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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-08-28 Daily Xml
Contents
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Bills

Government Advertising Bill

Introduction and First Reading

The Hon. R.A. SIMMS (16:05): Obtained leave and introduced a bill for an act to regulate government advertising and for other purposes. Read a first time.

Second Reading

The Hon. R.A. SIMMS (16:06): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The Government Advertising Bill that I am introducing today imposes guidelines on government advertising and restricts government advertising in the lead-up to elections. I think it is a bill that actually reflects the will and desires of the South Australian people, who want to see the best possible standards in place when it comes to spending of public money.

How often do we turn on our devices and see the government of the day spruiking the work that they are doing? Unsurprisingly, we see an increase in this type of spending in the lead-up to an election, where the incumbent government uses this type of advertising to show just how well they are doing and to bolster their chances at the polls. Indeed, one of the concerns of the Greens is that in the lead-up to elections there is a blurred line between government advertising and political party advertising because, of course, governments of both persuasions when they are promoting their agenda are also potentially promoting the political party agenda too.

Expenditure on government advertising has sharply increased under the Malinauskas government. In the 2022 to 2023 financial year, the state government spent a staggering $47.6 million on advertising. That is a record in terms of the expenditure of government advertising. That was up on $6 million on the previous year and represents the third year in a row with record high spending. The previous year there was a dramatic increase from $23.9 million in 2019 to 2020 to $41.2 million in the financial year of 2021 to 2022.

Let's consider this Labor government's advertising bill. Cha-ching! Think about the amount of money they are spending, and let us look at some of Labor's million-dollar items. They have spent $1.15 million on promoting the Housing Roadmap. They call it a road map; it is more a mud map. It was announced a few months ago. It is, in effect, a free kick to developers. It does not pledge any more public housing be built. Instead, it is a free kick to developers but, to add insult to injury, they are using taxpayer money to promote it—$1.15 million.

Surely, in the middle of a housing crisis Labor should be spending that money on actually building more housing rather than telling everybody how great they are. Given we have a huge backlog on maintenance for public housing, how can they justify spending over $1 million on that? I wish the Labor Party stopped talking about housing and actually started building some. We might not find ourselves in such a dire state in South Australia.

In addition to the huge amount of money that has been given to the AFL Gather Round, which we know is an important project for the Premier, they have spent $1.3 million on promoting it, not to mention the SA Magnet State campaign at $2.48 million. But the real doozy I think is the $742,775 that was spent promoting the government's own state budget—again, telling everybody how great they are.

The Labor Party needs to remember that this is not their money, it is taxpayers' money. I think a lot of South Australians would be offended to see their money being spent on a backslapping exercise for the Labor Party. Taxpayers have a right to know where the money is being spent and they need to be assured that the spending is not being used to influence opinion in the lead-up to elections.

Both Labor and Liberal governments and oppositions have tried in the past to tackle this issue and, actually, what the Greens have done is tried to draw on models that both major parties in this place have looked at. In 2019, the then attorney-general, the Hon. Vickie Chapman, introduced her Government Advertising Bill, which required the minister to publish guidelines and then for the Auditor-General to audit all government advertising. It also prohibited ministers or MPs from appearing in any government advertising. Sadly, the bill lapsed when parliament was prorogued.

In 2021, the Hon. Stephen Mullighan, who was then the opposition Treasury spokesperson, introduced his own government advertising bill, and later that week I moved an amendment to the budget measures bill to incorporate the provisions of that bill into the budget. It passed the upper house but, again, it lapsed in the lead-up to the election.

What we have done is taken the ideas that the Hon. Stephen Mullighan advanced in opposition and that I promoted in this place and put them into this bill. I am surprised that the Labor government has been in power now for over two years and they have not taken this issue up. They were very happy to apply that standard to the Liberal government when Labor was in opposition. Well, now they are in power, surely they are going to do it.

I assume what has happened is that it is just on the to-do list and they have not got to it yet. I assume it is sitting in someone's drawer, they are intending to action it and so the Greens are here, of course, as we often are, to help out the government and to remind them that this is a priority because to not action this would be, I suggest, an act of rank hypocrisy and one I think that would appal a lot of South Australians—an example of a government doing something when they are in opposition and then, when they find themselves in office, suddenly jettisoning that commitment.

