Government Advertising

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (14:09): My question is to the Premier. Is the Premier planning to spend more than $1 million on an infrastructure advertising campaign?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:10): I don't know exactly and precisely what the Leader of the Opposition is referring to, but it is important that, from time to time, we spend money to advertise the work that we are doing as a state to stimulate confidence—consumer confidence, business confidence, investor confidence—here in South Australia.

One of the key issues that has been raised again and again in national cabinet is the importance of getting three fundamental things right: first of all, the health response. That seems pretty obvious. The second, of course, is the economic response, and the third is to keep that level of business and consumer and investor confidence high, and can I just say that in Australia we have done this well.

We have seen a crash in confidence in so many jurisdictions around this country and in other countries around the world, and we don't want that here in South Australia. It is important that we provide information to the public from time to time, but this must be done in a responsible way, and what we have done since coming into parliament is change the rules as they relate to government advertising.

What we saw under the previous hopeless regime was that at every single opportunity they had advertising which clearly had the images of politicians on it promoting their personal policies in the lead-up to the election. We are nowhere near an election. We are not having an election this year, we are not having an election next year.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: In fact, we are having an election the year after, but we do have important work to do to make sure that the people of South Australia understand the stimulus and support that we are offering so that we can keep confidence high in South Australia.

The SPEAKER: Before I call the leader, I call to order the member for Light, I call the Minister for Education, I call to order the member for Reynell and I call to order the member for West Torrens.