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Another problem with the ASA’s election complaint process
By Steven | September 28, 2026
Here’s a complaint against a National Party Facebook and Instagram ad, again falsely implying that Labour is proposing nine new taxes (though to be fair it doesn’t seem to explicitly mention Labour). The ASA chair decided there were grounds to refer it to the complaints board for consideration.
But then National simply said the ad “has now dropped out of circulation” and they “don’t play to use it again”.
So the ASA stopped the process and treated the complaint as “settled”.
Note that National isn’t specifically saying that the ad is no longer available, or has been withdrawn.
More importantly, surely this will be the case with almost every single social media ad. Each ad will have run its course before the ASA has time to consider it, so they’ll never be able to rule on it. National (or any party using this strategy) just needs to tell the ASA it’s done with that ad, tweak it and put it out again (as it would have done anyway), and it will escape any accountability for falsity, no matter how blatant.
This is not a complaints process that’s fit for purpose. But it is the process that the government proposes to entirely replace the BSA’s consideration of electoral complaints.
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