Yesterday the Special Minister of State, Joe Ludwig, announced changes to the rules on government advertising, following a review by former departmental secretary Dr Allan Hawke.

The key change is that a new independent communications committee — rather than the Auditor-General — will review government advertising campaigns of more than $250,000.

The Opposition seized on the change as vindicating its position that the role should never have been with the Auditor-General.

For his part, the Auditor-General Ian McPhee fired a stinging letter to Ludwig with concerns about the new guidelines.

Some of his objection was over process, concerned that neither he nor his office was consulted in respect of the completed review report.  Some was about what were described as misunderstandings and inaccuracies on the part of the review in relation to how the audit office conducted its review function.  Mainly, it was a defence of the rigour and discipline the audit office has brought to scrutiny of government advertising.

There’s no question that the audit office did carry out the role effectively.  It is a highly professional and competent outfit.

Nevertheless, scrutiny of government advertising was always an uncomfortable fit with the responsibilities of the Auditor-General.  As McPhee’s letter acknowledges in its last paragraph, “the review role has not been without risk for my office”.

The Auditor-General is an independent statutory office, reporting to the parliament. To be effective, the Audit-Office has to stay as far away from politics as possible. But there is little in public administration more political than government advertising.

Not only that, but the core business of the audit office is conducting audits.  It is highly expert at them. Audits typically are conducted within a defined timeframe to external audit standards; ongoing monitoring over the course of many years of an activity of the malleable nature of government advertising is, while not totally foreign to auditors, a different kind of beast.

Striking a balance is hard — too rigorous scrutiny of advertising and government will be upset; too loose and the Opposition will complain. At least with a separate committee, if the government is upset it can change the committee, or if the opposition is upset it can sack them once it wins an election, without compromising the independence of the office of Auditor-General.

So far, the government’s promise of new standards in government advertising has been delivered. There are fewer egregiously politically oriented ads. The spending has been lower.

The proof of the pudding though will be what actually happens to government advertising in the next six months.  One of the most objectionable features of the previous government’s advertising was the “spike”:  a ramp up in advertising for all sorts of worthy objectives in the months leading up to an election.  If the Rudd government can avoid temptation and avoid the spike, it will confirm that it has successfully restored integrity to the system.