The member raised concerns in relation to 3 recent advertising campaigns conducted by the Queensland Government:
- Progressive coal royalty tiers
- Queensland Health and Hospital Plan
- New Economy minerals.
The member requested that QAO consider auditing the advertising campaigns with the aim of determining:
- the complete cost of the campaigns
- any third parties engaged to assist with the advertising, the nature of any procurement process used to determine the particular third parties, and the total amount they were paid
- whether or not the Queensland Government Advertising and Marketing Communication Code of Conduct has been followed in this instance
- whether the recommendations of the Queensland Audit Office's report Government advertising (Report 16: 2016–17) were implemented.
We responded to the member on 27 September 2022.
We noted, while the Department of the Premier and Cabinet (DPC) publishes the Queensland Government advertising spend each year on the Open Data Portal, it has not yet published data for the 2021–22 financial year.
Our previous audit of Government advertising (Report 16: 2016–17) did not identify any significant areas of non-compliance with the Queensland Government Advertising Code of Conduct. Most of our recommendations were aimed at how DPC could enhance its framework for managing government advertising.
Last year we followed up the status of those recommendations (refer to our report 2021 Status of Auditor-General’s recommendations (Report 4: 2021–22). DPC and other departments reported to us that they had implemented all of the recommendations we made. These agencies’ individual responses to our recommendations are best explored via the interactive dashboard on our website.
In developing our forward work plan each year, we consider whether to conduct follow-up audits of a small sample of our previous performance audits. Our current Forward work plan 2022–25 does not include a proposed follow-up audit on government advertising.
Based on a consideration of all factors, we advised that we are not planning to conduct an audit of these 3 recent advertising campaigns at this time.