I cannot imagine that this Malinauskas government would do such a thing. That would be a cynical act, I suggest. Really, the government would have more front than John Martin's to go down that path. So I am assuming this is on the to-do list and I look forward to the government getting on board and backing this bill.

I do want to, though, acknowledge that the Malinauskas government has already published some guidelines voluntarily, with a government advisory committee reviewing all expenditure over $50,000 for government advertising. We welcome that. That is a good transparency measure. But my bill goes further. It takes elements of both bills introduced in previous sessions by the Liberal government and the Labor opposition.

Provisions this bill includes from the Marshall government proposed reforms include a requirement that the minister prepare and publish guidelines for government advertising, prevent any minister or MP from being in advertising, and require the Auditor-General to audit and report on the use of advertising by the government. The bill also incorporates the following provisions from the proposal advanced by the then shadow treasurer, the Hon. Stephen Mullighan. Under this Green bill, no agency will be able to incur more than $10,000 on government advertising unless it is approved by the Auditor-General during the period of 1 July prior to an election, to the date of the election.

The Auditor-General would only be able to approve additional expenditure if it relates to public health, public safety, road and transport works, emergencies, material required to ensure that elections can be conducted, engagement of people in government services and attendance at events, tourism, sale of property, or courses of tertiary institutions. I think it is fair that the Auditor-General should cast an eye over any advertising in the lead-up to the election to ensure that it is appropriate.

The bill goes further than both the previous proposals from the Labor and Liberal parties, and I have also taken up the feedback from a report by the Grattan Institute titled, 'New politics: depoliticising taxpayer funded advertising'. The first of the new additions is to ensure that no advertisements can be allowed that relate to legislation before the parliament, and I think that is appropriate. Under our bill it would not be possible for the government to start advertising a budget that had not even passed the parliament. I think that is fair.

The Grattan report cites examples at both the federal and the state level where governments have used advertising to build support for reforms before they have even been legislated. I think that is an abuse of advertising, when the taxpayer picks up the dime for bills that promote the agenda of the government of the day. I will say that this is not just a Labor Party problem; the Howard government really had form on this. Let us not forget the campaign to promote the GST. They really set the standard when it came to using public money to promote their agenda. We have to do better than that here in South Australia.

Additionally, my bill ensures that social media is captured in these provisions. We all know that legislation can be slow to catch up to technological advances, and we have seen a huge increase in governments using social media to promote their work. A paper from the Australian National University, for instance, called for such a provision to ensure that there were no loopholes in our laws. This bill makes it clear that social media spending is considered advertising.

The final provision of this bill is to explicitly prohibit government advertising from influencing support for a political party. I think that one should really be a no-brainer. Anyone who is in the opposition or on the crossbench could consider that there is an unfair advantage for the government of the day if they use advertising to try to seek support. This bill is clear that the purpose of government advertising is not to influence political outcomes, and it should not be used to advance the political objectives of a political party.

Other jurisdictions have taken action around government advertising. In New South Wales the minister is required to prepare and publish guidelines, and the Auditor-General must do an audit. In Victoria, government advertising must be in the public interest.

I welcome the discussion we are having in South Australia at the moment around transparency and donations reform. This is a real opportunity to clean up politics in our state, and I do commend the Malinauskas government for kicking off that conversation, in particular the Premier for his leadership in wanting to take on donations reform.

However, if we are going to have this conversation we also need to consider government advertising, because if we restrict the work of political parties there is the potential for government advertising to have a disproportionate impact. The Greens will continue to push this issue and I do plan to bring this bill to a vote.

This bill is an opportunity for us to make sure that any government of the day is not able to use their incumbency to influence support for their policies, especially in the lead-up to an election. This is a reform that the Labor Party was very supportive of when they were in opposition, and I hope they will embrace the opportunity the Greens have presented for them to now get on board with this bill and make it a priority.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. I.K. Hunter.

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