Labor Party Gets ‘Misleading’ Advertising on Northcote Following ASA Complaint

The Labor Party has put out its brochures on an Auckland electorate after a complaint to the advertising watchdog.

The brochures were distributed to the entire Northcote constituency to promote candidate Shanan Halbert and her vision for the North Shore suburb.

Under the title “I love this place,” a list of accomplishments includes the statement: “We have built over 600 homes for our growing Northcote family.”

Except that the Labor Party hasn’t.

An OIA application to Kāinga Ora – Homes and Communities revealed that the actual number was 74, and only seven of them were new construction.

In a recently published decision, the complaint told the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) that they had lived in the area for 25 years and knew the statement was not true.

“The claim that 600 houses have been built is incorrect and misleading to potential voters,” they told the advertising watchdog.

“This is unacceptable before the elections.”

An OIA request to Kāinga Ora found that “between November 1, 2017 and July 31, 2020, Kāinga Ora built 74 new homes. Of these, 67 were part of renovations on land already owned by Kāinga Ora. and 7 were new construction. “

The Labor Party agreed the statement was incorrect and said it was “very sorry” for the mistake.

“While the current government has made progress on housing construction in the growing Northcote community, we have not built 600 homes in Northcote since the 2017 elections,” the party told ASA.

In response, the ad was withdrawn from circulation and the home team of the Northcote game had corrected the copy for their next direct mail and for any reprints of the flyer.

“We also informed our fact-checking team of the error and ask them to redouble their efforts to be vigilant when reviewing draft materials,” the ASA heard.

“Please accept our apologies for this error and convey them to the complainant as well.”

The ASA president found the pamphlet’s claim misleading and ruled that the complaint was resolved.

“Given the advertiser’s cooperative commitment to the process and self-regulation
action taken to remove the remaining copies of the booklet and change the copy for any
future publicity, the president said it would be useless to bring the matter before the Board of Complaints, “the decision reads.