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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-03-25 Daily Xml
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GOVERNMENT ADVERTISING

Adjourned debate on motion of Hon. M.C. Parnell:

1. That a select committee of the Legislative Council be established to inquire into and report on taxpayer-funded government advertising campaigns with specific reference to:

(a) the establishment of guidelines dealing with the appropriate use of South Australian government advertising;

(b) the cost of government advertising;

(c) a process for dealing with complaints about government advertising from the general public; and

(d) any other matters that the committee considers relevant.

2. That standing order 389 be so far suspended as to enable the chairperson of the committee to have a deliberative vote only.

3. That this council permits the select committee to authorise the disclosure or publication, as it sees fit, of any evidence or documents presented to the committee prior to such evidence being presented to the council.

4. That standing order 396 be suspended to enable strangers to be admitted when the select committee is examining witnesses unless the committee otherwise resolves, but they shall be excluded when the committee is deliberating.

(Continued from 18 February 2009. Page 1317.)

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE (20:52): I know I am from the country and a bit slow, but eventually I get to stand up. Family First will be supporting the motion of the Hon. Mr Parnell. It runs parallel to a bill that Family First has before the parliament at the moment with respect to the outrageous situation we are seeing at the moment where, year by year, there has been a massive increase in the amount of taxpayers' money that is being spent on blatant government political advertising. I see it as a further strengthening of our argument with respect to the bill currently before the council that we support this select committee. It is now past a joke.

Whilst previous governments for some period of time have spent certain amounts of taxpayers' money on political and government advertising, what we are now seeing is almost unbelievable. One of the latest examples is when one of my staff members turned on the radio to listen to one of the highest rating radio programs for young people to hear the minister and member for Adelaide (Hon. Jane Lomax-Smith) promoting the Fringe and Fringe activities. That went on for a few seconds, after which she started talking about climate change and her government's policies for climate change. What climate change and the other issues she discussed have to do with the marketing of the Adelaide Fringe is just beyond belief.

We have also seen many more examples of political advertising at taxpayers' expense. The one that really gets up my nose is the one where the Premier has this magnificent footage of the River Murray, including areas not very far from our own farm. My own community is suffering like you would not believe in the Lower Lakes and the Premier is talking about what he is doing to save the Murray. Instead of promoting himself, the best thing he could do to save the Murray would be to use that taxpayers' money to buy some temporary water and get some water flow down the system. The list goes on and on, and I mention here the Tour Down Under and the marvellous promotion of that event, which is another classic example, featuring the Premier and, in this case, Mr Armstrong.

As a former emergency services minister and as a former active CFS member, I do not understand why the Premier needs to be on television, radio and in the print media right across the state talking about people cleaning their gutters and how important it is to undertake bushfire prevention, because I would have thought that, quite frankly, it was the chief fire officer or the chief fire officer's nominee who should be doing that; namely, someone who is an operational firefighter and who has some credibility over and above us as politicians. I did not see the former minister, the Hon. Carmel Zollo (who was highly respected by the emergency services organisations) on the television in her CFS overalls. Instead, she was ensuring that they were getting some sort of reasonable budget.

I acknowledge that some of this is not the fault of the government, but this budget is in an incredible stressful situation right now. Having had a briefing recently with Treasury, and comparing their forecasts and projections with the commonwealth government's, we have major problems with our budget, yet, interestingly enough, one of the only areas in which we are seeing a substantial increase in expenditure is in government advertising.

The Labor Party is cashed up like you would not believe because not only does it have the unions filling its coffers but it has developers pouring truckloads of money into its election campaign funding. Given that it has so much money and given that we are now in a 12 month election campaign, if the Premier, other ministers, members of the government or any future government want to promote what they are or are not doing by spinning propaganda to the community, then they should use their own party's money. Do not use taxpayers' money when we have constituents who cannot get basic services in this state at the moment.

