Shadow Minister for Scrutiny of Government David Davis today released new figures revealing government advertising has reached record levels under John Brumby.
In 2002/03 the Brumby Government spent $125 million on advertising, according to the Victorian Auditor General.
In 2008/09 that figure had increased to $195 million and is projected to reach $214 million by the end of 2009/10, based on the Coalition’s analysis of the Auditor-General’s findings on the Brumby Government’s advertising expenditure.
Mr Davis said the figures revealed the outrageous amounts of money which had been spent on promoting John Brumby instead of funding basic services.
The analysis reveals that in eight years the Brumby Government will have spent more than $1.3 billion on advertising and promotion.
“Hundreds of millions of dollars have been wasted promoting the Brumby Government – 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.
In the Auditor-General’s 2006 report on government advertising, the Auditor-General found that spending by the Brumby Government on advertising had been at least $123 million for 2002/03, $147.1 million for 2003/04 and $161.3 million for 2004/05.
The Auditor-General also found that expenditure on advertising and communication represents around 0.5 per cent of total annual government expenditure, a formula used by the Coalition to calculate government advertising spend for the years after the reporting period covered by the Auditor-General.
“John Brumby has the dubious honour of spending more money on advertising and promotion than any other state in Australia,” Mr Davis said.
“The 2009 NSW Auditor-General’s Report found NSW spent $101 million on government advertising in 2008/09, but the Brumby Government’s spending on advertising and self-promotion is double that of NSW.”
Mr Davis called on John Brumby to immediately stop abusing taxpayers’ funds for his own self-promotion, especially given that every one of the Brumby Government’s ads is personally approved and signed off by the Premier, who chairs the Cabinet communications subcommittee.
