It's not a fair suck of the sav, mate

By CHRIS DANIELS

Ocker vinyl on Kiwi political signs? Bogus Canadian mountains posing as Godzone? Only at election time.

The patriotic parentage of political campaign advertising is being called into question by the Alliance, which claims political opponents are heading abroad for posters and photographs.

Australian phone operators are also being used by Act to run its opinion polls.

"National and Act are not content just to destroy New Zealand jobs and businesses. They are not even prepared to make a contribution to the New Zealand economy," said Alliance leader Jim Anderton.

Act and National's vinyl billboards were all made in Brisbane, he said, shutting out local manufacturers. A photograph of pristine, snowclad mountains on an Act brochure had been taken in Canada.

"Act is relying on foreign lakes and foreign billboards to sell themselves to the New Zealand public."

National campaign director Jeff Grant countered: "The majority of our billboards are made in New Zealand. There were a few made in Brisbane, but that was in terms of the type of skin, colour and price, but the bulk of them were made in New Zealand."

Familiar hoardings on street corners, featuring local candidates, were all made in New Zealand, he said.

While the bigger vinyl billboards could be made in New Zealand, another company got prices, then ordered them from wherever they thought was best, he said. "Seventy per cent of our stuff was made here."

Act campaign spokesman Nick Strav said the type of sign Mr Anderton was talking about could not be obtained in this country.

"The big commercial ones - there is nowhere in New Zealand that was able to do them, so I think those large ones of Helen Clark are also done in Australia.

"Certainly that is the only element of printing and our campaign infrastructure that we couldn't source locally.

"It is playful and provocative, but ultimately misleading of the Alliance to put that forward."

Mr Strav, an Australian political consultant, confirmed that telephone polling work was sometimes done by Australian telephone operators working out of Adelaide.

The brochure photograph of the mountains and lake had been put forward to Act as "a representation of New Zealand," said Mr Strav.

"If somebody wants to say where it is, that's fine, but I'm not even sure it is one photograph."

The company involved in providing the controversial mountain photograph, Tonic Creative Communications Ltd, would not comment on what part of the world its picture had come from.

Act worker and fellow Australian consultant Jo Scard later said the party had a lot of people doing work for it, and it would not be appropriate or professional for Tonic to be expected to answer media inquiries.

Labour Party campaign spokesman Mike Williams said he did not know where the vinyl for some of the party's posters came from, but they were printed in New Zealand.