I think this select committee has a heck of a lot of merit. It will be very interesting to get to the bottom of some of the issues around blatant political advertising. I hope there will be opportunities to call organisations such as Starcom to appear before this select committee. I alert members to the issues around Starcom. I have been doing quite a bit of work investigating Starcom, and the money that that one organisation is getting out of this government is unbelievable. This is a watchdog house. It is a house without fear or favour. It is not controlled by the government. I strongly support any initiatives and moves in this chamber to keep the government accountable. Family First will be supporting this select committee.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (20:58): I rise to support the motion. I do so—

The Hon. P. Holloway: Why doesn't your Budget and Finance Committee do this? I thought that's what it was supposed to do.

The PRESIDENT: The minister will not encourage the Hon. Mr Lucas.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: As the Leader of the Government knows, there is so much waste and inefficiency right across the board, the Budget and Finance Committee is fully stretched keeping up with most of the inefficiency—

The PRESIDENT: The member will not debate interjections.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: —and wastage right across the board. This is just a specific example, Mr President.

The Hon. B.V. Finnigan: I can understand why you didn't do ads when you were treasurer.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: Why's that?

The Hon. B.V. Finnigan: 'We have a record deficit,' said Rob Lucas, Treasurer.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: That interjection comes from a member of a government which is about to go into massive deficit—'massive', if I could quote the Premier of South Australia. It is a massive deficit on all three measures, whether it be cash, operating result or, indeed, the net lending result. We are likely to see the Hon. Mr Finnigan defending his Treasurer from his faction. Again the potential is that, in the coming months, this state will lose its AAA credit rating, so the Hon. Kevin Foley will join the only other treasurer in the state's history, another Labor treasurer, to have lost the AAA credit rating from South Australia. If the Hon. Mr Finnigan wants to talk about deficits, surpluses and performance, I am very happy to engage with the Hon. Mr Finnigan on those issues.

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Lucas may be better off addressing the motion.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: I will talk about the Rann government's hypocrisy on party political advertising and trace a little of the history of this issue. Back in June 2001, Premier Rann (then leader of the opposition) held a joint press conference with Nick Xenophon supporting legislation to ban taxpayer-funded political advertising. He made a promise to the people of South Australia that, if elected, he would implement a ban on taxpayer-funded party political advertising. I will quote from the Sunday afternoon press conference. I said to the Hon. Mr Xenophon afterwards, 'And you believe the premier?' He said, 'Well, I have no reason to disbelieve him'. If you ask the Hon. Mr Xenophon these days whether he has reason to disbelieve the Premier in relation to some of his promises, you may get an entirely different response. What did he say on that lovely Sunday afternoon at a joint press conference with Mr Xenophon? Mike Rann on Channel 9 on 3 June 2001 stated:

When you see a politician in an ad, then you know basically its about politics.

He continued:

South Australian ministers will be forced to pay $100,000 out of their own pockets if they authorise the use of taxpayers' money for party political advertising.

So, Mike Rann was promising that, if a Labor minister under his premiership was to involved in using taxpayers' money for party political advertising, they would be forced to pay $100,000 out of their own pockets. TheAustralian further stated:

No pokies MP, Nick Xenophon, who will introduce a bill into the upper house on Wednesday in an effort to curb spending on political advertising, was at a press conference with opposition leader, Mike Rann, yesterday that announced Labor would support the legislation.

So, that was the promise this government and then leader of the opposition Rann made to the people of South Australia.

In the period leading up to the 2006 election—as the Hon. Mr Brokenshire indicated, we are now in the countdown to the 2010 election—we saw, to quote the Leader of the Government, a massive increase in taxpayer-funded political advertising prior to the 2006 election. Did it relate to the announcement of new policies like pensioner concessions or things like that? Let us look at some of the taxpayer-funded campaigns prior to the election. There was the Rann government State Strategic Plan advertisement claiming stunning results, such as the new Adelaide Airport terminal, which was started before the plan was even announced. This television advertisement was claiming stunning results, yet that terminal had started even before the State Strategic Plan had commenced.

There was a television commercial on the air warfare destroyer contract, with Mr Rann telling everyone that we had won the contract after the decision had already been announced. It was not as if it was providing information and detail that had not been provided. The decision had been announced that South Australia had won the contract—and one can argue about respective roles of the federal Liberal government or the state Labor government, but nevertheless it was an open debate at the time.

