A $28 million government advertising campaign has been amended after it was referred to auditor general Grant Hehir for a breach of political advertising guidelines.
The 'Welcome to the Ideas Boom' campaign, created by Whybin/TBWA (Melbourne) with media planning and placement from Dentsu Mitchell Media Australia, promotes the government's national innovation and science agenda.
It initially featured variations of the slogan, 'There's never been a more exciting time to be Australian', on websites and in a TVC still on YouTube (see below).
Labor MP Pat Conroy challenged the use of the slogan, arguing it is not an objective statement, based on fact and amounts to a party political propaganda - all breaches of political advertising guidelines.
The slogan was first used by Malcolm Turnbull in a press conference when he assumed Coalition leadership from Tony Abbott last year. Labor says the language has been repeated on several occasions since.
"I referred this advertising campaign to the auditor general because I’m concerned it breaches the guidelines on government advertising," Conroy says.
"When it launched, the slogan was plastered on the main page of the website as well as being the first line in the policy document. Since I referred it for audit, the slogan has been hidden from the website and there’s no navigation to it."
Conroy has lodged a Freedom of Information request with the prime minister's office and the industry department to ascertain whether the language was amended at the request of the auditor general.
"The government have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising in an election year and in this case they’ve blatantly repeated the PM’s tagline," Conroy adds.
"This isn’t an ideas boom, it’s a taxpayer funded advertising boom."
The $28 million innovation campaign is nearly as costly as last year's Defence recruiting advertising, which cost $31.3 million during 2014-15.
In 2015, media agency bookings for government was $287.1 million, a 10.5% increase on 2014, according to the Standard Media Index. This was buoyed by state elections in NSW and Queensland.
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