12th February 2008

The London branch of New Zealand's Green Party started their election year campaign in bold style over the weekend. A small but enthusiastic group of volunteers attended the famous Circle Line Pub Crawl wearing T-shirts with the slogan 'I only date girls / boys who vote Green'.

They handed out stickers which were used to adorn pub crawlers, many in costume for the day, including someone dressed as a sheep. In a strong show of support from London's New Zealand community the group had run out of Green party stickers by the first stop on the pub crawl, Bayswater station.

Lizzie Gillett, a prospective New Zealand Green party list candidate said, "we knew there would be over 12,000 Kiwis on the pub crawl so thought it was the perfect opportunity to get our message out. The reaction on the day was hugely positive. About 60% of the people we spoke to said they were leaning towards voting Green in this year's election. Even taking into account the influence of the early morning drink some Kiwis had started with, this points towards the Greens getting a lot of overseas votes. It's the first campaigning for this election by any ex-pat political group in London that we're aware of."

NOTES TO EDITORS

* The London branch of the Green party of Aotearoa was set up in October 2007. It has 34 members and a core group of 6 dedicated volunteers. Their facebook page is located at: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2399733427.

* The Circle line pub crawl is held on the underground in London to celebrate New Zealand's Waitangi Day. This year it was held on Saturday February 9th and attracted a crowd of 12,000 people. It is supposedly the largest pub crawl in Europe.

* The New Zealand general election will take place in 2008 – no later than the 15th of November.

The group's media spokesperson is Tan Copsey, contactable at tancopsey@gmail.com.

ENDS

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