Wellington mayoral candidate Tory Whanau will continue to display her campaign posters after being told to remove them. Photo / Supplied
Wellington mayoral candidate Tory Whanau will continue to display her campaign posters after being told to remove them. Photo / Supplied
Wellington mayoral candidate Tory Whanau has "politely declined" to remove her street level election posters after the council advised they're in breach of its policy.
She's the second mayoral candidate to defy the council on the issue, with Paul Eagle's campaign team going as far as engaging a lawyer over their billboard stoush.
In Whanau's case, her posters on Phantom media sites around the city actually went up sooner than she anticipated. She immediately contacted the council about the situation.
A Wellington City Council representative told Whanau the posters did not comply; however, the council had no legal means to enforce its own policy.
The policy on election hoardings outlines signs should not be put up more than six weeks prior to the final date of voting, so not before Saturday, August 27 for this election.
"The intention behind the policy is to create a level playing field for all candidates and to prevent residents from being saturated with election advertising outside the election period," the council representative told Whanau.
Whanau, who is running as an independent candidate endorsed by the Green Party, said after strong consideration, she "very politely" declined the council's request to remove them.
She is up against the likes of Eagle, whose billboards have already been splashed around the city, and incumbent Andy Foster.
"The reality is I'm up against two very public profiles, and one who allegedly has significant financial backing and had also ignored this [the council's] request", Whanau said.
"I'm merely leaning in and levelling the playing field. Not to mention I've paid for these posters out of my own pocket. That is how much this campaign and the mayoralty means to me."
Tory Whanau is running as an independent endorsed by the Green Party. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Eagle has been in a similar battle with the council after his billboards popped up around the city weeks ago.
One of the legal arguments made on behalf of his campaign team was that the council's guidelines for temporary signage did not apply to the type of advertising Eagle had used.
They were pre-existing, commercially run electronic billboards, subject to regulatory controls in terms of resource and building consents at the time they were initially installed by their owners, MinterEllisonRuddWatts law firm partner Aaron Lloyd said.
Two previous mayoral candidates also have confirmed they were never told to take down their advertising at a similar stage of their campaigns.
An invoice viewed by the Herald shows 2016 Labour mayoral candidate Justin Lester paid for campaign advertising over the course of July that year.
Lester's opponent Nick Leggett also has pictures on his Facebook page of advertising on buses and billboards as early as May.