We then had television commercials with a man on the phone saying, 'G'day, Premier, I've got some very good news: ASC has won the contract.' Mr Rann said, 'Its about jobs for our kids. It is about jobs for our kids for decades to come.' Then there was the South Australian government logo on the left and the voiceover still saying, 'This is just the beginning', and then another voice over, 'Authorised by Mike Rann, Adelaide'. The South Australian Strategic Plan had that lovely jingle from Ben Lee 'We're all in this together', and I will ask the Hon. Ms Zollo to sing that for the chamber.

The Hon. Carmel Zollo interjecting:

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: I can claim a passionate interest in truth and accountability but I certainly do not claim to be a good singer. We had the dulcet tones of that, and I will not go through all that script.

Then we had the law and order ad and Mr Rann telling us what a good job he was doing keeping people safe. This is what Mr Rann said:

This is Mike Rann. Everyone is entitled to feel safe in their homes and communities and, while I am pleased that crime rates are coming down, the state government will continue to do more to ensure our neighbourhoods are safe. We now have a record number of police on the beat and we are still recruiting. We are also providing more money for crime fighting, including DNA testing, and we have been changing the laws with much tougher sentences to ensure the punishment fits the crime.

Last week we announced a new community policing initiative designed to put extra police on the ground where they are needed, and we are expanding the Neighbourhood Watch program to better educate communities on crime prevention. Let's keep our state safe.

Then the voiceover is 'A message from the government of South Australia'. It is all Mike Rann to camera in the law and order radio advertisement.

Then, of course, we had the massive news of the airport terminal opening and Mr Rann telling us about free bus services to the airport for the opening. That was important enough to have more electronic media, and this was Mike Rann again:

Hi, this is Mike Rann. South Australia is on the move—first the train to Darwin and then winning the giant air warfare destroyer project, and our new trams will be arriving here soon. This weekend you'll have your chance to see Adelaide's brand new airport terminal. We're providing special free bus services to and from the airport so that everyone can have a look, and it's fantastic. So, check the papers for details or call the Adelaide Metro Infoline, but don't miss out.

Again, that was Mike Rann in the radio advertisement.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins): The honourable member will refer to the Premier by his title.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: I would love to, Mr Acting President, but the actual script says, 'Hi, this is Mike Rann.'

The ACTING PRESIDENT: I understand that.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: The script says 'Mike Rann' but I will refer to him as the venerable Premier. They were the important television advertising campaigns, and we found out through FOI after the election (and I put out a release in April 2006) that the documents showed—the ones we were able to get, and this is half the argument—they had spent more than $2 million on that advertising binge in the lead-up to the campaign. There was the Eventful Adelaide campaign, the climate change campaign, the Strategic Plan, the state budget, Real Choices at Work, Nursing SA, the AFC contract, free buses to the airport, and policing. There were nine separate electronic media campaigns in that period leading up to the 2006 election.

This came from a person who in June of 2001 stood up with the Hon. Nick Xenophon and promised that if his party were ever involved in any taxpayer-funded party political advertising the ministers would be fined $100,000 out of their own pockets. That is how tough he was going to be on advertising.

There was a series of other releases over the last two years that I have put out releases about as a result of FOI. In terms of last year's FOI requests about taxpayer-funded advertising, we had always sent these FOI requests to the Department of the Premier and Cabinet because Premier and Cabinet has a coordinating communications committee which was a subcommittee of cabinet and all requests for taxpayer-funded advertising had to go to that committee. So we would send the document requests to that area. After a lot of fighting we got some of them, and we had to appeal others, etc., and it was a long and difficult process.

However, this year, when we put in the same requests, they came back with answers such as 'no documents exist'. For example, we put in a request for the documents about the use less energy television campaign which had been running last year which I think all members would have seen, and it came back 'no documents exist'.

From another FOI, we found a reference to the black balloon advertising campaign costing $400,000 to $500,000. It was the same advertisement of course: the black balloons that came out of the household appliances. So, we went back on appeal and said, 'Well, you tell us no documents exist. We know that there's advertising. What's going on here?' They said to us, 'Oh, do you mean the black balloon advertisements?' They did not realise that the tagline to the commercial, 'Use less energy'—which had been used in the FOI request—related to the black balloons, or so they said.

