This report finds that abuse of taxpayer-funded advertising is rife in Australia, with governments routinely spending public money to spruik their own achievements, especially in the lead up to elections.

This audit investigated if Victorian government advertising campaigns comply with the Public Administration Act 2004 and if they cost-effective.

Last year, the Morrison Government spent $145.3 million on campaign advertising, a sum that exceeds the normal annual advertising spend of companies like Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Amazon, Pepsi and Qantas. This paper argues that the current regulatory model for government advertising is clearly insufficient.

The objective of this audit was to assess the effectiveness of the Department of Finance and selected entities’ implementation of the Australian government’s campaign advertising framework.

This paper outlines findings from a segmentation study conducted in May-June 2021 by Monash and Massey Universities. The research identifies five different COVID vaccine audience segments and what motivates them to get or not get vaccinated, to support the tailoring of campaign messaging for maximum engagement and vaccine uptake.