National Party ads may breach standards code
Two National Party advertisements will be investigated for being potentially misleading.
The Advertising Standards Authority has decided that complaints made against the party have reached the threshold for further investigation.
The advertisements both related to the Government’s ‘‘feebate’’ policy to encourage uptake of electric vehicles.
The complaints are the latest twist in a saga that has seen National labelled ‘‘new climate deniers’’ by Green Party co-leader James Shaw.
The advertisements are being looked at for potential breaches of the advertising standards code related to making misleading claims.
The authority has written to the party and the anonymous complainant asking for more information before making a ruling.
In July, the Government unveiled its long-awaited scheme to boost the number of lowemissions vehicles on New Zealand roads.
Based around a ‘‘feebate’’ model, the scheme works by levying a fee of up to $3000 on the most polluting vehicles which will be used to subsidise cleaner vehicles by up to $8000.
The National Party quickly moved to label the policy a ‘‘car tax’’ and ran a series of targeted Facebook ads attacking the scheme. Most of the ads placed a ‘‘dirty’’ car alongside a ‘‘clean’’ car with text saying how much the dirty car would subsidise the clean car. National ran an ad blitz against the policy. In early August, the party ran 14 different versions over a single weekend.
It struck a nerve, and the Green and Labour parties swiftly responded with attack ads of their own, this time targeting National Party leader Simon Bridges’ credibility.
Associate Transport Minister Julie Anne Genter said the attacks from Bridges showed him ‘‘desperately lashing out’’ instead of critiquing the policy.
The first complaint related to an advertisement that showed what appeared to be a Toyota Corolla having a $1000 fee levied to pay for a $1500 subsidy on a new, green sports-car.
While the specific nature of the complaint is not detailed, it appears the advert may be misleading because the claim made by National might not match up with the vehicles used to illustrate its argument.
A party spokesperson said it would be engaging with the complaint process ‘‘in good faith’’.
‘‘We respect the right of anyone to make a genuine complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority but the reality is that the majority of the complaints are settled or dismissed,’’ they said.
The Advertising Standards Authority has asked for more information from the complainant and the National Party before the complaint will be taken before its board for a final decision.
Last year, 60 per cent of ads that were found to have a ‘‘case to answer’’ resulted in ads being changed or removed; a similar proportion of complaints were upheld in 2017.
National has had five complaints examined this year, one was settled, one was partly upheld and the rest were dismissed.
Political parties benefit from slightly different advertising standards than most other advertisers.
If the ads clearly indicate they are from a political party, the ads are looked at using specialist rules that apply to advocacy advertising.
These rules are designed to allow ‘‘differing views that are expressed in robust terms’’.