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ASA cops out again
By Steven | September 3, 2026
Looks like the Advertising Standards Authority is doing its usual thing in letting political parties get away with blatantly misleading ads by pretending that they are opinions. It’s a bit difficult to tell, because the ASA’s website’s new display format provides so little information about the complaint, the ad complained about, or the ASA’s reasoning. Looks like this complaint targeted the National Party’s “Triple Your Taxes” ad. The complaint’s board’s chair just bowled out the complaint on the basis of unspecified precedents and the assertion that it was “a statement of political opinion”.
I have no idea what criteria the ASA use to decide whether something is an opinion or not. I think the best definition of opinion is something like “a statement that, in the context, indicates to the audience that it’s something they can disagree with”. I’m in favour of giving political speech latitude. I’m also in favour of protecting the voting public from electoral misinformation. Yes, that can be a difficult balance. But it’s hard (though perhaps not impossible) to spell out a case that this particular ad isn’t asserting a fact. It’s distressing that the ASA doesn’t even try.
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