Secret Howardly Business?

Despite a decades old practice of releasing such surveys under freedom of information laws, the Government has blocked access to 2005 research on ads promoting Work Choices on the grounds that releasing the material is contrary to the public interest.

Although the Department of Workplace Relations says the results can be made public, it insists they remain secret until later in the year, when the election is out of the way.

The Government has paid more than $2 million to the social research company Colmar Brunton for tracking surveys of 5200 employers and 5200 employees to tailor its advertising campaigns explaining and promoting Work Choices.

On April 2 the Sydney Morning Herald lodged a freedom-of-information application seeking access to the earliest survey results, which were carried out before February last year and given to the Government's Ministerial Committee on Government Communications.

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