Tim Wilson

Watching Tim Wilson on One+One this morning and amazed to hear him say he thinks that plain paper packaging for cigarettes is an insult to all Australians.  He believes that by taking advertising from the product we are denying people choice.  To him we are insulting them by not crediting them with the intelligence to make their own choices about whether to smoke.

This seems ludicrous as by removing advertising, the psychological science of persuading people to choose by emotion and not logic, you would be improving the effectiveness of their choices.

As we all know, the opposite of what Tim Wilson thinks is true, that it is mostly advertising that is an insult to all Australians.  If you take it away you are more likely to respect all Australians.

Tim is from the IPA, a crazy ideological outfit who proselytise for the cult of the pure free market.  The IPA is funded by big corporations. The major thing that comes from pure free markets is wide disparity of incomes between the super wealthy and the (diminishing) middle class, concomitant with the growth of a permanent underclass. These two facts, put side by side, explains enough.

Tim Wilson and his fellow travelers talk of a nanny state.  First, that is funny as it is the wealthy who use nannies to mind their children.  Second, if the state's actions to reduce the incidence of several major morbidities is the behaviour of a nanny, then the behaviour of the advertising industry is a militarist father who dictates all of his children's movements.  They would probably appreciate the intercession of a nanny!

When I was in business and complaining about the cost of advertising I was told by an experienced adviser that "advertising works".  The annual amount spent on advertising and marketing in Australia each year is $15 billion, because...advertising works.  So the whole bullshit "nanny state", "consumer choice" argument is, well, "an insult to all Australians".

Who made this guy Human Rights Commissioner?  Oh, Tony Abbott.