Them’s the rules: Candidates remove logos
Three Invercargill Licensing Trust candidates have broken election campaign rules by including the ILT logo on their campaign material.
Invercargill electoral officer Anthony Morton said he had contacted Alan Dennis, Sean Bellew and Stephen O’Connor and asked them to remove or cover the logo on their campaign material.
‘‘They have all now done that or are in the process of getting that arranged.’’
The ILT logo should not be used by candidates for campaign purposes, ‘‘to avoid the situation of the trust being seen to endorse one candidate over another’’, Morton said.
Bellew said he had not known about the rule until being told by the returning officer.
‘‘Apparently I have been breaking the law for 12 years. Who knew?’’
He had used the same signs in four election campaigns with the ILT logo on them, he said.
He was ‘‘grateful’’ that a member of the public had noticed and reported the issue. ‘‘It’s a privilege to be noticed.’’
Bellew returned from overseas on Thursday night and said he would address the logo issue in a ‘‘subtle’’ way.
Dennis also said he was unaware of the rule until he was contacted, at which time he immediately changed the signs.
The logos had been put on his signs by the sign maker, ‘‘but to be fair they sent me a proof which I approved’’.
In previous elections he had used black lettering, he said.
O’Connor said he immediately removed the ILT logos off his Facebook posts after being informed of the issue.
‘‘I wasn’t aware, otherwise I wouldn’t have done it.’’