Premier Jay Weatherill vows more advertising transparency following pressure

Details of taxpayer funded advertising will be published regularly after Jay Weatherill heeds concerns about transparency.

SA Premier Jay Weatherill speaks to the media. Picture: AAP Image/Morgan Sette

• Ministers should be forced to pay back for dodgy ads — Mr X.
• Liberals tough stance on Advertising
• Panel takes just 35 minutes to approve $500,000 ad plan

DETAILS of taxpayer funded advertising will be regularly disclosed by the Weatherill Government in a response to concerns raised about transparency.

Premier Jay Weatherill has told the Sunday Mail the Government will expand its proactive disclosure policy to include publishing online the cost of government advertising campaigns and the evaluation of their performance.

The pre-election advertising moratorium period will also be brought forward by a further month, to 17 January 2018.

Last week the Sunday Mail revealed the Liberals commitment to publish monthly the costs of taxpayer funded advertisements.

It followed months of concerns about the political nature of millions of dollars worth of taxpayer funded advertisements.

Both the Liberals and Nick Xenophon’s SA best had announced policies vowing to crack down on the practice.

The Government’s current proactive disclosure policy involves the publishing of ministerial travel costs, credit card statements, mobile phone bills, gifts and ancillary office expenditure each and every month.

Mr Weatherill told the Sunday Mail advertising is an important way to communicate policies that affect people’s lives, and forms just part of the way the Government communicates with the community.

“While we have never hidden the cost of government advertising campaigns, we are

respecting recent concerns raised by making information about advertising more readily available for the community to scrutinise,” Mr Weatherill said.

“We already publish information like credit card statements and travel expenses, this is the next phase in our commitment to transparency.”

In the past 12 months the State Government has spent $9.7 million on advertising that has come under fire including promoting JOB EX ($840,00), electricity plan ($2.6 million), education plan ($1.8 million), Job Accelerator Grant Scheme (more than $1.5 million), Future Jobs Fund ($1.3 million), 2016-17 State Budget ($523,000) and New Royal Adelaide Hospital ($450,000).

Community safety messages, such as bushfire preparedness and road safety campaigns will remain exempt from the government’s new policy.