Someone should call the police.
In the Tamaki electorate Act has distributed a pamphlet that is so dishonest the only logical explanation is that it is willing to lie to win the seat.
Even Jordan Williams thinks that the pamphlet is brutal.
For his to use this description must mean that the pamphlet is so far past acceptable norms that it is the sort of thing that Vladimir Putin would engage in. Or Donald Trump.
From Tim Murphy at Newsroom:
The leaflet praises Act candidate James Christmas, who is seeking to hold on to the seat famously won against the odds by Brooke van Velden in 2023, and is roundly critical of National’s Mahesh Muralidhar – citing news stories and online comments by him.
It also dismisses the chances of Labour’s Harris, pitching the battle as solely between Christmas and Muralidhar.
Its evidence for that claim is not a poll or survey from 2026 but a bar graphic showing Act on 43.2, National on 33.1 and Labour on 21.7 percent – the election result last time when all three parties had different candidates. The 2023 explanatory wording is in small type.
The data is from last election when the boundaries were different, Labour was struggling and Labour did not have a candidate of the exceptional calibre of Max Harris.
It implies that this is a recent poll although the text below, which many will miss, does identify where the data is from.
But here is the weird thing. Act is that cash rich it must be polling the electorate to see what its prospects are. It has up to date data but chose instead to publish data from last time where the Labour candidate was not running as good a campaign as Max Harris, when Labour was on the rocks, and before boundary changes improved Labour’s chances.
Also the pamphlet is in black and white and does not have Act’s branding on it. The only thing linking it to Act is the authorisation and not everyone knows who Act’s General Secretary is.
And there was rumours of a fairly recent poll which had National’s candidate Mahesh Muralidhar first with Harris close behind.
As I said previously there are a few forces in play in Tamaki this election.
The teal movement in Australia shows how much the right wing culture war crap is despised in inner city suburbs. These are areas full of intelligent people. Suggesting that climate change is some sort of left wing conspiracy or that immigrants should be feared or that “traditional” family values should be preferred do not go down with large parts of the local population, particulary with immigrants who comprise a fairly significant part of the electorate and more importantly with women who comprise half of the electorate.
Your climate change denying anti diversity anti intellectual anti woman lines are a turn off for many.
And when the wind is blowing strongly these seats are vulnerable.
Act’s manipulative practice using misrepresented data shows a degree of desperation. They must be worried.
As I said before watch Tamaki on election night. It could be a boilover.
Even in B&W ACT shows its true colours.