Mystery of the moustache

Paula Gillon's election billboard has been defaced with a moustache. Photo / Supplied

Paula Gillon has gone from a naked politician to a moustached politician and she's not smiling.

The Labour Party candidate for Northcote - who once campaigned for transparency appearing on billboards scantily clad - is one of a string of election candidates whose billboards have been hit by a serial moustache artist in Auckland.

Moustaches have been added to candidates on billboards around the city, including Gillon, Northcote MP Jonathan Coleman, Mana Party leader Hone Harawira, Conservative Party leader Colin Craig as well as children on a poster promoting Birkenhead College.

The vandalism coincides with the beginning of Movember, a campaign to grow moustaches in support of the Cancer Society and Mental Health Foundation.

Movember manager Robert Dunne insists the charity is not behind the vandalism, though he acknowledges a "really engaged 'Mo Bro' or 'Mo Sister'," could be responsible. "It's happened before [here], it's happened overseas," he says. "It's almost a given."

Dunne, who knows how expensive promotion is, does not encourage upper-lip additions to faces on billboards.

Gillon says about 30 of her 50 billboards have been defaced, causing hundreds of dollars of damage: "If they had just done one or two I would probably have put a sign over the top saying 'Supporting Movember' but this is just vandalism".