Bills

Public Finance and Audit (Government Advertising) Amendment Bill

Introduction and First Reading

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee) (11:10): Obtained leave and introduced a bill for an act to amend the Public Finance and Audit Act 1987. Read a first time.

Second Reading

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee) (11:10): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I rise to introduce this bill to the house because this is a most important and urgent piece of proposed legislation. It seeks to ensure that the functions of government can continue while placing a necessary and appropriate constraint on some of the excesses which have become the hallmark of the Liberal government in South Australia.

Mr Speaker, you might recall that in the lead-up to the last state election the Premier, the Deputy Premier and the Treasurer in the other place made all sorts of pronouncements about what they perceived to be the evils of taxpayer-funded government advertising. The Treasurer appointed himself as the Chair of a new committee, the Government Communications Advisory Committee, which was to consider and approve government advertising campaigns. Of course, there are some government advertising campaigns which are legitimate and appropriate and in the taxpayers' interests.

For example, you would think that in the middle of a global pandemic we would have regular, high-profile and frequent messaging about what the current restrictions are on the community of South Australia, what the current health advice is and, perhaps in the current context, how South Australians can go about getting themselves vaccinated so that we can reach our target thresholds as quickly as possible. All these things are, of course, very important and, as we get towards summer, it is important to advertise necessary notices about bushfire seasons and so on.

However, that has not been the focus of this government. This government has engaged in taxpayer-funded splurges of millions and millions of dollars per year on government advertising wholly unrelated to the necessary functions of government. We are now told that the tsunami is coming and that it is nearly here upon our shore: millions and millions of dollars of taxpayer funds are about to be rolled out in an aggressive, multiformat, multimedia advertising campaign in an effort to lift the credentials of this government and bolster their political fortunes in the lead-up to the next state election.

I for one find that incongruous with a community that has so far given its support to government efforts to protect it and keep it safe from the ravages of the COVID pandemic. I would have thought that the Premier, the Deputy Premier and the Treasurer would stay true to their word that they gave to the community of South Australia about making sure that taxpayer-funded advertising is only used for the necessary functions of government.

Yet, as I open up newspapers published both here and in other places in regional South Australia, for example, I see little evidence of additional effort going in to let the community know what the state of play is with COVID. I see little evidence of government advertising letting the community know what the current restrictions are for different activities in the community, whether it is in hospitality or tourism venues, or whether it is for home gatherings or whether it is for public places and so on. I see little broadscale advertising about the need for South Australians to get vaccinated.

Instead, what we are told is that this government is now about to embark on multimillion-dollar, taxpayer-funded campaigns to boost its credentials in infrastructure delivery and also in its last ditch efforts to prepare our health infrastructure and services for what we expect to be an increase in the number of COVID cases here in South Australia. This is completely contrary to what the government told us they would do in the lead-up to the last election.

They were the first ones to complain when the previous Labor government advertised how it was securing, for example, our energy networks. They were the first to complain when the former Treasurer, the member for West Torrens, was publishing taxpayer-funded advertising campaigns to let South Australian small businesses know how they could apply for grants, because they thought that was an outrageous use of taxpayers' money.

Now we are told that the government will publish, at excessive taxpayer costs, advertisements across television media, radio media, newspaper media, social media and other online platforms to try to bolster its political stocks. If a political party wants to do that, or if a political candidate wants to do that, of course they are free to do that within the appropriate strictures of our electoral laws, but it should not be done like this at taxpayers' expense.

This bill introduces some necessary and, I think we can say, overdue strictures when it comes to government advertising, particularly in the current context when the government is looking at trying to bolster its political stocks at taxpayers' expense. Effectively, what this regime will mean is that there is now an independent arbiter for when taxpayer-funded advertising is to occur, and that independent arbiter will be the Auditor-General under the auspices of the Public Finance and Audit Act.

So when Treasurer Rob Lucas chairs that government advertising committee and comes up with a whiz-bang idea to spend $1 million or $2 million or $3 million trying to convince South Australians that they are doing a good job on infrastructure investment, or they want to spend several million dollars telling South Australians that, contrary to the performance of the health system under their watch, they are actually investing in our health networks, in our hospitals and in our health services in an effort to ready us for any onset of COVID cases, it will not be up to those, quite frankly, biased and self-interested politicians to approve this.

It will be up to a statutory officer, an independent officer, appointed by the parliament to reach a judgement about whether it is absolutely necessary for the functions of government. If is not necessary for the functions of government, then it will not be approved. I think that is wholly appropriate, because as we have seen, we have a Liberal Party that has become accustomed to the habit of using taxpayer resources and using taxpayer systems and infrastructure to try to bolster its own stocks.

We have had the extraordinary arrangement where the Liberal Party of South Australia has installed its own IT links, its own web links, onto government servers in order to capture data from unwitting South Australians who are merely seeking access to official government information. That data is captured from these government websites and taken back to the Liberal Party for their own political use—something, of course, that has been—

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: Point of order: that is outside the ambit of the bill, I suggest, but it is also highly offensive with no foundation whatsoever.

The SPEAKER: Thank you, Deputy Premier.

