The Turnbull government is spending nearly $10 million on an advertising campaign and public relations push to sell the benefits of the Coalition's free trade agreements with China, Japan and South Korea.
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As the government ratchets up pressure on Labor to renounce its opposition to elements of the China free trade agreement, tender documents show a publicly funded ad blitz has been approved even before legislation facilitating the agreement has passed Parliament.
The $9 million cost of the campaign and PR elements is equal to that spent on Tony Abbott's ad blitz against the ice scourge and outstrips the $7.8 million spent by Labor and the Coalition on pushing the benefits of Australia's hardline border protection policy to Australians.
Senator Nick Xenophon said airing ads before Parliament has even voted to endorse the China deal amounted to "party political advertising at taxpayer's expense".
"Labor used to do this and it seems the Liberals' new boss [Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull] is the same as the old one [Tony Abbott]. It is the cheapskate's way to buy advertising rather than argue your case in the Parliament and through the media," he said.
Parliament will not begin debating the China FTA until October 12 and the crucial vote in the Senate will not happen until November.
Trade Minister Andrew Robb, who is in the United States, has said the advertising campaign was needed to counter the anti-FTA campaign by unions – which reportedly cost $7 million – which Mr Robb described as "xenophobic, misplaced, misleading and lying".
On Wednesday, a spokeswoman for Mr Robb said the ad spend was part of a $25 million "education campaign" budgeted for in May to explain the benefits of the three trade agreements and encourage businesses to explore export opportunities to Asia.
Unions and Labor have raised fears that the China FTA will cost Australian jobs because of clauses that allow for the importation of foreign workers without any requirement to test the local job market.
Melbourne-based agency Dentsu Mitchell, formerly part of Harold Mitchell's media-buying business, has been given $6.6 million for the "provision of media/advertising placement services to support the China, Japan and South Korea Free Trade Agreements Campaign".
Sydney agency 303 Lowe Group, which has been responsible for the "Captain Risky" ads for low-cost insurer Budget Direct and Carefree tampons, has been paid $1.3 million.
A further $550,000 has been spent on the provision of public relations services by Sydney-based Bluegrass Consulting and $330,000 on market research by AMR Interactive, AusTender documents show.
Some radio and online components of the campaign have begun, with TV and print elements expected to follow.
The Business Council of Australia has launched its own print and TV advertising campaign to back the China deal and increase pressure on Labor to wave through the deal.
But on Wednesday, acting Labor leader Tanya Plibersek said the opposition still wanted assurances from the government that jobs would be offered to Australians first.
"We want assurances that the skills level and the pay of people who are coming in from China to do work won't undercut the skills or pay of Australian workers," she said.
"The government says that that is no problem. In fact, Andrew Robb has said it will be no problem legislating to give those commitments. If that is the case, I don't know why we are still having this debate."
