THE NEWS WRAP: Gillard government preparing to unveil new levy and ad campaign

The Gillard government is set to unveil a multi-million dollar taxpayer-funded advertising campaign, along with a new ‘Medicare-style’ levy to help fund the government’s $14 billion national disability insurance scheme.

The new levy, set to begin next year, is expected to be set at 0.5% of income and raise $3.5 billion towards the federal government’s share of the scheme.

Meanwhile, using the tagline “stronger, smarter, fairer”, the government’s new advertising campaign, in the lead-up to the September 14^th election, will promote the Gonski school reforms, Medicare, the NDIS, Child Care Assistance, the NBN and 12% superannuation increase.

BCA warns government has “lost control” of the budget

Business Council of Australia chief executive Jennifer Westacott has lashed out at the federal government following the revelation earlier this week by Prime Minister Julia Gillard of a $12 billion black hole in the federal budget.

“Let’s be clear here – we don’t have an economic problem, our economy is fundamentally strong. What we have is a budget management problem and it’s a problem the government has had four years to address,” Westacott says.

“Australia’s fiscal problem was not created by the community. It was created through loss of control of fiscal strategy.”

Telstra rolls out net promoter system to resellers

Telstra has rolled out a net promoted system (NPS), which uses surveys to measure customers’ willingness to promote its brand, across its retail partner network.

Under the system, Telstra franchisees are offered bonuses for reaching key customer satisfaction targets.

“We’ve had a company-wide rollout of the net promoter system. Now NPS is both a system but also a cultural change and this has been one of the largest change programs that we’ve really ever undertaken in the country,” Telstra chief executive David Thodey said.

Overnight

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 0.1% to 14839.8 points. The Aussie dollar is up to US103.7 cents.