How Will The 4 Million Be Spent

Wayne Berry - Opposition Spokesperson on Tourism

Media Statement - 25 January 2000

Labor Shadow Tourism Minister Wayne Berry today called on Chief Minister Kate Carnell to release the details of Canberra's new marketing program.

"After the debacle of the 'Feel the Power' campaign we need to be sure that the Chief Minister isn't committing millions more on a campaign that is going to be rejected by the community at large, or worse still, embarrass Canberrans across the country," Mr Berry said.

"The full details of planned expenditure at each step of the strategy must be made available for community scrutiny. We must also be allowed to see the development and evaluation strategies that accompany the campaign.

"The Canberra community become very nervous each time the Chief Minister proposes some grand and expensive scheme which she claims will be good for us, only to discover the plan is more like castor oil - tastes terrible and you never feel better after being dosed with it.

"Canberrans still have a nasty taste left over from Chief Minister driven spectacles like the 'Feel the Power' campaign, the hospital implosion, the Bruce Stadium, the Futsal slab, etc, etc. Spectacular disasters because of the human and financial consequences left for the community to cope with.

"This campaign is now said to cost $4million - four times more than the enormous cost of the disgraceful 'Feel the Power' campaign which was foisted on an embarrassed community with the familiar though now discredited 'trust me' image pushed by the Chief Minister.

"Canberrans were horrified to learn of the Government manipulation of the tender process, the massive costs of the embarrassing campaign and the requirement to pay licence fees for a taxpayer funded campaign to a Sydney company. And, in a calculated political use of the now discredited slogan, TV ads were placed in Canberra during an election campaign.

"The community has no trust left and deserve to be informed about where every dollar is being spent on this huge publicity campaign," Mr Berry concluded.