Public Eye: The government's ad dollars, APS property movers and shakers and CSIRO's big pay saga

To mark the end of the financial year, Public Eye dug into the most expensive media campaigns in the last year. Any government advertising campaigns valued at more than $250,000 must be greenlit by an independent committee. We had a look at the big ticket items on that list.

First up, the Department of Defence spent a cool $41.8 million on its recruitment program in the last financial year. Universal McCann delivered the campaign - just the cherry on top of a sweet deal they have with the federal government as the whole-of-government supplier for advertising.

Apparently it was all worth it because the campaign drove a year-on-year application growth of 13 per cent (comparing July 2022 to April 2023 with July 2021 to April 2022).

The Department of Health had a few hefty campaigns this year, but the effort to get Australians jabbed with their COVID-19 boosters took up most of the budget, costing $17.6 million.

Spending on a campaign for the Voice to Parliament was surprisingly low in comparison. Mind you, this isn't money for the "yes" or "no" campaigns, but rather the National Indigenous Australians Agency spent $9.5 million on a neutral campaign from May, in an effort to build understanding and awareness of the Voice referendum.

It matched spending by the Department of Education on the government's childcare subsidy changes, delivered by advertising agency The Monkeys.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade meanwhile invested $17.1 million from 2022-23 to 2024-25 into its Smartraveller campaign. "Each month there are more than 1 million departures from Australia. At any point in time there are around 1,250 cases of Australians needing help overseas," a spokesperson said.

The Department of Social Services' carer gateway program cost $15 million between the financial years of 2020-21 to 2023-24. Minister for Social Services Amanda Rishworth said it's resulted in a "dramatic increase" in engagement, including 500 per cent increase in online users.

The "Stop it at the Start" program, which encourages adults to reflect on respectful behaviour, cost $4.902 million. You might have heard of it, the minister added, with research indicating 56 per cent of people could recall the campaign.

The Department of Health's New Ways of Working program, or NWOW (nee-woww?), is on to its next stage and it's a costly one.

The department has been refitting levels of its offices one at a time to "better support the desired culture of its workforce". It's already fitted out levels 6, 7 and 9 of its Sirius Building in Woden and now levels 1, 2 and 4 are up.

The levels will be transformed with standing desks, improved meeting rooms and lighting, along with fresh furniture and white goods. The estimated cost is between $25 million and $30 million. Ooft.

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While we're on the topic of property, the Australian Communications and Media Authority is also refreshing its office floor in Belconnen. It hopes the change will offer its staff a workplace where they "feel comfortable, valued, safe and supported".

Its office floor revival is budgeted at $7.9 million excluding GST. That includes the total furniture, fixtures, equipment and loose furniture costs, which tally up to $1.5 million.

And the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade revealed last week it, too, was on the hunt for some new digs by 2026 for three of its Canberra offices. But it wants one within three kilometres of Parliament House. Oh, and it's not willing to share office space due to "operational requirements".

It's a good time to be in the Canberra property industry.

It's been an interesting few months of bargaining between public servants and the Australian Public Service Commission but the time for talks is soon to be over.

Negotiations for common APS service-wide conditions, known as part A bargaining, are still on track to conclude by the end of July. But chief negotiator Peter Riordan might still be preparing for a few spillover meetings in August.

An APSC spokesperson told Public Eye it "may be necessary for some additional meetings to occur" to allow representatives to provide their responses to the Commonwealth's pay and conditions offering.

Then it will be onto the agency-level conditions, otherwise known as part B. "After this, agencies will each organise a vote with their employees that will include both common terms and any items they've negotiated individually," the spokesperson said.

The Department Employment and Workplace Relations are due to move to a slick new office on the corner of London Circuit and Northbourne Avenue in 2026.

Staff at the department have had a bit of bad office luck of late, after their current quarters at 50 Marcus Clarke Street were closed for months last year following a freak ceiling collapse (No one was injured and the 15 metres of ceiling affected has since been repaired).

Still, it's understandable that the agency would want to dot every I and cross every T as they prepare for the move to their new home.

That included displaying furniture samples for the new office for public servants to test out at their Marcus Clarke and 12 Mort Street offices.

A spokesperson for the department didn't answer questions on which items were displayed, and what brands they were (yes, we really wanted to know), but said: "The showcase was done to provide our staff with visibility of furniture options that exist in the market and that may be used in future office fit outs."

Time moves fast in the public service so we nearly forgot about a recent Senate estimates saga involving CSIRO and an overpayment to one of its board members.

CSIRO officials in June revealed influential business figure and a former chief executive for gas giant Santos, David Knox, had been overpaid around $200,000 for his role on the science agency's board.

Outgoing boss Larry Marshall said it was investigating how the overpayment happened while it was separately noted Mr Knox also chairs the Snowy Hydro Limited board.

At the time in early June, Mr Knox had yet to pay back the sum.

But CSIRO provided an update on Friday, saying the "majority of the amount owed" had since been paid.

"The parties are working together to resolve the remaining outstanding components," the statement said.

Time may move fast, but senior business figures paying back overpayments do not.

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