Government to Outsource Communications Director …

Media release – Dean Winter MP, Leader of Opposition Business in the House of Assembly, 30 June 2023

Liberals’ spin in overdrive with PR appointment

The weak, unstable, minority Liberal Government’s decision to engage Font PR to run their communications office for eight weeks is extraordinary, even for the Liberals.

They are shameless. Taxpayer money is just monopoly money to them.

Font is responsible for numerous publications across Tasmania, including Tasmanian Country, the Derwent Valley Gazette, Tasmanian Business, the King Island Courier, the Sorell Times, the Tasman Gazette, the East Coast View and the Northern Midlands Courier.

Even with the loss of the Communications Director, there are still 10 people in the Liberals’ communications office. Why do they need so many spin doctors in the first place? Then they add another $50,000 for their party’s spin machine.

Does the Premier consider none of his army of spin doctors capable of doing the job? Or is this about having a direct influence on Tasmania’s media and, therefore, controlling the narrative Tasmanians hear about?

One of the biggest critics of the performance of this government has been Brad Stansfield. Yet he’s the man they have turned to in their crisis.

Mr Stansfield has lashed out at the Government’s performance, regularly criticising everything from the stadium, AFL deal, power price policy and the performance of the Premier and his team. His firm is now overseeing government communications.

Mr Stansfield – who was Chief of Staff to former Liberal Premier Will Hodgman, went so far as to describe the stadium proposal as “madness,” suggesting the AFL saw “the Tasmanian Government coming a mile away”.

Either the Premier is planning an early election or this appointment smacks of a desperate government whose only answer to the state’s problems is an intense spin cycle in overdrive.

Editor’s note: Font PR has cropped up in quite a few places. In case you missed it, they are part of TasNetworks campaign blitz on Marinus Link. It’s well set out in the article linked below.

TASMANIAN INQUIRER: Revealed: TasNetworks’ $1 million covert PR campaign for Marinus Link.