Misleading Billboards Are a Threat to Electoral Integrity

Written By: - Date published: 6:44 pm, April 7th, 2025 - 33 comments
Categories: campaigning, electoral commission, greens, making shit up, scoundrels - Tags: ,

The appearance of billboards targeting Green Party MP Tamatha Paul raises concerns about electoral integrity and public trust. These billboards, designed and put up by the Sensible Sentencing Trust, mimic the campaign materials used by Tamatha Paul during her successful bid for Wellington Central in 2023, even copying her portrait. This striking similarity risks misleading voters into believing these advertisements are genuine Green Party campaign hoardings.


While the Electoral Commission has stated that these billboards do not require prior written authorisation from the Green Party’s secretary, I think that this decision is wrong and should be reconsidered. The resemblance to official campaign materials could inadvertently (!!) sway public opinion, particularly among those who feel uneasy about visible police presence or have concerns about police beat patrols. Such individuals might actually be encouraged to support the Green Party, even if they recognise the billboards as inauthentic.


This situation highlights the need for stricter regulations to prevent the misuse of campaign imagery and ensure transparency in political advertising. The integrity of our electoral process depends on clear distinctions between genuine campaign materials and hostile third-party fake advertisements. Without these safeguards, we risk undermining public trust and the democratic process itself, which is dirtying politics.

33 comments on “Misleading Billboards Are a Threat to Electoral Integrity ”

  1. roblogic 1
    7 April 2025 at 7:20 pm

    Saw one in a prominent spot in Wellington today. Will take a photo if I see it again.

    Big money behind this, a big electronic billboard near Lambton Quay, by the Stuff head office

    Nasty shit. And crickets when it comes to Tim Jago

    Reply
  2. weka 2
    7 April 2025 at 7:27 pm

    I think one of the reasons for this not being illegal via the EC is because it would inhibit political satire.

    I hope the Greens go to the advertising standards authority, but I also hope they use the opportunity to educate the public about what their actual policies are.

    Reply
  3. Ad 3
    7 April 2025 at 7:57 pm

    Given the Green Party specifically promoted the Copyright Parody and Satire Bill into Parliament less than 9 months ago, they will rightly have the shit mocked out of them if they complain about a campaign of parody and satire about their own campaign.

    Reply
    • Dennis Frank 3.1
      7 April 2025 at 8:47 pm

      Correct. Yet the essayist expresses a reasonable concern likely to be widely shared. As someone who, once upon a time, made tv ads for a career, I'm concerned about the toxic potential of propaganda of any kind. Some people flip out easily.

      In the social darwinist view, losers get flushed out of the system. It's natural. Yet culture has ethos as an essential dimension, which contains natural spirituality along with religions, plus compassion & empathy & social intelligence.

      Whilst the commons has long been fundamental, politicos remain averse to mentally grasping it as a basis for organising economics and politics. Yet Elinor Ostrom won her Nobel Prize for advocating its usage. You can't avoid the inevitable. Common interest in the matter of false advertising must constrain bad behaviour, but partisan representation in the regulating system is a design challenge. Folks get motivated by equity of participation, and delegating to reps often doesn't work out well. The discipline required is collaborative design for the common good (a positive alternative to democracy).

      Reply
    • Incognito 3.2
      7 April 2025 at 8:54 pm

      The Sensible Sentencing Trust also said that and similarly confused this as a copyright issue – the SST also claimed that the Greens re-claimed their copyright. However, this is the not the argument of my Post. Anyway, sometimes it’s a fine line between mocking and misleading.

      https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO2504/S00036/greens-claim-intellectual-property-rights-and-demand-changes-to-defund-the-police-billboards.htm

      Reply
    • Bearded Git 3.3
      8 April 2025 at 8:01 am

      So you support blatant lies on billboards Ad?

      Reply
      • weka 3.3.1
        8 April 2025 at 8:16 am

        how do you legislate against it without suppressing political satire/parody?

