Federal government departments are spending eye-watering sums to know what the public is thinking and what the media is saying about them, new documents show.

In some of the more surprising disclosures, the Department of Defence is spending more than $500,000 a year on pay TV and, between July and October 2014, splashed $454,125 - or about $5000 a day, on newspapers, magazines and other publications. Another department also spent nearly $90,000 on books over four months.

We continue to monitor all departmental expenditure and will impose further cuts and further efficiencies in administrative expenditure where and as appropriate 

A Fairfax Media analysis of the documents also shows seven departments splashed a combined $1.2 million on "market research" - in many cases focus groups and polling - in just four months. Dozens of government agencies are yet to respond to formal requests to reveal how much they also spent, suggesting the total bill is likely to be far higher. 

For example, the Department of Defence refused to disclose how much it spent in market research between July and October but the bill for 2013/14 came in at $2.2 million.

Elsewhere, the health, industry, education, employment, defence and foreign affairs departments shelled out more than $1.43 million on media monitoring between July and October. Media monitoring involves departments and often their ministers being provided with article clippings and TV reports. It can also include scanning social media.

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/abbott-government-spends-up-big-on-media-monitoring-20150104-12hj88.html

Picture at top: whinging of a Liberal (CONservative) MP about his own government (Menzies' in 1958) failure to maintain a decent Australian defence force, but then retracts his criticism though he still points the finger at something... "The more things change, the more they stay the same..."

Note the perennial murders and deaths in the paper, already then...