The
Green Party says it will provide links to source data and calculations
in their future online advertising following a complaint to the
Advertising Standards Authority.
The National Party also had a complaint laid against it after a tweet posted from Prime Minister John Key's account.
The
authority received a complaint from C. Shortland about an info-graphic
posted on the 'Green Party of Aotearoa' Facebook page on April 2.
The
info-graphic had information about how take-home pay would change
following several government policy changes on April 1, including the
introduction of the youth minimum wage.
According
to the ad, an 18-year-old part-time student who had come off the
unemployment benefit into her first full-time job would take home $357
per week from April 1– compared with $455 before the changes.
The ad has the Greens logo on the bottom right-hand side and was authorised by a member of the Green Party.
The complainant believed the figures had been miscalculated and misleading in the comparison of take-home pay.
The
Complaints Board agreed it was possible to misinterpret the
info-graphic as meaning any person's take-home pay would be reduced by
the specified amount.
It said National's policy
changes mentioned in the info-graphic would only affect those who were
entering the workforce after April 1. People currently employed would
not be affected as much as the ad implied.
In response to the
complaint, the Greens said the info-graphic presented a hypothetical
situation faced by a student in light of the policy changes.
"We
felt it was important to comment on the changes that the Government
made to show the disadvantage they would cause some people. We made sure
that we checked our numbers and that the info-graphic was checked
before being posted."
It did not accept the interpretation of the ad that a person employed the week before April 1 would earn less the next week.
"Our
clear intention was to present information that contrasted the impact
on a hypothetical person… The calculations we have used are accurate in
our view."
However, following the complaint the
Greens have said they will link to the source data, explain their
calculations and use more specific scenarios to avoid confusion.
Another
complaint was also made after a tweet from the Prime Minister's Twitter
account which showed an info-graphic claiming crime had decreased.
The
image claimed the recorded crime rate per 10,000 people was 1011 in
2008 compared to 848 in 2012. At the bottom of the image it stated
"lowest crime rate in 30 years".
Complainant W. Hind said the statement was presented as facts "without actual proof".
However, the Complaints Board did not uphold the complaint because there were sufficient statistics to back up the claims.
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