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Ad infinitum
By Steven | September 30, 2026
Yet another ASA decision about yet another National Party ad – a billboard this time.
There’s one of these on the motorway between Wellington and Petone and when I saw it I was outraged. I started drafting a complaint to the ASA myself. But then I thought I’d better check the wording. So I drove out there again and noticed – when I read it more carefully – that the red side is labeled “Labour Coalition”. I hadn’t seen that on first pass. I suspect National would be quite happy about that.
Still, fifteen other people complained. They took various objections. Some felt it was claiming that Labour was proposing nine new taxes. Drivers were likely to miss the “coalition” part. (I did). Others said, anyway, no-one’s proposing nine new taxes, and it won’t be clear who’s in government and what deal they’ll strike on taxes until after the election. There is no “Labour coalition”. One felt it was unfair to compare the left block with just Labour. Another pointed out that National promoted taxes or levies where increases were built into the structure. Many called it a “lie”.
The National Party said polls universally showed Labour would need a coalition to govern. It would be Labour-led, hence the redness. It listed the proposed taxes, which are mostly Greens proposals.
The ASA split. The majority didn’t uphold the complaint, saying the red bit of the billboard was a “forward-looking opinion” – a clearly distinguish political viewpoint – and the right part was a fact. A minority said the “nine new taxes” was presented as fact, and there wasn’t evidence for it. Some minority members said it was presented as Labour policy because of the big red sign and the small “coalition” label. So it was just false. Others in the minority accepted that drivers would notice the word “coaltion” but the sign was still wrong because any taxes would depend on coalition negotiations.
The complaints board has nine members – five members of the public and four industry members. The way the decision is drafted (“some members of the minority… other members of the minority”) the decision looks to have been 5-4.
I may be biased by my own experience, but I tend to sit with those who think the little rider at the bottom of a billboard that is designed for drivers to just glance at isn’t enough to overwhelm the obvious impression created by the glaring Labour-redness of the sign (and the fact that it’s just one party on the other side – which invites a party-to-party comparison).
But if you buy that the billboard makes it clear that it’s about the coalition, then it’s a closer call for sure. I think it’s a bit weird to say that viewers will get that one side is a fact and the other is a “forward-looking opinion”, but I don’t think you need to go there: it’s plausible that people will just think it’s a summary of the policies of the relevant groups. Likewise, I’m not sure I agree that it’s wrong because we won’t know what the tax position will be until after coalition negotiations. That strikes me as obvious, so it doesn’t make the sign false. It’s saying: here are all the tax policies that the various likely coalition members are putting forward.
But for me, the real problem is that Labour – whose branding colour is being used here – has categorically ruled out four of these taxes. This is something the ASA doesn’t mention (though I suppose the minority members who say it call comes down to coalition negotiations might have had this in mind). The thing is, I don’t think there’s a universe where a Labour-led coalition introduces these nine new taxes. And if that’s the case, or even that it’s just extremely extremely unlikely, then isn’t this really… false? I mean, how insanely implausible does a claim have to be before we treat it as wrong? Even allowing lots of wiggle room for political speech?
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