Nielsen Australia have released a summary of the advertising spending in the recent Australian elections, in which it’s revealed that the United Australian Party, led by Clive Palmer (pictured above), gave over $30 million.
That amount is more than twice as much as the second-highest amount spent by a political party in the federal election, which was from the Labor party. Based on Nielsen’s report, the new government gave a little over $13 million for their own campaign.
In third place, based on advertising expenditure, was the Liberal party, who invested just over $10 million. That’s over three times less than the UAP.
In total, close to $56 million (more specifically, $55,887,852) was spent for political advertising by all parties in this year’s federal elections. The Nielsen report counts the period from the announcement date of the elections all the way to media blackout day, while the outdoor advertising component only includes money that was spent in April.
What’s truly impressive – in a bit of an ironic way – is that, despite their heavy investments in their advertising campaign, the UAP did not manage to secure a single seat for themselves in the lower house.
In stark contrast, the Greens, whose campaign didn’t see them spend more than a million dollars, were able to secure an extra three seats for themselves compared to the last elections, raising their total tally to four.
These results by Nielsen are clear evidence that no matter how much money someone spends trying to gain the support of the people, if they don’t really do the work in addressing issues that affect their everyday lives, they’re not going to get very far.
