Shadow Water Minister Perin Davey said it raises serious concerns about the accuracy and appropriateness of the campaign.
The Deniliquin-based Senator criticised the Federal Government's decision to use CGI to depict an apocalyptic future scenario of the Murray-Darling Basin, calling it “misleading and an exaggerated portrayal of potential drought impacts”.
The department had previously refused to answer questions on where images used in the ads and the associated online campaign were taken in the basin and whether they were AI generated.
Finally, during Senate Estimates hearings on Friday evening, the department’s communications and media branch head Anita Agett admitted "there is one image where CGI was used to show a potential future scenario".
The image in question depicted a severely dry Murray-Darling Basin, which department secretary David Fredericks defended as an "honest attempt" to illustrate what a dry Basin might look like.
Mr Fredericks also suggested that there were no real images available that matched this scenario, prompting the use of CGI.
When pressed for clarification on the evidence base for using such stark imagery, Senator Davey pointed out the historical inaccuracies in the campaign's portrayal saying “the Murray River did not run dry even during the millennium drought”.
During the exchange, the department also reluctantly admitted it had used photographs that didn’t come from the Basin, with a picture of an orange orchard having been taken in Turkey.
When he was informed that a Turkish orange orchard was being passed off as one in the Basin, Griffith citrus grower and co-founder of Redbelly Citrus, Vito Mancini said it was evidence the department did not respect food producers in the Basin.
“Our region is one of the most photogenic citrus regions in the world and for the department to take an image from Turkey when they could just come to Griffith and get better shots is bitterly disappointing” Mr Mancini said.
Senator Davey urged the government to invest in meaningful solutions for the Basin.
"Instead of spending $14 million on an exaggerated ad campaign, we should be addressing critical issues like fish passage and riparian health," she said.
The revelations in Senate Estimates come in the same week NSW Member for Murray Helen Dalton was pushing the NSW Govenrment to “denounce” the Federal Government’s ad campaign.
In Parliament Tuesday last week, Ms Dalton urged the government and Premier Chris Minns to speak out about to the “multimillion-dollar propaganda operation”.
“The Feds are misusing $12 million of taxpayer dollars in order to deliberately spread what I call ‘river lies’,” she said in Parliament.
“What I can report from rural New South Wales is that the propaganda is not working. Voters out my way see this for what it is: wasteful propaganda that we are being forced to pay for.”
Ms Dalton said if the Federal Government really cared for the Basin and its communities, the money spent on advertising would have been invested more wisely.
She said the river system needs more fish ladders, riverbank repairs, investment in reducing carp and blue-green algae and in improving water quality throughout the basin.
“But no, we do not get any real help. Instead, we get $12 million of Federal Government river lies.”
