Australia Taxpayers Funding $59m In Government Ads For 2022 Election

Aussie taxpayers will contribute at least $59m for government advertising campaigns in the lead-up to the 2022 election.

Voters can expect to see ads spanning the topics of cybercrime, online safety, the jobtrainer program, domestic violence, recruiting a carer workforce and, of course, climate change.

The Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources spent $12.9m, excluding GST, on the Positive Energy campaign, according to AusTender contracts and evidence to Senate estimates.

This spending included $10.7m on ad buys, $1.8m on creative work, $1m on public relations, $488,000 on market research, $190,000 on evaluation, and $138,000 on a website.

The education department spent $6.7m on a campaign for the jobtrainer program.

This included a $5.17m contract for ad spots, $1m on creative, and $543,000 on PR, communications and market research.

The campaign runs form October 2021 to June 2022.

Another $13.3m was spent by the Department of Social Services (DSS) in its A Life Changing Life campaign, which seeks to increase disability support, aged care and veterans’ support workforce.

This campaign runs from August 2021 to June 2022.

The DSS is also responsible for the Stop it at the Start campaign against domestic violence, including $4.3m for ad spots to run from November 2021 to February 2022.

The treasury spent $1.55m on creative services for a campaign related to the Your Super Your Future superannuation measures running to June 2022, with an additional $1.9m of contracts for PR, market research and evaluation of that campaign.

The treasury also paid $13.2m for ad spots in a contract that ended in October 2021 for the same campaign.

The ATO paid $203,500 for the “tax and super basics” advertising campaign to run until October.

$3.4m was spent by the home affairs department on ad spots for its “beat cybercrime in our down time” campaign which encourages Aussie to control their cyber security. An additional $600,000 was spent on PR, creative and evaluation for the campaign.

It was launched in October and runs until June.

The communications department spent a total of $767,000 on three contracts for campaigns promoting online safety, while $470,000 was spent by infrastructure on advertising and market research.

The shadow special minister of state, Don Farrell, said of all the spending: “There’s a place for government funded advertising. But Scott Morrison has turned it into a publicly funded marketing exercise for himself and the Liberal party.”

Taxpayers will also pay $187m for Tourism Australia, as Australia re-opens its borders and an additional $2.25m for SEO in China.

The Australia Bureau of Statistics also spent $28m on advertising for the census this year.

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