LNP attacks TV ads

NEWS

The LNP has called on Labor to cease promoting itself through the use of taxpayer funded government advertising. Deputy Opposition Leader Tim Nicholls said Labor was ignoring the caretaker provisions of government which came into effect on Sunday with the start of official election campaign.

“For the past year the Bligh government has been on an unprecedented advertising spending spree that is tipped to top $100 million,” Mr Nicholls said. “The last election proved that the Bligh Labor government will say and do anything, and break every promise and every rule to hold onto power in Queensland.
“This election Labor are up to their cunning political tricks again – at taxpayer’s expense. “Facing a public backlash for their wasteful mismanagement of the state’s economy, Labor has been indulging in an orgy of self promotion.
“Who is paying for it? The poor Queensland taxpayer is. Families and businesses are already shelling out their hard-earned cash for Labor’s long list of increased taxes and charges.
“Now the Bligh government wants to waste more taxpayer money for their own political advantage. “The government’s advertising code of conduct stipulates there should be no advertising within six months of the scheduled date for an election – unless “there is an urgent emerging issue”.
“None of these ads meet that criteria. “Can you imagine what would happen if this discredited and economically incompetent government again got its hands on the state’s treasury?” Mr Nicholls said. “The greedy Labor party has fiddled with the electoral laws to steal advantage over election donations, and now they’re bleeding the long suffering Queensland taxpayer to pay for extra ad promotion for the Bligh government during this campaign.

OUR SAY: Just one commercial TV channel midweek ran various State Government ads on all sorts of topics including skin cancer protection and how to stop smoking. We were bombarded with far too many of these ads – along with ones on mental health, mining jobs, flood readiness, etc – in the months leading up to Sunday’s issuing of writs for the 24 March election. They are a disgrace and must stop immediately.