Government Campaign Spending

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (15:50): I rise to make some comments about the obscene expenditure of taxpayers' money in the period leading up to the state election in a desperate endeavour by a 16-year failing Labor government to try to see itself re-elected in March of next year. We have seen the outrageous example of the $2.6 million now admitted to be spent on the Jay Weatherill energy plan, a television and radio multimedia campaign, which features the Premier on television and on radio highlighting his energy plan and his solution as he sees it for the future, because clearly their research tells them that whatever they have been selling for 16 years, the public has not been buying.

We also see the Job Accelerator Grant Scheme, originally intended to be $500,000 in terms of advertising, was then increased to $1 million and, given the penetration of ads on free to air television in recent weeks, it would appear that it certainly has been increased even further beyond the $1 million budget. We have also seen the nearly half a million dollars admitted to be budgeted for expenditure in relation to the new Royal Adelaide Hospital. I distinguish that from the advertisements that SA Health runs in terms of trying to discourage people from going to emergency. One accepts the need for that sort of campaign on a regular basis, particularly in winter.

What we see in just those three campaigns is more than $4 million of taxpayers' money being splurged in a desperate endeavour to ingratiate Premier Weatherill and his ministers and the government to the community, because clearly their research has shown that they are on the nose, to use a colloquial expression, and clearly they have decided they will stop at nothing in terms of taxpayer spending to try to convince people that they should be re-elected.

The final straw in relation to this was the revelation earlier this week—still uncosted—of a mass doorknock of 18,000 households, which just by happenstance commences in February of next year, just six to eight weeks prior to the state election day. What we know from this tender, which commences in February 2018, is that:

The project aims through holding collaborative conversations with householders to influence shifts in personal transport behaviour specifically towards a reduction in car use and car reliance whilst providing benefits to the householders…

Trained conversationalists will speak directly with householders about their car use…and work collaboratively with them to identify ways they can reduce their car use.

A team of 15 trained conversationalists, or doorknockers, two phone operators and two supervisors will be put together to manage this program. The government was not prepared to defend this publicly. They sent out a poor public servant, Mr Kermode, to defend it. It would not be an understatement to say that he was skewered on morning radio in terms of trying to defend this indefensible expenditure of taxpayers' money.

Their defence the next morning was that the choice of February was because this program was really all about trying to coincide with children being trained to ride safely to school at the start of the school year in February/March. I have just read the background and context. I am not sure how many schoolchildren are driving cars to school and are going to be encouraged by this doorknock of 18,000 households to stop driving their car to school and to hop on a bike or to walk to their neighbourhood school.

The goals in this are the reduction in the number of VKT, which are vehicle kilometres travelled, as the way for judging the success or otherwise of this particular program. It is clearly all about trying to laud the virtues of the state government's public transport policies, one suspects, in a number of either marginal or key Labor areas for the government. This spin that in some way it was intended to concentrate on encouraging students to ride safely to school in February and March is clearly spin and not justified by the tender document that has gone out to tenderers.

The other thing is the public servant was unable to indicate at this stage, or refused to indicate, (a) the cost, which should be revealed, and (b) the areas where this particular doorknock is going to occur. When asked by David Bevan on morning radio as to whether, for example, people would be asked in the north-eastern suburbs, where this brand-new O-Bahn project is which the government has built, whether or not they had contemplated getting out of their cars and using the O-Bahn project, the answer was, 'No decisions have been taken yet as to where this doorknock would occur.' It is a disgrace. It is an obscene waste of taxpayers' money, and the government should be held to account in the period leading up to March of next year.