In regard to a number of other requests, they have said, 'We don't hold documents. You need to go to the other agencies.' Recently, at Budget and Finance (to answer, in part, the Leader of the Government's question), we have pursued respective areas. When Premier and Cabinet were to appear before Budget and Finance, lo and behold! On the morning of the day that the chief executive was to appear before Budget and Finance, he was urgently required by the Premier to attend the cabinet and could not attend Budget and Finance, so poor Greg Mackie had to pinch-hit and answer questions, and he took them on notice.

However, we put questions to Premier and Cabinet and said, 'What's going on here?' There is something that is now called the Premier's Communication Group, and we have a list of the five people who are in that group. As you would expect, Paul Flanagan, one of the corporate communication gurus and a former spin doctor to Mike Rann, is on the committee, as are a number of other spin doctors. We said to them, 'What's going on? Are you trying to suggest to us that, even though there is a Premier's Communication Group within Premier and Cabinet, you don't keep any documents when they come to you seeking approval to go out for a government advertising campaign?'

I think that is a fanciful proposition, having myself been, I might say, a chair of the communication group, whatever it was called, or the subcommittee of cabinet in the last four years under the last Liberal government. There was a secretariat for that group as there is with all cabinet subcommittees and, of course, it kept all the documentation in relation to government advertising. So, one of the tasks for this committee is to get to the bottom of what is actually going on within that communications group in terms of approvals and so forth.

Another issue, again, to assist the Leader of the Government, who is interested to know what Budget and Finance has been doing on this, is that, without the work of Budget and Finance, we would not have established another big promise that the member for Ramsay—the Premier—made in the 2006-07 budget. He said, 'Look; we are cutting back on government advertising. We are going to cut $9 million out of the government advertising budget over the forward estimates: $1 million in 2007-08; $3 million in 2008-09; and $5 million in the period leading up to the state election.'

The cynics at the time, I guess, wondered whether that could indeed be true, but that was his promise on behalf of the government in the budget documents: $9 million out of the forward estimates on government advertising, with the biggest chunk—$5 million—to come out in the period leading up to the election. That was a momentous change for Premier Rann and his government. Having splurged all that money prior to the 2006 election, he was saying he was actually going to cut the advertising budget by $5 million in that period leading up to this election.

Of course, no-one had pursued that issue other than the Budget and Finance Committee. We pursued that issue with the Under Treasurer last year, and he said, 'Well, look; I'd better take that on notice. Yes; it was in the budget document. I'll take that on notice.' Eventually, we got a reply back which, I think, was tabled before the committee in February of this year (or it might have been late last year), and that indicated that that decision had been deferred.

A decision had actually been in taken in 2007 straight after the budget, but they had not told anybody that that decision had been deferred. Cabinet officers were looking at alternative mechanisms to achieve the same budget savings, or so we were told. If the questions had not been asked in the Budget and Finance Committee, we would never have heard of it.

There is one interesting thing that we will pursue in Budget and Finance with Treasury. For those members who follow the budget documents, Budget Paper 3 always lists the new decisions and their impact on the forward estimates for each department or agency. So, if you go to chapter 2 or 3 under expenditure, members can look at each agency and see each decision that has been taken—either an increased expenditure or a cut in expenditure for each agency—and then straight after that section is a list of all decisions taken since the previous budget and their impact on the forward estimates.

If, since the previous budget, a decision has been taken, which means either more expenditure or less expenditure and the impact on the forward estimates, it is listed in that section. If you go to the budget documents, the decision to defer the cut in government advertising is not listed. It was hidden deliberately by Premier Rann and Treasurer Foley. Every other decision—many of them much smaller than $9 million in terms of the impact on the forward estimates—is listed in a separate line, but this particular decision was hidden, because they did not want people to know that they had made the promise and that they had not delivered it.

There are many reasons why we should have a Budget and Finance Committee, and that is just a further example. If it had not been for the work of the Budget and Finance Committee, this premier and this government would have got away with that and no-one would ever have known that the promise they made in 2006 had been deferred.

