Government Advertising

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee) (14:55): My question is again to the Premier. Is the Premier aware that a number of participants in the focus groups said it was their impression that the adverts were party political in nature? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: A member of the public recruited to the focus groups on Monday has told the opposition that a number of people attending the focus groups said that the adverts should have a Liberal Party authorisation, not a government of South Australia authorisation, because of the ads' party political nature.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:55): I certainly wouldn't doubt the words of the member for Lee. I'm quite sure he's an honourable person who is faithfully representing the comments from somebody who attended our focus group, but the reality is that you need to create a focus group before you go out with a massive campaign. Why? I will tell you the reason why.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, members on my left!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: When you are spending taxpayer dollars, it is prudent to do research to make sure that the message you are aiming to convey to the people of South Australia—important medical information—is conveyed in the right way to effect the outcome that you want. We do want vaccination rates to go up here in South Australia. We have not buried that strong message, but we do need to, from time to time, get paid advertising to support those critical messages.

What we know, without a shadow of a doubt, is that this is the disease of the unvaccinated. When we look at the statistics in Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra, where there are still very high levels of new infections, hospitalisations, admissions into ICU and ultimately ventilators and unfortunately and tragically deaths, we know there is this over-representation of people who are unvaccinated. So it is our quest and we are prepared to put government dollars—taxpayer dollars—towards making sure that people are aware of the value of getting vaccinated.

I constantly say that what we need to do is to roll up our sleeves and have that jab, not only for the individual but for their family, their community, their workplace and ultimately their state. The sooner we can get to that 80 per cent double vaccinated status for those 16 and over, the sooner we can end the punishing state lockdowns that are wreaking havoc on economies in New South Wales, in Victoria and of course in the ACT.

South Australia has done very well, but we have had dozens of cases of Delta in South Australia in the last month. We cannot keep it at bay forever without keeping these very strong border arrangements—state and international—in place. This is not feasible, so we do need to get that vaccination rate up.

But the assurance that I can give the house is that we are not plastering our own faces on it. This is not party political advertising, as the member for Lee suggested. If he wants to see what party political advertising looks like, he only needs to look back four years ago to the extraordinary expenditure that occurred in the lead-up to the 2018 election—extraordinary expenditure that had photographs of key people within their government. That hasn't occurred.

From time to time, we have used the image of Professor Nicola Spurrier, the Chief Public Health Officer in South Australia. She is a very trusted voice when it comes to matters to do with the coronavirus and we will continue to use that face and that image where appropriate, but we are certainly not reverting to the overt political ads that the previous government put in place which they ran in the lead-up to the election.