The Price Of Spin

We cannot stand spin. It is for this reason our all time favorite TV programme is the O'Rielly Factor on Fox News. It is the "no spin zone". So every evening we have this stored away on My Sky and we sit down to watch an hour of spin free balanced TV.

So we were upset today to open page 4 of today's The Independent and read that we the taxpayers of New Zealand are paying $36.9 million a year on public-sector communications staff and contractors. That is a 27% increase over the previous year. We are sure that this has absolutely nothing to do with this being election year!

So how much do individual departments spend on spin??? The Independent has kindly provided a league table:

1. Social Development $4,121,113
2. Internal Affairs $3,800,534
3. ACC $3,484,663
4. Education $2,477,809
5. IRD $1,828,476
6. Police $1,700,000
7. Defence $1,297,294 (this is the 2007 figure)
8. Conservation $1,100,000
9. Corrections $1,092,257
10. Audit $1,080,000