The Defence Department’s publicity battalion has called in reinforcements from the private sector, spending hundreds of thousands of taxpayers’ dollars on consultants for public relations advice.
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The spending comes despite the Abbott government’s orders that Defence cut more than $6 million from its publicity budget and spend the money on tanks, bombs and guns instead.
Defence has more than $322,000 in contracts with Progressive PR and Publicity, despite the giant department having more than 200 public servants and uniformed personnel working on communications, media and public relations.
Another deal worth $48,000 with Sydney outfit Impact Communications is also in place.
A Defence spokeswoman said on Thursday that Progressive was supplying know-how for the military’s drive to recruit more women and it was more cost-effective to outsource the PR work than to use in-house experts.
May’s federal budget pledged to save $43 million over four years “streamlining” the bureaucracy’s publicity efforts with $6.4 million to be trimmed from Defence over the four-year forward estimates period.
But instead of the cash going towards the “budget repair” effort, Defence must redirect the savings to “defence capability” in line with the Coalition’s pre-election promise not to cut military spending.
Defence’s “MediaOps” unit deploys 216 spinners, enough to staff two infantry companies, according to the latest available figures, among at least 1900 media and communications workers in the broader Commonwealth government.
But the department has three contracts with Melbourne-based Progressive to provide “public relations” and “media support services”.
Media units in the public service have been a sensitive subject since Public Service Minister Eric Abetz, while in opposition in 2012, railed against the "battalion" of communications workers, when their numbers hovered around the 1600 mark.
Fairfax media revealed in March that the numbers had grown to at least 1900, costing up to $190 million a year, and in the budget the government told public service agencies and they must save $43 million on their communications budgets in the next four years.
A Defence MediaOps spokeswoman said Progressive was part of a panel of experts qualified to give PR advice to the department.
“Defence Force Recruiting maintains a media services support panel, which includes companies that provide marketing, advertising, media buy and public relations advice to support recruitment activities as it is more cost-effective to contract these services than to retain them in-house,” she said.
“Progressive Public Relations & Publicity (PPR) was engaged to support communication for the Recruitment of Women Strategy.”
Finance Minister Mathias Cormann’s office said departmental secretaries and agency chief executives would determine where to cut and how deeply.
“The savings for this measure will be achieved by applying a reduction in estimated communications expenditure across portfolio agencies over the forward estimates,” a spokeswoman said.
“The implementation of those savings will be determined by individual portfolio secretaries and chief executives of other affected agencies, ensuring that allocations take account of their operational needs.”