Now we have pursued that with the Department of the Premier and Cabinet this year, and we are now being told that cabinet is about to look at other options where the $9 million might be shared out amongst all departments and agencies. When we asked the question, 'Does that mean that the agencies might have to achieve it perhaps through cutting back in a publicity office or something like that, rather than cutting back on taxpayer-funded government advertising?', they said that, yes, that would be possible. There will be no $5 million cut in government advertising during that period.

The final point I want to make, and here I pay some tribute to the Hon. Mr Xenophon. In the period after the 2002 election (possibly even before—I cannot remember the exact dates) the Hon. Mr Xenophon introduced legislation into this place, which was by and large opposed by the government and Liberal Party at that time, in order to introduce the new notion of the involvement of the auditor-general in government-funded political advertising.

I think the drafting of that bill was way too wide; everything right down to the merest information booklet that a department might prepare for the information and benefit of consumers would have had to go through the auditor-general's department. I think the purview and the breadth of that was much too wide.

I pay credit to the Hon. Mr Xenophon because that particular notion, albeit back a bit, is starting to have some credence in some jurisdictions around the world. I was fortunate enough to have made it a point to look at the electoral disclosure legislation on my last trip to the United States and Canada, and I have spoken earlier on this. I also looked at donations, the activities of lobbyists and some of the changes that have been implemented in the Canadian and American jurisdictions.

I looked at this in Toronto (there is certainly no equivalent in the United States) because it was the only place I could see in Canada where the auditor-general is required to provide oversight for government-funded political advertising. I am not suggesting that, if this committee is established, we should travel to Toronto to have a look at that. The Hon. Mr Parnell may want to do that, I am not sure, but I would not support that notion.

I think the committee ought to look at the experience. I have gathered some information that I am happy to share with the committee but, independently of me, the committee should collect information as well. I met with the auditor-general officers, and they took me through the processes they go through. For particularly controversial advertising campaigns, they appoint a panel of independent advertising consultants to try to provide some advice to the auditor-general who makes the final decision as to whether or not a particular campaign is party political.

It is a vexed issue. It is one of the problems with the Xenophon legislation and it is still one of the problems in the Toronto legislation; it is not perfect. In relation to some of the things which got through in Toronto, whilst they did not have the face of the premier or the leader of the party there, clearly the party and the opposition may well have seen that as making a political point on a particular issue.

It is a vexed issue, and it does place the Auditor-General, or whatever committee it is, in a very difficult situation when making those decisions, and both sides of parliament would want to have confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the Auditor-General to entrust that sort of decision to them. Labor Party members, if they speak or if they have already spoken on this motion, will make the point in relation to federal Liberal government advertising, as critics at the moment will make criticisms of the federal Labor government advertising, as they have done in the past as well.

In Toronto, I saw enough of that to think that it is worth exploring. Of course, since then we have seen its introduction in the commonwealth arena. I am indebted to my federal colleague, the member for Mayo, who took up the issue, I think in the last two weeks, with the appropriate federal committee when the federal Auditor-General appeared before that committee. They showed the Auditor-General some of the Rann government's television advertising and said, 'Would this sort of advertising be accepted by you under commonwealth law?', and the answer was no, that, under the current commonwealth restrictions and guidelines, the Rann advertising would not be acceptable. It was certainly deemed by the Auditor-General to be party political in terms of what was included.

That is one of the issues I think this committee ought to look at, in addition to government processes for authorising and approving campaigns. There may well be other models that might be recommended to the parliament in terms of providing some restriction on the government of the day in relation to the massive amounts of taxpayers' funds that can be used to fund government advertising. With those remarks, I indicate my support and the Liberal Party's support for the motion before us.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (21:22): I am astounded and a little sad about the depths of cynicism evident in the contributions made by the preceding two speakers, both of whom are former Liberal ministers. The wilful confusion of the term 'party political advertising' with government advertising is not very helpful to a transparent and clear debate on this matter. However, I think we can dismiss those last two contributions as mere political posturing, but it does make me sad.