        Reply
        • weka 3.3.1.1
          8 April 2025 at 8:17 am

          to be clear, I think the original billboards were utterly wrong. I'm just not sure how they can be stopped.

          Reply
          • weka 3.3.1.1.1
            8 April 2025 at 8:22 am

            rereading the post, I think Incog is right. It's about making the images differentiate from GP material enough so that people know it's not GP material.

            Reply
            • Incognito 3.3.1.1.1.1
              8 April 2025 at 8:44 am

              Thanks!

              The Post is not about being right or wrong but about stimulating debate about a number of issues such as freedom of expression and electoral integrity and good ol’s Dirty Politics but unfortunately few commenters want to go there, it seems.

              Reply
        • Bearded Git 3.3.1.2
          8 April 2025 at 9:06 am

          I don't think putting up a blatant policy lie and then sarcastically saying vote for the the party that supports that policy is satire.

          "Satire: the use of humour, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticise people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues."

          The policy printed on the billboard is not the policy of the Greens, so it does not fit this definition. If it was a Green Party policy then it would be satire.

          BTW I travelled through Colombia for 5 months in 2012. There were lots and lots of police around. It did not give me the feeling that it was safe to walk the streets-far from it. It made me feel that if I was walking in a street where there were no police it wasn’t safe.

          Reply
          • weka 3.3.1.2.1
            8 April 2025 at 9:24 am

            I didn’t say it was satire, I was asking how to write a law that bans those ads without also suppressing satire and parody?

            Reply
  4. weka 4
    7 April 2025 at 8:47 pm

    BHN are covering the billboards tonight (9pm).

    https://www.youtube.com/live/Iirvhobgpog

    Reply
    • Incognito 4.2
      8 April 2025 at 10:18 am

      I watched BHN this morning (https://www.youtube.com/live/Iirvhobgpog?si=ztBE2eIdgHuOWhGe&t=499) [segment stops @ 19:46] and it was very good; they’ll be interviewing Tamatha Paul tonight on their show.

      They mentioned the ACT Party and their confused supporters and also The Taxpayers’ Union.

      They pondered how the disgraced and defunct astroturf group The Sensible Sentencing Trust could come from nowhere and fund this very expensive astroturf attack campaign – watch this space.

      They confirmed that indeed copyright was an issue and that SST infringed copyright because they didn’t have the rights to the actual photo of Tamatha Paul laugh

      Reply
  5. Incognito 5
    7 April 2025 at 8:57 pm

    Heh! I just saw a strikingly similar post by No Right Turn: http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2025/04/the-return-of-dirty-politics.html

    Reply
  6. bwaghorn 6
    8 April 2025 at 6:31 am

    Here's an idea why don't the greens stop selecting mps that are unstable drama queens,

    I say that as someone who would be completely unfit to be an mp due to a rocky past and a lack of people skills and no patience for shit behavior

    Reply
    • weka 6.1
      8 April 2025 at 8:21 am

      yeah, that would help. Apparently they've changed the vetting process, but it's going to take some time for the effect of that to trickle through. I'm also not convinced the Greens are quite there in terms of accepting responsibility for this side of it.

      However, the right will always go very hard against the Greens, and the public hold them to a higher standard than other parties, being the country's conscience. So the billboards are still a problem.

      Reply
    • arkie 6.2
      8 April 2025 at 8:35 am

      Bit of casual misogyny in calling Tamatha Paul an 'unstable drama queen' when this post is about the actions of the Sensible Sentencing Trust. They are the ones acting unstable, all Paul has done is, have what she said and her views repeatedly misrepresented.

      Even when they are the targets of dirty politics it's still the Greens fault. Ridiculous.

      Reply
      • bwaghorn 6.2.1
        8 April 2025 at 3:23 pm

        Wasn't thinking of her when wrote it to be honest as I haven't really had time to see what it's all about in her case, was just venting at some of the past loons that have help drag the lefts polling down .

        Reply
        • arkie 6.2.1.1
          8 April 2025 at 4:01 pm

          So was it Golriz Ghahraman you were referring as a 'loon' and a 'drama queen'?

