Complaint Over Wellington Regional Super-City Advertising

Hutt City has lodged a complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) over "propaganda" Greater Wellington Regional Council has run in support of regional amalgamation.

The ASA has been told that an advertisement appearing in the Hutt News on December 16 deliberately misused statistics about the whole region to make it sound as if the Hutt region is facing an infrastructure crisis.

The complaint says the advertisement, part of a series across the Wellington region, is against the advertising code of ethics because it is deceptive and likely to mislead readers.

Hutt City Chief Executive Tony Stallinger has criticised the Greater Wellington Regional Council (GWRC) for using ratepayer money on an advertisement that "crosses the line between advocacy and manipulation".

"The GWRC seems prepared to change or twist the facts to persuade a public currently against their super-city plans," Mr Stallinger says. "Statistics are misused, quotes are misquoted, and vital parts of facts and quotes are left out."

The GWRC says that the Auditor-General has ranked Hutt City as among the three poorest performing councils in terms of infrastructure spending. The Office of the Auditor General has confirmed that they have been misrepresented as they have made no such ranking.

"Hutt City Council's auditors have not expressed any concern with the council's infrastructure expenditure. Residents can be confident all necessary infrastructure replacement expenditure is fully budgeted for, and not incurred earlier than is prudently necessary.

"In addition, the GWRC have repeated the Local Government Commission's massive blunder. They attempt to show a shortfall between the costs of water pipe replacement and councils' ability to pay the costs. To do that they compare the cost of replacements needed over the next 30 years with budgets from only the next 10 years," Tony Stallinger says.

The complaint lists many other misleading statements in the GWRC advertisement. A copy of the complaint is attached.

ASA Complaint ->> http://img.scoop.co.nz/media/pdfs/1412/ASA_Complaint_HCC_22.12.14.pdf

ENDS

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