately for them they are not a corporation.
Anyway, you can always tell when a politician is lying. His mouth is open.
Mother Hubbard's Dog
9 Feb 12 at 1:32 pm
MHD: not true. Sometimes they lie without moving their lips at all.
wreckage
9 Feb 12 at 2:03 pm
If there were 32 false claims then the author would have produced at least one of them.
He produced none!
In fact in the report ANAO go into reasonable detail when examining the more important claims.
They find NONE of them were false.
What has happened was that Treasury and the Department attempted to ( who knows why) to do all this by e-mail.
Not surprisingly mistakes were made in terms of references.
There clearly were mix-ups as ANAO were able to find the right references in their searches for material.
There is plenty to criticise here in terms of getting things right however to claim there were 32 false claims is in itself false and misleading.
One only has to read the chapter to realise that.
Lots of irony here.
The claim that there were 32 false claims is false.
The real problem is poor referencing which happens , it seems, daily here.
On your Marx
9 Feb 12 at 2:56 pm
Is that like when you misplace the Woolworths branded tuna in the John West section, Homer?
jtfsoon
9 Feb 12 at 2:58 pm
By the way, yesterday I tried the canned chicken in lite mayonnaise from Thailand (marketed here by Heinz, I think)and thought it tasted just like tuna.
steve from brisbane
9 Feb 12 at 3:18 pm
Were the family happy with the cooking, mrs steve?
Jc
9 Feb 12 at 3:54 pm
I think your characterisation of the claim of false and misleading conduct as false and misleading conduct is false and misleading conduct.
wreckage
9 Feb 12 at 4:31 pm
Indeed. The best assumption is that a politician is lying, even if he hasn’t said anything yet.
Mother Hubbard's Dog
9 Feb 12 at 4:35 pm
Its not false because the government beleived to agree with those that agreed with who had agreed with the information agreed to by those who dscovered they had agreed with the question asked on what they agreed to agree on. Yes, it must not be not be false, AGREED!
George K
9 Feb 12 at 4:44 pm
I am shocked, absolutely shocked that Government climate change
propagandainformation includes false and misleading information. Shocked I tell you.I had to sit down, take deep breaths and look out my Canberra office window at another miserable cool wet autumnal day that seems to have constituted our entire Capital summer. Shocked that a freezing snap in Europe kills hundreds whilst we were told that hotter temperature kills more.
There is only one thing I want to know about Climate Change: Who decided that the climate in East Anglia, England on 15 June 1967 was the perfect climate and we should never let the earth deviate from it?
John Comnenus
9 Feb 12 at 4:52 pm
This is clever indeed, whilst everyone discusses which statement is or isn’t misleading, no one asks whether the whole theory is misleading in the first place. I think a Royal Commission into Anthropogenic Climate Change is warranted.
John Comnenus
9 Feb 12 at 4:56 pm
John good comment
and here’s an article from one of my favourite renewable experts Peter Lang – quoting from the e mail I received today
val majkus
9 Feb 12 at 6:08 pm
Mr Davidson has had a Barro moment
On your Marx
10 Feb 12 at 8:53 am
Barro was right and you were wrong Homer.
.
10 Feb 12 at 9:21 am