At the 2005 election campaign, the National Party colluded with a weirdo cult, the Exclusive Brethren, to run a secret hate campaign against the Greens. It was the first really big example of the rich using dark money to interfere in our democracy. And unfortunately, it seems that they're trying again, with the Sensible Sentencing Trust running deceptive billboards purporting to be Green party ads advocating for the defunding of the police.
[Photos by Johnny Cans]
While the ads carry an authorization statement, the use of Green Party branding in this way is clearly deceptive and intended to mislead people into thinking it is a real Green Party ad. It is likely a violation of rule 2(b) of the advertising standards code. More importantly, insofar as it might reasonably be regarded as encouraging or persuading voters to actually vote for the party - and there are people for whom it will - then running it without the permission of the party is an actual crime. Which is kindof ironic, given what the SST supposedly stands for.
(Of course, given its support of Bruce Emery for stabbing and killing Pihema Cameron, we know that the SST really only opposes some crimes: crimes committed by poor or brown people. Crimes by richwhites, especially against poor brown people, are OK.)
There are deep links between the SST and government parties. Winston Peter's current chief of staff, Darroch Ball, led the SST when he was kicked out of parliament. And former ACT politician and stealer of a dead baby's identity David Garrett was a lawyer for the SST before entering parliament. So you have to wonder about the level of coordination here (especially with the government also running a hate campaign against the Greens in question time), and whether we are once again seeing astroturf groups being used by the parties of the right to wage dirty politics campaigns and circumvent political spending limits.