I will now move onto the more balanced contribution made by the mover of the motion, the Hon. Mr Parnell. As he conceded when introducing the motion, there are perfectly legitimate reasons for government advertising. Giving information to the public about services provided by the government is often a necessary part of providing those services.

As a government, we should be committed to providing South Australians with access to information about policies, services, programs and initiatives, and other matters that affect their benefits, rights or obligations, and it is perfectly proper to use public funds for these purposes. What is critical is that the advertising is for proper government purposes and not for party political purposes. What is critical for this to happen is that there are appropriate guidelines in place, and that is precisely what we have in South Australia.

The State Government Advertising Policies and Guidelines set out the rules for government advertising. They are based on the legitimate purposes for advertising I have outlined, and it is hard to argue with any of them. They are as follows:

to maximise compliance with the law;

to achieve awareness of a new or amended law;

to raise awareness of a planned or pending initiative;

to ensure public safety, personal security or encourage responsible behaviour;

to assist in the preservation of order in the event of a crisis or emergency;

to promote awareness of rights, responsibilities, duties or entitlements;

to encourage usage of, or familiarity with, government products or services;

to report on performance in relation to government undertakings;

to encourage social cohesion, civic pride, community spirit, tolerance or to assist in the achievement of a widely supported public policy outcome.

They clearly set out that party political advertising is not a legitimate use of public funds. They provide that public funds should not be used for communications where:

the party in government is mentioned by name;

a reasonable person could misinterpret the message as being on behalf of a political party or other grouping;

a political party or other grouping is being disparaged or held up to ridicule;

members of the government are named, depicted or otherwise promoted in a manner that a reasonable person would regard as excessive or gratuitous;

the method or medium of communication is manifestly excessive or extravagant in relation to the objective being pursued; or

there is no clear line of accountability, appropriate audit procedures or suitable purchasing process for the communication process.

The guidelines go on to stipulate that the processes must be gone through in order for an agency to seek to advertise. Importantly, the guidelines require that an evaluation of every advertising campaign be undertaken to ensure accountability for the expenditure and also ensure effectiveness of the provision of information.

So, what we have in South Australia is a set of clear, appropriate and responsible guidelines governing the use of government advertising. This is not the commonwealth government under John Howard, where abuses of this form of advertising were legion, where, according to The Age on 9 July 2007, that government spent over $2 billion on advertising. This, of course, notoriously included massive campaigns to sell the GST and WorkChoices in what were classically politically partisan campaigns.

We are not that government, which is why we have clear guidelines ensuring that the expenditure of public funds for government advertising is confined to legitimate uses of that sort of advertising. The Hon. Mr Parnell raised issues dealing with recent advertising about the new hospital. Is he really suggesting that we cannot provide information about that? This is a significant new initiative, and there is real public interest in it. Is the honourable member really saying that, when invitations for public comment on the design were advertised, the advertising was illegitimate, or is he saying that we should not involve the community in these decisions? Can you just imagine the howls of protest and outrage from the community and, dare I say it, members opposite if we did not make the government plans on the hospital widely known!

Members interjecting:

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: Exactly right: secret state—that is what they would be saying. I do not think that the Hon. Mr Parnell meant that at all. There are proper purposes for government advertising and there are appropriate guidelines for that advertising. Given that, the motion is unnecessary in our view. Government members will not be supporting it.

The Hon. M. PARNELL (21:27): In closing this debate, I would like to thank members for their contributions. I would particularly like to thank the Hon. Rob Lucas and the Hon. Robert Brokenshire for their support. I thank the Hon. Ian Hunter for his contribution. I look forward to working with him and debating with him, in the committee, the guidelines that he says already exist and are already effective. I think that is clearly at the heart of the terms of reference of this committee. I look forward to the council establishing this committee tonight, and I am looking forward to getting down to work as soon as possible.

Motion carried.

The council appointed a select committee consisting of the Hons I.K. Hunter, J.M.A. Lensink, R.I. Lucas, M. Parnell and Carmel Zollo; the committee to have power to send for persons, papers and records, and to adjourn from place to place; the committee to have leave to sit during the recess; and the committee to report on 17 June 2009.

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