Focus Group Fun

VIP = Vested Interest Policy

I went to that focus group meeting last night. It wasn't what I thought it was going to be at all. It was actually a focus group on an ad campaign they're planning to present some new policy to the public. What was interesting about it was how much they wanted to talk about the details of presentation when in fact everybody in the room was flinching at the policy itself. Yet, that in of itself and even the policy seemed to be small potatoes next to the larger problem.

The crux of the biscuit was trying to sell a policy where Centrelink clients will get automatic payments to offset the impact of the rising bills from the Carbon Tax. You could hear the gasps of disapproval from people in the room, for in most part, they disagreed with the Carbon Tax (which in of itself was, disgusting to see) and the thought that there would be money going to people on welfare to offset its impact was just too much to handle. I was amazed at how hostile the people were towards "people on Centrelink payments" even when it was pointed out that 6 million Australians were on such payments of one form or another.

6million!

If you're on Centrelink payments of whatever kind, it indicates your life is underwater, financially. For there to be a figure like 6 million means that a quarter of Australians are financially underwater.

"One in four, if you like," said the focus group moderator, as if it made it sound better. Of course, it doesn't.

Either the threshold for getting Centrelink payments is really low, or there are a lot of people out there who are losing out from the various conditions of the economy. Yet we were there not to discuss the policy - because hey, we're not politicians what the hell are we supposed to know? - but how to couch this topic so that the people who aren't on Centrelink don't get their hackles up, because nobody at the table was on Centrelink payments. (I guess the good news is that the ALP have stopped focus groups on actual policies.)

Still, judging by this lot the other 14-16million are going to be pretty pissed off that their Carbon Tax is going to go to welfare recipients. At the same time, I wondered why they didn't just quietly bump up the welfare payments. It seems the Federal ALP government want to tell the 6 million Australians on Centrelink payments that yes, they've taxed the rich a little bit and here's the booty, rather than do the rational thing and just increase payments.

"It stinks," said a dude who said he was fitness fanatic and into finance. "It all stinks. they're buying votes with our tax money!"

"Yes," said the woman next to him. "These people don't deserve that money. That's our tax money going to people who can't look after their lives and they're probably going to spend it on pokies."

"How could we stop them spending it on pokies instead of on the bills like they're supposed to?" asked another. "Who knows what they'll spend it on?" ... as if it were any of her business how people spent their money.

I love these focus groups. I always learn how naked self-interest dresses itself up as moral high ground. It's interesting the government's money to spend is their tax money as much the money then paid into these accounts need to be dictated as to how to be used. It's a funny kind of abstraction of what the government budget is. My own contribution was that every time they mentioned 6million, I thought of the Jews who perished in the Holocaust.

"Really?" said the moderator, surprised.

"Yes," I said. "6million is the number claimed to have been lost in the Holocaust."

"I didn't know that," she said. Others nodded in agreement that they didn't know either. You ask a group of idiots what they think, you're going to get some dumb answers. There we were, getting paid to offer up dumb opinions on whether 'benefit', 'scheme' 'package' or 'allowance' were the right words with the right connotations. It's a bit like parsing the difference in nuance between 'rape' or 'sexual assault' or 'unwanted sexual penetration', before somebody shoves a hostile foreign object into one of your orifices.

Still, I kept wondering about that staggering number of people who have Centrelink claws in the side of their lives. What if this thing has the effect of increasing the number of people on Centrelink payments? Maybe that's what the ALP want? - to have as many people enthralled to the government payments so that they are reminded that they are the needy and disenfranchised. Even if I'm not one of those nutty right wingers screaming there's a class war going on, it makes you wonder about motive.

In this instance, the government wants to squander the money raised from the carbon pricing to offset energy bill rises, but in turn this encourages people not to change their energy consumption patterns, so it's totally self-defeating as to why you would have a carbon price in the first place. (like, 'd'uh') The correct and sensible thing to do with that money is to at last figure out cleaner energy options and investment strategies for more green energy systems or even carbon abatement. Not buying off the lowest quartile of the electorate.