[Greens-Media] MARK PARNELL MLC: Upper House Inquiry exposes dodgy govt ad process

[Parnell]

Media Release
Wednesday 12th August 2009

Upper House Inquiry exposes dodgy govt ad process


The Head of the Premier's Department has revealed that the Auditor General is currently investigating five Government advertising campaigns, two of which the Department admits did not follow the proper Guidelines, in evidence to the Greens-initiated Upper House Inquiry into Taxpayer Funded Advertising this afternoon.

The five ads currently being investigated by the Auditor General include the State Budget 09/10, Water for Good, River Murray/Water and the new RAH/Marj, with the latter 2 'non-compliant'.

Mr Chris Eccles, Chief Executive of the Department of Premier and Cabinet, also admitted there have been a further 22 (a total of 24) ad campaigns over the last 3 years that were not approved according to the Guidelines.

"This is an outrage.  Not only are taxpayer's funds being used for blatant party political ads, we now discover many of them went to air without following the proper Guidelines, and without any evaluation," said Greens MLC and Inquiry Chair Mark Parnell.

"We also discover the Premier's new found fondness for advertising reform has been driven by the Upper House and Auditor General's investigations, as well as recent Inquiries by Federal Parliament.

"As we suspected, the Premier has been dragged kicking and screaming to take his hand out of the cookie jar, and quite literally, pull his head in," he said.

In further evidence, doubt was cast over the 'independence' of the oversight committee that approves Government advertising.

"Increasing a committee from 6 to 8 public servants does not make a committee 'independent'.  Especially, when the new Chair of this over-sight body happens to be the Deputy CE of the Premier's own Department.

"Today's hearings once again prove the worth of the Upper House in keeping the Government of the day accountable.  The Greens will keep on hounding Premier Rann and the Liberal Party inside and outside Parliament until we stamp out this blatantly party political abuse of taxpayer's money once and for all," he said.


For further comment contact Craig Wilkins on 0434 007 893




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