Tasmania’s public sector integrity watchdog has launched public consultation on the misuse of resources in parliamentary elections, and is seeking input from stakeholders and community members.

Resources to come under the spotlight include staff, advertising, communications and allowances, the Integrity Commission says.

Acting CEO Julia Hickey says elections are the cornerstone of democracy and the community needs to have confidence they are run fairly, transparently and in the public interest.

Misuse of taxpayer-funded resources for political campaigning means taxpayers may miss out on services those funds would otherwise have gone towards, and can give the governing party an ‘incumbency benefit’ because of greater access to funds.

“The Integrity Commission aims to ensure that election campaign misconduct risks are communicated to the public and to promote discussion about potential solutions. Public resources must be used in the public interest,” Ms Hickey said.

The commission has released a consultation paper to get the discussion going, the third in its series on ethical conduct and potential misconduct risks in state elections.

The first paper, published in 2021, focused on pork barrelling, and paper two, released the following year, looked at pre-election grant commitments.

The latest paper, The use and misuse of public resources during election campaigns, considers the misdirection of taxpayer funded resources for political campaigning.

It seeks public feedback on legal and regulatory frameworks, codes of conduct and oversight, transparency, use of travel allowances  and policy and election commitment costing processes.

Submissions can be made until September 3.

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