          The Greens continue to poll very highly; it doesn’t make sense to blame them for the failure of the ‘left’ as a whole.

          Reply
    • Incognito 6.3
      8 April 2025 at 8:35 am

      That’s not the argument nor topic of the Post and if you want to go there please take it to OM, thanks.

      Reply
  7. barry 7
    8 April 2025 at 7:10 am

    I take it as the SST finally realising that the Greens are the only party with policies that will reduce crime.

    Reply
  8. Belladonna 8
    8 April 2025 at 9:01 am

    For me, the big issue here isn't what the SST specifically have done here.

    The issue is can anyone (political party or interested influence group, or nutjob) – publicize materials which look and feel identical to official political campaign material – but are not intended to support that party.

    If they can – then how can the general public distinguish what is a legitimate expression of the political party policy, from what is not? The absence of a tiny line saying 'authorized by XXX party – is probably not enough.

    I don't *think* that the SST have crossed the line here (would anyone actually think this is a legit GP billboard promoting their policy?). But it's getting close.

    How does this compare with the notorious Iwi/Kiwi campaign – which also used campaign images of one set of politicians to promote the policies of another.

    And, of course, the line-to-be-crossed in my mind is certainly different to the line in someone else's mind.

    Reply
    • weka 8.1
      8 April 2025 at 9:37 am

      I think the original one crossed the line. It used the format and photo from Paul’s campaign, and was obviously intended to deceive.

      Reply
  9. Incognito 9
    8 April 2025 at 9:19 am

    The copyright aspect has won over the bigger issue of deliberately misleading the public to gain electoral advantage. So, Dirty Politics lives another day sad

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/billboards-attacking-green-mps-chloe-swarbrick-and-tamatha-paul-appear-in-auckland-wellington/R5TXGHP56RGX3LFS25PAIL3Z2Q/

    Reply
  10. Michael Delceg 10
    8 April 2025 at 2:01 pm

    I think that people are missing the point here. The objective is to create confusion, a standard fascist tactic. As R D Laing has pointed out, do enough of this and people wind up doing what they're told. That doesn't mean that the Greens shouldn't take the perpetrators to court, on any of several grounds.

    Reply
    • Drowsy M. Kram 10.1
      8 April 2025 at 2:20 pm

      The objective is to create confusion, a standard fascist tactic.

      yes

      If you can’t convince them, confuse them.

      On September 18, 1948 Harry Truman spoke in Dexter, Iowa, on the occasion of the National Plowing Match. He lambasted his political antagonists, and mentioned the adage while accusing them of guile.

      That’s plain hokum. It’s an old political trick. “If you can’t convince ’em, confuse ’em.” But this time it won’t work.

      I hope it won’t work.

      Reply
      • Incognito 10.1.1
        8 April 2025 at 2:51 pm

        I hope it won’t work.

        Hope is necessary but not sufficient.

        If the general public has the intelligence of an average 12-year-old then these sorts of actions are inevitable to mislead and confuse unless the guidelines & regulations are robust enough to mitigate this. I think the Electoral Commission got it wrong and is too blasé about the negative consequences for electoral integrity that are likely and demonstrably real.

        If we were to discuss in the context of freedom of expression then the limits and constraints should be included too – these work both ways. On the one hand, it’s good that the Greens could challenge this attack based on a technicality (i.e., copyright of the photo), but on other hand, it circumvented and wider debate on the tension between freedom of expression and possible harm to critical democratic tools and trust.

        Reply
  11. Shanreagh 11
    8 April 2025 at 6:03 pm

    If the general public has the intelligence of an average 12-year-old …..

    Is it as high as this Incognito? wink

    Back in the day when writing draft Ministerial press releases/letters we were told it was 9 years old….. 12 years old is almost going/gone off to secondary school, most 12 year old know everything (having been one). Writing for a 9 year old is 'a horse of a different colour' as my Dad would say.

    Reply

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