The impact of that is difficult to measure. Labor sources estimate the Liberal party and hospitality industry would have collectively spent $5m on advertising, and say the TV ad ratio is running 10:1 in the Liberals’ favour. None of the major players will say how much they are spending on the campaign, and under existing donation disclosure laws they will not have to until next year. Labor, running short on money, has held back much of its advertising until the final weeks.

White announced the pokies phase out in December an anti-pokies campaign by advocacy group Bad Bets Australia – funded by the Museum of Old and New Art creator David Walsh, and portraying poker machines as parasites, scuttling around the suburbs – began only midway through the campaign. We wanted to put our position out there, and that’s what it is.”Ĭounter-advertising backing Labor’s policy gamble was much slower to appear. Of the billboard, he says: “It is straight to the point, but we’ve been attacked – our business, our staff, our future. He says his campaign is driven “by anger extreme disappointment” with Labor. Love Your Local chairman Michael Best, who owns nine gaming venues as head of the Goodstone Group, is not sure if it is the largest campaign in the state’s history, but agrees it is hard to miss. Liberal party advertising – black-backgrounded when a voice warns of the risks of a Labor-Greens minority government, stately navy blue for premier Will Hodgman in positive mode – has been no less ubiquitous. The Love Your Local campaign has run alongside a similarly themed push by Federal Group, the privately owned Sydney hotel company that holds the exclusive right to licence the state’s pokies. Photograph: Phillip Biggs/AAPĪnalysts believe it is almost certainly the most expensive election campaign in the state’s history, driven in part by a national gaming industry concerned to make sure the anti-pokies push does not spread to the mainland. Tasmanian Labor leader Rebecca White on stage during Tasmanian Labor’s official election campaign launch in Launceston.

Hard long pokies