Two months to go before the election, and the wind is nibbling at the election hoardings sprouting around the island.
But it wasn’t the wind which kicked the legs out of one political hoarding recently.
We all watched, in horrified fascination, as one politically branded hoarding — cheekily erected to advertise a meeting in town – battled for its life.
I’m sure it wasn’t in the slightest bit comical for those who struggled to keep it upright.
As we drove to the beach in the morning, it would be lying down, three faces on it beaming their toothy grins at the sky. The next time we passed, it was standing up again.
Then, it was down again.
Next day, it was up again.
Then, it was (yes, yes. Ed).
Now look. Is this sort of carry on going to continue? I hope not. It must be costing a fortune in superglue and nails, or whatever else you stick election hoardings together with. Not to mention sweat and tears.
Just because you don’t like someone’s politics, it doesn’t mean to say that you need to wreck their billboard or draw a moustache on their beaming mug. Their fans will do the same to your candidate’s billboard, which would obviously be an outrage, and a waste of time, money and billboards.
Keep your sharpies in your pocket, or better still get creative, make your own political poster, and hang it in your window – until 6 November, anyway. Election signs need to be taken down by midnight on Friday, the day before election day, on Saturday 7 November.
Most importantly, make sure you check that you are registered to vote, at the vote.nz. website. You won’t be able to enrol to vote or update your enrolment details after midnight, Sunday 25 October. An unpleasant rule, designed to exclude – but we are stuck with it now.
I must admit, I love this part of the electoral cycle. As the billboards go up, plenty of voters learn their candidate’s name for the first time, laugh at the most ridiculously unreadable lettering and silliest slogan.
It’s all good clean fun, which is more than you can say for online AI-generated ads.
A few days before I wrote this, Newsroom carried out their second survey of political parties to find out which ones were using AI in their campaigns.
Their first review, in February, revealed that AI-generated ads had been used by the National Party and the Act Party, with National in particular taking to the technology.
The Greens are not using it at all, preferring to use human artists and designers. Marama Davidson told Newsroom’s Fox Meyer that “the ethical issues extend all the way to the billionaires behind the technology.”
Labour leader Chris Hipkins also said that his team would not be using AI in political advertising. As Kieran McAnulty, Labour’s shadow leader of the House, told Newsroom: “We have absolutely no desire to be creating AI images of our opponents; there are silly enough photos of them as it is, we’ll just use the real ones.”
The Act Party told Meyer it would not use AI-generated images of real people but would use it “to supplement [their] stock photo library”. It said parties should be transparent about AI “if the material has the potential to mislead”.
Meyer was unable to get to the bottom of National’s election AI policy, which appears to have changed since Newsroom’s first review. National schtum on its AI attack ad policy while other parties draw clear lines, ran his headline. The subhead said it all: Rivals are setting strict boundaries on generative AI in campaign ads, while National rolls out content without defining a clear policy.
“Whatever line the party has drawn has shifted since 2023,” wrote Meyer, “when Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said it was a “great tool” to produce political ads.”
Since then, Meyer says, the PM has “ruled out [using] AI-generated videos of real people.”
We can be thankful that political parties here are not going for the kind of slick AI-generated attack videos favoured by US politicians like Gavin Newsom and Donald Trump.
Many political AI videos are obviously fake: the video of a crowned Trump dumping poo on protesters from a fighter jet springs to mind, although I wish it wouldn’t.
Others are designed to deceive. In May, BBC journalists tracked extreme anti-immigration AI videos to fakers in Sri Lanka, the US, Vietnam, the Maldives, Iran and the UAE. An expert told the BBC that the more AI-generated content people see, the less likely they are to trust real news.
When an American reality TV star called Spencer Pratt ran for mayor of Los Angeles this year, he got a boost from a fountain of AI videos targeting his opponents. Made by his fans rather than his campaign, they allowed him to shrug his shoulders at their content, and run on the cheap.
Did he win?
No. He came third.
The fancy videos hadn’t convinced local people to vote for him. They may have even done the opposite.
Perhaps he should have advertised in community newspapers instead.
• Jenny Nicholls
© Gulf News & Waiheke Weekender Ltd 2026
