The ACT government has spent at least $500,000 on surveys of Canberrans in the past three years, asking questions on everything from parks to cemeteries to horse agistment.
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Figures provided to the Liberal opposition by Territory and Municipal Services Minister Shane Rattenbury show six that companies have undertaken survey work for his directorate since the start of the 2012-13 financial year, at a cost of $503,000.
The true cost of research could be much larger still as the figures don't include survey work commissioned by other parts of the government, including a $29,000 study into attitudes about light rail in Canberra that was released this month.
Mr Rattenbury said 14 surveys had been commissioned during the period to March, including the annual TAMS survey and customer satisfaction research on parks, city services, playgrounds and Canberra Connect.
Other surveys included preferences for communication methods in the community, attitudes to the expansion of the Mugga Lane landfill site, staff research at the government-owned Capital Linen company and satisfaction with Libraries ACT services and loans policies.
Research firm Micromex reaped the highest returns from ACT government survey contracts, earning $216,419 in the period.
Market Attitude Research Services collected $168,236 and Market Solutions earned $77,545.
Firms including People Dynamics, Nexus Research and Purdon Associates earned between $4000 and $24,000 for survey work, while Piazza Research conducted the study on light rail.
Mr Rattenbury said research including a "cemeteries post burial survey" and "horse agistment client survey" had involved opt-in participants, while most involved randomly selected phone numbers.
The survey on government communications methods was completed by participants who volunteered to be listed on a government database.
"In the case of the 'Canberra Connect customer satisfaction survey', respondents are randomly selected from a database of residents who have volunteered to complete surveys," Mr Rattenbury said.
"This database is owned and managed by the survey company."
"Participants in the TAMS annual survey focus groups are representatively selected to ensure they broadly mirror the profile of the community."
He said the government did not provide funding for payment, gifts or other incentives for survey participants, but conceded that one survey by Market Attitude Research Services had offered $2 scratchie tickets to people who completed a written survey on business services in February.
"There was one contractor who, without TAMS’ knowledge, offered an incentive to respondents," Mr Rattenbury said.
"The Director-General has reiterated this practice will cease and no future contracts are to offer inducement of any sort."
Mr Coe said more transparency was needed from the government.
“$500,000 is a large sum of money for one directorate’s surveys, especially for often generic and ambiguous questions," he said on Wednesday.
“I call on the government to publish the results for every question in every survey so that taxpayers can assess the merits of the polling.”
