NZ News
Auckland candidate’s election hoardings damaged four times in two days
An Indian-origin licensing trust candidate in West Auckland has been forced to replace publicity hoardings for his campaign four times in two days due to vandalism.
Gurdeep Talwar, president of the Waitakere Ethnic Board who is contesting the Waitākere Licensing Trust’s Lincoln Ward seat as an independent candidate, said total damage to the campaign boards at three locations in Massey had exceeded $2000.
Gurdeep Talwar is contesting the Waitākere Licensing Trust’s Lincoln Ward seat as an independent candidate. Photo: Supplied / Gurdeep Talwar
Talwar has filed a complaint of wilful damage to billboards erected on Triangle Road, Keegan Drive and Don Buck Road with police.
“The vandalism started soon after we put up the billboards on Saturday … as was allowed per election rules,” Talwar said.
“By Monday morning – in under two days – we had to put them [up] again and again at these places more than four times.
“I have spent $2300 on the publicity material to date, which has all gone to waste.
“Since there is no damage to other candidates’ billboards standing besides mine, I feel these are racially motivated attacks, as clearly I am being singled out.
“If I am not allowed to put up my publicity material [in] designated places, I don’t know how am I supposed to fight the election, which is supposed to be free and fair for everyone.”
Talwar contested the 2022 local government elections and experienced similar instances of vandalism.
“[But] not to this extent,” he said. “This year seems particularly nasty.”
Howick Ward candidate Paul Young displays damage to one of his campaign billboards in 2022. Photo: RNZ / Lucy Xia
In 2022, local election candidates of Chinese descent in Auckland were shocked to see their faces erased with white paint or cut out of their campaign boards, while billboards featuring Pākehā candidates were spared.
In 2019, a Muslim candidate in the Porirua local body elections feared vandals who burned, knocked down and stole her billboards appeared to be singling her out.
Police confirmed a complaint of wilful damage had been made in relation to damage to Talwar’s hoardings.
“Police are still in the early stages of assessing the complaint for further action,” a police spokesperson said.
“Reports of wilful damage to billboards is not something new, and police will assess reports for any available lines of enquiry to hold offenders accountable.”
Gurdeep Talwar has filed a complaint of wilful damage with police after his campaign boards were vandalised. Photo: Supplied / Gurdeep Talwar
Auckland Council advised candidates to report instances of vandalism to police.
“Vandalism of candidates’ campaign material is unacceptable and disappointing to see and should be reported to the police,” said Megan Tyler, director of policy, planning and governance at Auckland Council.
“The cost of campaigning is covered by each candidate and vandalism places an unfair burden on some candidates over others.
“Voting on the other hand is a far more productive and fair way of showing your preference – the best way for people to express their feelings about candidates is through the ballots.”
Dale Ofsoske, electoral officer at Auckland Council, said little could be done to prevent vandalism.
“Vandalism of election signs is nothing new and, having run elections now for 40 years, it does happen every election,” Ofsoske said.
“There is not a lot we can do about it unless election signs are under constant surveillance where any mischievous activity could be recorded.
“Once we or the council are aware of [damage to hoardings], we contact the candidate whose sign has been vandalised and ask [them] to fix the sign. Most vandalised signs are fixed within 24 hours,” he said.
“I put down sign vandalism to the ‘hurly burly’ of an election campaign.
“The weather also plays a part with election signs, particularly where strong winds can damage or flatten a sign quite quickly.”
Source: RNZ
Latest News
Opportunities to mitigate multi-million-dollar RNZ budget blowout likely missed – experts
Multiple opportunities to identify and mitigate a multi-million-dollar budget blowout at RNZ appear have been missed, according to the former executive director at Audit New Zealand.
The public broadcaster on Monday revealed a near $12 million shock financial loss after a litany of financial blunders, which will now lead to sweeping job cuts.
The $11.8m loss is more than 25 times the $470,000 RNZ had expected to lose over the year to June.
CEO Paul Thompson took responsibility for the result, and said internal reports gave an inaccurate picture of the finances, meaning the scale of the loss only became clear in October.
RNZ’s former chief financial officer Hilary Parker resigned unexpectedly in early October.
The board said it would commission an independent review into what went wrong.
Independent contractor Stephen Walker, who left the Audit Office earlier this year, said the size of the loss was surprising, as was the length of time it took to identify it – months after the financial year ended.
Supplied / OAG
“Probably more of a concern is that they had seemingly been unaware that they were running up a significant deficit until they were in the preparation stage of their annual report in October.”
Walker said public entities typically produced monthly financial reports.
An interim audit also took place before the end of the financial year, he said, but if the organisation hadn’t identified significant losses at that stage, the auditor could also be in the dark.
“It seems that there’s a real weakness in forecasting and budgeting that’s occurred here and that the monthly accounts, when they’re produced, either haven’t identified these significant variances against budget or the magnitude of them really hasn’t come to light until right towards the end of the financial year,” Walker said.
“And really at that point, there’s no opportunity for the chief executive, the leadership team to take, and the board to take, any corrective action because the year has effectively been completed.”
Walker said the “significant miss” was difficult to account for given it was more than 10 percent of RNZ’s total funding.
He said based on RNZ’s annual report, financial complexity didn’t appear to be a factor.
“This $11.8m loss isn’t made up of one particular item … it seems to have been contributed to by a number of separate expense lines running over budget. So I don’t think it’s necessarily to do with complexity.”
Among the errors, RNZ wrongly counted $2m from land sales as income in its budget. Staff costs also came in $3.2m over budget, including $1.4m in redundancy payments.
Professor at Auckland University’s business school Norman Wong said based on media reports the issues identified were “significant and troubling”.
Supplied / University of Auckland
“But recognising the sale of land as income in their budget is a basic error that one would have expected to have been caught and corrected well before it got to this point.”
With funding reductions at RNZ over the past two years, Walker expected greater scrutiny of financial results.
“Virtually every public entity has had their annual budget reduced. And so you would expect … the leadership team on a monthly basis and board – I’m not sure how frequently the board will consider the information – but you would expect them to be interrogating the results on a regular basis throughout the year,” he said.
Walker said initiating an independent review was the correct course of action and that he’d want to understand what information the leadership team and the board were regularly receiving.
He said he’d “love to say” surprising financial results were rare, but conceded they occured on a semi-frequent basis during his time leading the Audit Office.
“The benefit of independent scrutiny by the Audit Office – and the auditors providing that support to the Auditor General – [is] that the reporting is fairly presented at the end of the year, whether it’s good, bad or ugly.”
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