Treasurer Rob Lucas today accused Labor Leader Peter Malinauskas of using taxpayer funds to pay for Labor Party authorised advertising attacking the Marshall Liberal Government.
Since the State Budget the Labor Party has been running a series of radio commercials attacking the Marshall Liberal Government and aspects of the State Budget.
“All of these commercials are clearly Labor Party commercials because they are ‘authorised by R.Martin for Australian Labor Party, 141 Gilles Street, Adelaide’,” said Treasurer Rob Lucas.
“Mr R.Martin is Reggie Martin who is the long-serving State Secretary of the Labor Party in SA. However, Mr Malinauskas has used taxpayer funds to pay radio station FIVEaa $4,092 for an initial burst of radio commercials between 24 and 28 June 2019.
“He has also used taxpayer funds to pay Timms Tunes $918.50 to professionally produce the commercials.
“If these commercials continued running beyond 28 June, or they were also being run on other radio stations, then the final cost to taxpayers of these Labor Party attack ads will be much higher than the initial cost of about $5,000.
“Mr Malinauskas must today explain why he thinks taxpayers should be picking up the bill for these Labor Party political attack ads.
“In my view, this is an absolutely outrageous and unacceptable abuse of taxpayer funding for the Labor Party.
“Sadly, as an ex-union boss, Mr Malinauskas seems to be bringing the attitude of some union bosses to the way he manages the $1.6 million of taxpayer funding provided to him to run his office.
“If this is the attitude that is going to be adopted, taxpayers may well be faced with paying for all of the Labor Party’s election advertising authorised by Reggie Martin leading up to the next election.
“I’m certain most people would share my view and would be strongly opposed to Mr Malinauskas continuing to pay for Labor Party commercials with taxpayer funds.
“I am calling on Mr Malinauskas to reverse this decision immediately, and to order the Labor Party to reimburse taxpayers for the full cost of Labor Party advertising.”
