PM pledges transparency for election

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has laid down a gauntlet for National with twin transparency promises for the 2020 election, saying she wants to avoid ‘‘negative fake news style’’ campaigns seen overseas.

Ardern will sign her party up to Facebook’s voluntary political ad transparency tool and will have its election policies independently costed.

The tool, known as the Facebook Ad Library Report, will mean the public can see which voters Labour is targeting and roughly how much money it is spending on the Facebook ads, which are likely to play a major role in the election this year. It is mandatory in the UK and the US but voluntary for political parties in New Zealand.

It has no bearing on the truthfulness of ads and Facebook has explicitly said it does not wish to be the arbiter of truth in political advertising.

Labour had its election policies costed by BERL at the last election, but this did not stop a massive furore erupting when then-Finance Minister Steven Joyce claimed there was an $11 billion hole in the costings – a claim that was never borne out.

This independent costing is different from the Public Budget Office that Labour attempted to set up last year as an officer of Parliament. That attempt was stymied when National said it did not support the creation of such an office. It will replace the planned interim costings unit that was to be set up within Treasury.

Ardern said the interim unit would not have made sense if only the Government parties had used it – and National had rejected the idea.

Since Stuff asked about the transparency tool in August the Greens have signed up for it while Labour and National have repeatedly said they are still ‘‘considering’’ their use of the tool.

At one point Labour general secretary Andre Anderson said Labour would only use the tool if National signed up as well. ACT leader David Seymour has signed up to use the tool.

Ardern was speaking to her caucus at their two-day retreat in Martinborough in the Wairarapa ahead of the political year starting in earnest at Ratana today. She said Kiwis deserve a robust but factual exchange between parties.

‘‘New Zealanders deserve a positive election. I don’t want New Zealand to fall into the trap of the negative fake news style campaigns that have taken place overseas in recent years,’’ Ardern said.

National leader Simon Bridges said his party was still considering whether to sign up to the transparency tool, but downplayed its importance. National was first asked about the tool by Stuff in August.

‘‘It’s not something I’ve considered. What I would say to you is what would that achieve? We’ve got our ads we’ve got an advertising standards process,’’ Bridges said.

In a background briefing with reporters Labour said its polling suggested New Zealanders had a much more positive view of the country than people in the US and UK. They believed this meant a negative-style campaign would fail.