"If you want to support me as mayor, don't go and graffiti other people's billboards. Go out and talk to your friends, talk to your whānau, make sure they're enrolled to vote, make sure that they're going to vote. Just korero."
He told the Whakatane Beacon he had heard several candidates' signs had been defaced in this way, including Lesley Immink's, Turner's, and Julie Jukes' signs.
"I'm going to get some acetone and see if I can take it off," he said yesterday. However, he later said that when he got there someone had already cleaned it off.
His own signs had been graffitied as well, but he said it was something that was to be expected.
"I've had a few of mine defaced as well. I've had people just go to town on my face. They can't draw moustaches on me, of course, but they find other things to do. It happens every time."
-Public Interest Journalism funded by NZ on Air