PM Transcripts

BUDGET INFORMATION PROGRAM
( Statement by the Acting Prime Minister
the Rt Hon. J. D. Anthony, M. P.)
An information program aimed at ensuring Australians
are aware of benefits they are entitled to under the 1982 Budget
will start this weekend.
Television messages, beginning on Sunday night, will
highlight the main Budget measures which came into effect this
month. They include cuts in personal tax, home loan interest
rebates and changes in Social Security benefit conditions. The
public will also be alerted to increased assistance to youth
through student schemes and work experience programs.
The television messages ar~ e designed to alert as many
people as possible to their entitlements.
Detailed information about these entitlements will be
given in press advertising starting on Monday, and in complementary
radio advertisements expected to start : the same day.
Supporting the press advertising on housing, information
pamphlets on housing will be made available to help people
dealing with the public on housing matters be better able to
advise their clients.
The information program is expected to cost a total
of about $ 2 million. It will be conducted jointly by the
Treasury and the Departments of Education, Employment and
Industrial Relations, Industry and Commerce and Social Security.
The Government believes it has a responsibility to
do all it can to ensure that those who should benefit from
Budget programs know what to do to claim thosebenefits and
that this responsibility is even more pressing where the needy
and deprived are concerned.
The use of television and radio in the program is in
line with recommendations of the Task Force on Departmental
Information dealing with disadvantaged persons.
In addition, the need for an information program has
been recognised by the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate,
Senator Button, and the Opposition Spokesman on Social Welfare,
Senator Grimes.
Canberra 12 November 1982