This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

The federal government will spend $36m on two campaigns spruiking its infrastructure spending and income tax package in the lead-up to the 2019 election.

The taxpayer-funded campaigns – described as “entirely appropriate” by Scott Morrison – are revealed in AusTender documents which show that cumulatively the government has committed more than $200m to advertising since 1 January 2018.

The new campaigns come on top of $9.3m spent advertising the Coalition’s schools funding changes and $8m on two campaigns by the department of energy and environment.

The treasury department paid $2.5m to BMF Advertising to design its Better Tax campaign and a further $16.1m to place the ads which state that 95% of Australians will pay less income tax under changes made in 2018.

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Labor opposed the changes in favour of an alternate package that it says would nearly double the tax cut for low- and middle-income workers, leaving everybody earning less than $125,000 a year better off.

The department of infrastructure paid $16m to place its ads which market the 10-year $75bn infrastructure package in the 2018 budget, of which just $24.5bn was for new projects and just $4.2bn of that is due to be spent in the next four years.

Those ads started on 13 January and are scheduled to run until 13 April, two weeks after the 2019 budget is handed down and just a month shy of the election, expected on 11 or 18 May.

A spokesperson for the infrastructure department said the campaign was expected to cost $17.6m, of which just $3.4m had been spent so far.

The education department was spending a total of $9.3m on the Quality Schools campaign including $1.6m for design of ads and $6.8m to place them.

A spokesperson said the campaign, which began on 27 January, complies with all Australian government guidelines and “seeks to inform the Australian community about the changes to schools funding nationally and the record funding being provided to state, Catholic and independent schools”.

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Labor has said the Gonski 2.0 reforms give schools $17bn less than the opposition has promised and criticised a $4.6bn top-up of funds for Catholic and independent schools given in September with nothing extra promised for public schools.

The health department spent $4m for its health star rating campaign from December to June.

The energy and environment department spent $5.5m on one contract from August to October and a further $2.6m for a contract from November to June.

The shadow treasurer, Chris Bowen, said the increasing use of millions of taxpayers dollars on “partisan government advertising” is a sign of “desperation”. “This arrogant government has no bounds as they reach peak desperation.”

The Greens’ democracy spokeswoman, Larissa Waters, said: “Taxpayers shouldn’t be footing the bill for the government’s propaganda campaigns just months out from a federal election.

“Certainly governments have a role in disseminating information the public genuinely needs but it’s pretty obvious this advertising is designed to bolster the Coalition’s flailing re-election chances.”

In 2013 Morrison made a similar criticism of Labor, blasting them for a “flailing campaign to be propped up using taxpayer funds”.

But on Wednesday he said it was “entirely appropriate for Australians to understand what their government is doing”.

“And what we’re doing is delivering record spending on delivering major infrastructure projects, congestion busting around Australia,” he told reporters in Brisbane.