Aaron Langmaid of the Herald Sun writes (4 Jan, 2010):
Selling John Brumby to Victorians does not come cheap.
The State Government will have splurged a staggering $214 million on advertising by the end of this financial year, according to Coalition calculations.
But the State Government has denied the expenses, saying its advertising budget had actually dropped by more than $1 million two years in a row.
And its says the money is spent on much needed public awareness campaigns aimed at saving lives.
But the Liberals claimed yesterday the Government had the dubious honour of having spent more money on self-promotion than any other state in Australia.
“Hundreds of millions of dollars have been wasted promoting the Brumby Government,” Opposition scrutiny of government spokesman David Davis said.
“With the same money we could have built a major hospital and treated tens of thousands of people lingering on record hospital waiting lists,” Mr Davis said.
According to a Coalition’s analysis of the Auditor-General’s findings into government advertising expenditure, the cost of advertising to taxpayers was set to increase from $195 million in 2008-09 to more than $214 million by the end of this financial year. It compared with the $125 million spent in 2002-03 and culminated in a total of $1.3 billion being spent over eight years.
But government spokesman Shaun Inguanzo said the figures were wrong.
“Ted Baillieu has not checked his facts — the Victorian Government committed $115 million to public advertising in 2007-08, and that figure dropped to $114 million in the last financial year,” he said.
He said expenditure included the costs of advertising bushfire awareness and TAC campaigns.
Mr Inguanzo said it was a hypocritical argument from the Opposition after Malvern Liberal MP Michael O’Brien called for more to be spent on anti-gambling advertising.