The Hon. S.C. Mullighan interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Thank you, member for Lee. Member for Lee, I bring you back to the substance of your remarks.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: My comments, of course, were to exemplify how, similar to the use of taxpayers' money, this government has become accustomed to using taxpayer resources for its own naked political interests. That is something that this parliament should guard against, and that is what this bill does.

This bill will require the agencies that may be required to pay for government advertising to submit their plans for advertising for assessment by the Auditor-General. If that advertising campaign has an estimated cost of more than $10,000, then it will be required to refer that campaign to the Auditor-General, and the Auditor-General will make an assessment about whether it is necessary for the functions of government.

The bill sets out quite specifically how that judgement should be reached by the Auditor-General. It provides a legislative framework about whether these funds can be approved or not for advertising. This is very important. I will give you some examples:

…government advertising will be taken to be necessary for the proper functions of government if the Auditor-General is satisfied that the primary purpose of the government advertising is to communicate information relating to any of the following:

(a) public health and public safety;

(b) road and public transport works or interruptions;

(c) emergencies;

(d) legal or statutory matters;

(e) electoral material published under the authority of the Electoral Commissioner;

(f) the engagement or employment of persons in the service of the government;

(g) attendance at an event;

(h) tourism;

(i) auctions and other sales of property, goods or services;

(j) courses at tertiary educational institutions.

But we should be clear that none of those provisions will enable the government to use taxpayer-funded advertising to generally promote what the government believes it has done or it is doing or it is planning to do for the people of South Australia in order to bolster its political stocks. The bill makes clear that government advertising for the purpose of generally promoting government programs or achievements, government spending or the future delivery of infrastructure projects or initiatives is not to be regarded as necessary for the proper functions of government.

If you are wondering how this might apply in reality, let's take for example what the government has been spending millions of taxpayers' dollars on so far. If you drive past one of the few infrastructure projects the government has finally got around to delivering in South Australia, one of those infrastructure projects that is almost without exception late, overdue and overbudget because of how badly handled infrastructure has been under this government, you will see it wrapped in this branding material with the curious slogan of Building What Matters, which I find ingenious by the government.

It is not often you see an advertising slogan that confuses the person looking at it as to what it is meant to say. For example, I will pick something close to the eastern suburbs so the Deputy Premier will be more familiar with it. If you look at the Magill and Portrush roads intersection upgrade, a project that was not recommended by the Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure but identified as being a priority by the Liberal candidate for the federal seat of Sturt, taking over from Christopher Pyne, you will see this branding Building What Matters.

You are driving past and it is impossible to know as a motorist what actually is going on. The advertising campaign is designed to give a general impression that the government is active in infrastructure and getting on with things. That is not necessary for the functions of government. What would be necessary for the functions of government is if this branding said, for example, 'Upgrade of Magill and Portrush roads. Traffic interruptions, expect delays,' and some other information about how that project is actively being managed and will impact on motorists. But all that is cast aside so what the Liberal Party perceives to be slick government advertising for its own political benefit can instead be branded on it. That is not good enough.

I will give you a second example. At the moment, despite the fact that we have basically not had a flu season in South Australia during the course of 2021, and despite the fact that we basically have not had much of an impact of COVID on our health system, or certainly not to the same extent experienced in other jurisdictions, conditions in our hospitals and ramping outside our hospitals have never been worse than under this government.

Of course, the reason why is that they choose to appoint corporate liquidators to run our hospitals, to cut funds, to offer redundancies in the Department for Health, including nurses, doctors, and so on, and now the government say, 'Well, we need to spend millions of dollars on a taxpayer-funded campaign so that we can try to convince South Australians that we are actually doing something in health, rather than dragging our heels during the course of a pandemic and preparing our hospital system for any outbreak of Delta cases. While we have been doing nothing, we will spend money on advertising and try to create the alternate impression.'

They want to spend money on that, but if I get a phone call from a small business or a hospitality venue saying, 'I'm just a bit confused. I'm not sure what the current restrictions are as they relate to me,' well, there is no general advertising about that. If you are a member of the community and you want to find out how to go and get yourself vaccinated, there is no general information about that published broadly across different forms of media, and that is because this government's political priorities are wrong.

We bring this bill to this place with the intention of refocusing this government and future governments on spending taxpayers' money on advertising where it should be, and that is in promoting the proper functions of government in the public interest, not promoting the flagging political fortunes of the South Australian Liberal Party. I commend the bill to all those in the house.

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart—Minister for Energy and Mining) (11:26): I would like to advise the house that while you, Speaker, were prepared to take the word of the member for Lee that he had consulted with all—

Mr Brown: Is this a point of order? What is this?

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: No, it's my contribution to this debate.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: I would like to put on the record the fact that the member for Lee—

The SPEAKER: Minister, I think you have to raise a point of order.

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: —did not consult with the member for Waite.

The SPEAKER: I am sorry, minister, but it is not a vehicle for an impromptu speech, but if you wish to raise a point of order I will certainly hear you.

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: Thank you, Speaker. The point of order is that you took the word from the member for Lee that he had consulted with everybody above him on the list. The member for Waite has confirmed to me that he was not asked any such question, and did not give any such agreement for the order to be changed.

The SPEAKER: Thank you, minister. I will seek to meet with the members concerned privately.

Debate adjourned on motion of Dr Harvey.