‘Waste of taxpayers’ money’: Ad from Queensland Police Service pulled offline

First there was the bizarre milkshake consent ad, now another ‘embarrassing’ campaign has been pulled an hour after going online.

A campaign video from Queensland Police has been slammed as “absolutely embarrassing” and pulled offline an hour after it went live over “misconstrued” insensitive references to domestic violence.

The unusual ad produced in conjunction with the Queensland government was aimed at reducing the number of triple-0 calls made to authorities by encouraging citizens to use the internet and other communication platforms for responses to less life-threatening incidents.

The video was posted to social media shortly before 9am on Thursday but was pulled by 10am after a furious reaction.

The video included a reference to failed marriages as an example of the main character’s history of bad decisions, with the man eventually being applauded for making a good decision by reporting a neighbour’s loud party on the police website rather than calling triple-0.

By 11am, a scheduled media event to launch the campaign was cancelled citing “operational requirements and campaign material finalisation”.

But, according to shadow police spokesperson and former veteran officer Dale Last, the video faced overwhelming criticism from the force and members of the Queensland Police Union.

“This state government video is an absolute embarrassment,” he told the NCA NewsWire.

RELATED: Milkshake consent video pulled from government website

In the video, the man is shown to have failed relationships with numerous wives leaving him.

“At a time when domestic violence cases are surging, Queenslanders should be encouraged to call 000 if they’re in danger.

“What a waste of taxpayers’ money.

“It’s no wonder the police union is furious and the video was removed after just one hour.”

On Thursday afternoon, QPS responded to further queries explaining the decision to pull the campaign was to re-edit the video after stakeholder concerns were raised about how one segment could be perceived.

“The decision to re-edit the video was taken as the QPS did not want a reference to failed marriages being misconstrued to suggest a link to domestic and family violence,” it said in a statement provided to NCA NewsWire.

“There was no reference to domestic and family violence or a suggestion within the video that any of the failed marriages occurred due to domestic and family violence.

The video was intended to have a ‘lighthearted approach’.

“The campaign was attempting to use a lighthearted approach to educate people on how to use triple-0 appropriately.”

QPS receives nearly 735,000 calls each year through its communications centre with more than 674,000 of those able to be dealt with through “more effective reporting avenues”, it said.

“Police communications centres are efficient, but it is hoped the campaign would further increase their capacity to respond to life-threatening emergencies,” QPS said.

The video was produced in conjunction with an external advertising agency at a cost of about $40,000. Police said the plan was to spend a further $5000 to re-edit or reshoot the final elements of the video.

The backflip comes after the federal government was widely criticised for producing an ad on sexual consent that has been slammed as a dangerous waste of money.

The $3.7 million campaign was removed after fierce backlash from rape prevention campaigners who raised concerns over the Morrison government’s “confusing” new consent education campaign for schools.