9920 (2026). Camilla Belich to the Minister of Corrections

9920 (2026). Camilla Belich to the Minister of Corrections: How much has been spent on external communications, public relations, advertising, or media monitoring by each department or entity for which the Minister is responsible in each financial year since 2021/22, broken down by department or entity and by spending category?

Hon Mark Mitchell: I am advised that Corrections’ advertising costs relate exclusively to the advertising undertaken for the purpose of recruitment. As has been widely reported, Corrections has faced staffing challenges in recent years, and they continue to make a concerted effort to recruit additional frontline staff. As a result, increased advertising costs have been incurred in order to support Corrections recruitment campaign for corrections officers, with the latest phase of their campaign launching in January 2026. This included TV commercials, online ads (including on social media), and radio ads. Corrections has also invested in frontline based recruitment advertising for other priority roles including nurses, psychologists, probation officers, case managers, programme facilitators, and community work supervisors. I refer the member to the attached table, which provides a breakdown of recruitment advertising spend for the 2021/22 to 2025/26 financial years. I am further advised that Corrections contracts an external media monitoring service. For the financial years 2021/22 to 2024/25 inclusive, Correction has spent $66,000 per annum on media monitoring. This has reduced to $50,000 for the 2025/26 financial year. Finally, it is considered that Corrections’ Sexual Harassment Campaign is within scope of the member’s request. For information relating to that campaign, I refer the member to my responses to WPQ 9945 (2025) and WPQ 13116 (2025).