In the Seinfeld episode “The Yada Yada”, characters skip over the inconvenient parts of a story. They yada yada the truth.
It is funny on a sitcom. Less funny when it is how a country runs.
One Rule for Business
If a business in Australia makes a claim it cannot back up, the consequences are real. Under the Australian Consumer Law (ACL), businesses cannot engage in misleading or deceptive conduct, or make false representations about their products or services. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) enforces this, and penalties for serious breaches run into the millions.
Recent cases make the point. The Federal Court ordered online mattress retailer Emma Sleep to pay $15 million in penalties for misleading sale price representations across mattresses, bed frames, and pillows.
The principle is simple. If you say it, you have to be able to prove it. If you cannot, do not say it.
Another Rule for Government
For governments, the rulebook is different.
The Parliamentary Education Office, an official government body, states plainly that there is currently no legal requirement for political advertising to be factually correct. That is not commentary. That is the official position.
So a marketing manager can be prosecuted for overstating a product claim on a flyer, while a political party can run an attack ad on television without any obligation to tell the truth.
Then there is parliamentary privilege.
Under the Parliamentary Privileges Act 1987, members of parliament have absolute immunity for anything said in the chamber. They can make a defamatory statement about a colleague, a business, or a private citizen, and there is no legal recourse. None. If a designer or a small business owner said the same thing in a staff meeting, or on LinkedIn, they could be staring down a defamation claim.
Apparently Transparency is Optional
There is also the question of what the public is allowed to know.
In September 2025, the Federal Government introduced the Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 2025. The Law Council of Australia, hardly a radical body, recommended the Bill not pass in its current form, citing concerns it would reduce transparency, create barriers to public access, and enlarge the scope of exemptions.
In other words, the people who manage public money were trying to make it harder for the public to ask questions about it.
The “yada yada” of It All
Government is, in many ways, like business. It manages money. It sets budgets. It serves stakeholders. It runs campaigns and makes claims and writes the cheques. The scale dwarfs anything in private enterprise.
And yet the standards it sets for itself, by its own laws, are softer than the ones it sets for everyone else.
That is the “yada yada” standard. Yada yada the truth in advertising. Yada yada the consequences of what is said. Yada yada the public’s right to know.
A reasonable parent does not get to tell their kids one thing and do the opposite. A reasonable business does not get to mislead its customers. The expectation, in both cases, is integrity. Plain old integrity.
Why It Matters
Most of the people reading this run organisations. Schools, charities, software firms, small businesses. The standards are not soft. The expectations are real. What is said has to be backed up. What is promised has to be delivered. There is no privilege, parliamentary or otherwise.
Nor should there be. That is what integrity looks like.
For a designer who says what he means and means what he says, let’s talk. Get in touch with Simon Bailey Design to find out how good design can work for you.
Sources: ACCC, Advertising and promotions, link. Parliamentary Education Office, What are the laws about political advertising?, link. Law Council of Australia, Inquiry into the Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 2025, link.