Complaint over Key's 'plain english' dismissed

Prime Minister John Key. Photo / Mark Mitchell

A vexatious complaint over a National Party ad has been dismissed by the Broadcasting Standards Authority.

A complainant took issue to an advertisement about education, saying Prime Minister John Key's statement that "National is building a better education system, with school reports in plain english" was inaccurate and misleading.

However, the authority found that the advertisement did not state as fact that all school reports would be written in the english language and that "plain english" was a colloquial way of stating "easy to understand".

Two other complaints were also dismissed by the authority.

One related to another National Party ad, which the complainant said showed images of infrastructure mostly completed under the previous Labour government.

However, the authority said the advertisement was not inaccurate because it referred to the present and future, rather than looking at past achievements.

The other complaint referred to Labour's opening address, which the complainant said inaccurately included Singapore in a list of OECD countries with some form of capital gains tax.

The authority found the inclusion of Singapore in the graphic was not a material point of fact. It said Labour had acknowledged the error and would ensure it was not in future broadcasts.