The government is being urged to stop the abuse of taxpayer-funded advertising, a dependency on which has led to $50 million a year in public money being spent advertising political messages in recent years.

A new report released on Monday by the Grattan Institute, a public policy think tank, finds that over the past 13 years some $630 million, or about a quarter of the total budget for federal advertising campaigns, has been spent on political self-promotion.

The spending spikes on the eve of an election, the report finds.

And it’s a bipartisan problem: Half of the most expensive politicised campaigns were approved by Labor and half by Coalition over the same period, the report finds.

It calls for tougher regulations at the federal and state level to prevent public information campaigns from being misused – and for parties found to breach these rules to face real penalties.

“Weaponising taxpayer-funded advertising for political advantage wastes public money, undermines trust in politicians and democracy, and creates an uneven playing field in elections,” the report’s lead author and Grattan Institute CEO Danielle Wood said.

The report calls for all proposed campaigns to first come before an independent panel that assesses whether it has a public or politicised message before they are given permission to go to air.

Any review by the Auditor-General that finds a case of a politicised campaign being approved by a minister without prior approval from an independent panel should have the party in government billed for the cost of that campaign.

“Australians cannot rely on the goodwill of ministers to prevent misuse of public money on politicised advertising,” Ms Wood said.

“It’s time to ensure that taxpayer-funded advertising is solely for the benefit of the public, not politicians.”

Liberal Party pre-election campaigns, such as on Work Choices and the tens of millions of dollars spent on ads promoting the GST – set to the Joe Cocker song Unchain My Heart – came in for heavy criticism from Labor before it last came into government.

But promised changes and new processes were often bypassed by the Rudd government and its advertising of a stimulus bonus given to taxpayers in 2009 is highlighted as an example of a politicised campaign.

Most recently Labor MPs were critical of a campaign spruiking Australia’s economic plan for recovery after the pandemic, which was authorised by Treasury but which critics appeared to use a Liberal Party colour palette.

Under current rules the Independent Communications Committee reviews all campaigns costing more than $250,000, but only reviews ads at the pitch stage and not the completed product.

The Australia Institute has cited polling finding that three-quarters of Australians back a proposal to have the Auditor-General review the information content of publicly funded ads.