Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Hansard source

I am not sure where the senator gets her figures from but the information given to me is that, for the 2006-07 financial year, total advertising placed through the central advertising system was $171 million. If we look at what the state governments are doing—I always think that is quite relevant—we can see that in the course of 2006 state governments, whose total budget is about half ours, actually spent $354 million. So the state governments are not only spending twice as much as us; their total budget is only half the size of ours. They are not doing anything anyway. What have they got to advertise? The state governments do absolutely nothing except fail completely to supply their citizens with public transport. They cannot supply them with water. What do these state governments do?