Democracy & Transparency
Damage Control – Media Goes Soft On Rockliff’s Liberal Lies
While the opposition and independent media expose the Liberal’s digital monopoly, the media goes soft on government lies, underplaying the reality of the spend, focusing entirely on a “dead state budget” ignoring full digital takeovers during the election.
The Mercury’s Soft-Serve Report
The Mercury’s reporting on Saturday underplayed the reality of this spend, framing it as a dispute over “dead budget” authorisation. However, the visual evidence tells a much more damning story of how the incumbency was protected by public money right up until the point of polling.
When the Premier Rockliff informed the Mercury on Saturday that advertising ended with the calling of an election, evidence revealed by TT proves that was not the case. It showed that a high exposure, taxpayer-subsidised digital takeover continued weeks into the campaign, with an advertising blitz in the final week of the July election
The Mercury, along with other big media outlets failed to challenge the delivery of these ads, rather cherrypicking information and focusing on events prior to the election.
This effectively allowed the Premier to tell readers that the advertising had stopped, when in fact it didn’t where the reality paints a much different picture, where a taxpayer funded advertising blitz was put in play, ensuring only one the Liberal side was heard.
Rockliff Government Discounts for Media Adverts
The key to this deal was a 26% “special government rate” discount identified by RTI records. These documents show the standard rate of a 24 hour full digital takeover being $5,5000 but the Premier’s office got a much more lucrative deal, securing a discounted rate of just $4,070.
This effectively enabled the liberals to dominate the digital landscape at a exclusive price point unavailable to any other political party or independent candidate. This deal, according to the Tasmanian Times was hidden behind the “Agency Shield” of Gray Matters Advertising, claiming that it constitutes a profound breach of the spirit of caretaker conventions and a hit to the integrity of the 2025 election.
Pressure now mounts not just on how and why the funds were spent, but whether the Premier is telling the truth to the Tasmanian People.
The Elephant In The Room: Pulse Tasmania
Pulse & GMA also have a lot to answer for and needs to tell the public why the government was offered a 26% discount and whether it was in line with their standard commercial policies.
Even as a digital platform selling ads, Pulse/GMA has some responsibility to flag or question ads that are clearly partisan and publicly funded. With leaked emails in May 2025, Pulse claims to act apolitically, turn down funding and refuse to run political advertorials or “controversial issues” but a month later took government money to run political advertising campaigns.
“We do not allow any advertorials to promote content of a political nature…
…However we have declined opportunities to run Advertorials for contentious political issues” – Pulse Tasmania, May 2025
Even if Pulse is adhering to it’s “advertorial” policy, the fact remains that they accepted large sums from the government to run partisan ads during an election period.
The email also showed the outlet deflected responsibility, comparing itself to other outlets (Mercury, 7 Tasmania) and outsourcing work to 3rd party agencies to normalise their government advertising practices.
the biggest question though, is whether Pulse enabled a campaign advantage with public funds, and if said deals or line-ups were orchestrated in the May-June “off-record” meetings with the Premier.
References:
https://tasmaniantimes.com/2025/12/rockliffs-false-claim-over-election-ad-halt-exposed
The Digital Hijack, “The Premier Needs To Come Clean”
Blindspot: How Media Masked Their Failures With Political Headlines
Click to access Pulse-Media-Engagement-updated.pdf
Click to access Pulse-Invoices.pdf
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