{"id":629553,"date":"2026-10-13T18:26:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T18:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/629553\/"},"modified":"2026-10-13T18:26:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T18:26:09","slug":"election-2026-nzta-says-organisation-must-remain-politically-neutral-after-ordering-signs-off-fence-by-sunday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/629553\/","title":{"rendered":"Election 2026: NZTA says organisation \u2018must remain politically neutral\u2019 after ordering signs off fence by Sunday"},"content":{"rendered":"
NZTA said the signs were located on land it administered and had been erected without approval.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe sign is located outside the legal state highway on land administered by NZTA and NZTA has not provided approval for these signs to be located on the land.\u201d<\/p>\n
The agency said its objection was not about the political messaging but their location.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will not approve election signs on NZTA-controlled land outside the legal road boundary regardless of the political party, as NZTA must remain politically neutral.\u201d<\/p>\n
A fence on the street covered with political hoardings. Photo \/ Richard Hills<\/p>\n
A staff member at Northcote MP Dan Bidois\u2019 office confirmed the team had received NZTA\u2019s notice.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe received the email an hour ago from NZTA,\u201d the staff member said.<\/p>\n
They said the signs would likely be taken down over the weekend because many campaign workers were volunteers and worked during the week.<\/p>\n
New Zealand First\u2019s Northcote candidate Daryl Habraken told the Herald he had assumed the location was available because it was already covered with political signs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t aware we needed consent to put signs up there, purely because everyone had already plastered it with signs,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
NZTA has contacted political parties, directing them to remove the signs within five days. Photo \/ Google Maps<\/p>\n
Habraken said NZTA contacted him shortly before the Herald did and he intended to remove his sign.<\/p>\n
\u201cNZTA contacted me seconds before you did, so I\u2019ll be heading down to remove my sign before someone else does. These things aren\u2019t cheap.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the fence was heavily dominated by larger parties.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a bit of a running joke in my team that National has pretty much wallpapered the entire wall.\u201d<\/p>\n
The dispute emerged after North Shore councillor Richard Hills raised concerns about the scale of election signage at the site.<\/p>\n
He had received complaints from residents who believed election-sign rules had been breached, believing there could only be two signs per party on council land. <\/p>\n
However, further investigation showed the land was managed by NZTA, which means parties had to get permission to put the signs up.<\/p>\n
Labour and the Opportunity Party have been approached for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NZTA said the signs were located on land it administered and had been erected without approval. \u201cThe sign…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":629554,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2246,2840,74,3041,12796,3595,6183,5903,308859,50363,49611,9097,3556,429,111,43,139,529,69,16488,6662,19719,28215,4989,180314,87950,6791,13120,5196,3048,312,18484,5652,10809,112,4767,3608,1339],"class_list":["post-629553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-2246","tag-across","tag-after","tag-agency","tag-approval","tag-by","tag-dozens","tag-election","tag-erected","tag-fence","tag-hoardings","tag-must","tag-national","tag-neutral","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-north","tag-nz","tag-nzta","tag-off","tag-ordered","tag-ordering","tag-organisation","tag-plastered","tag-politically","tag-prominent","tag-remain","tag-removed","tag-said","tag-says","tag-shore","tag-signs","tag-sunday","tag-transport","tag-weekend","tag-were","tag-without"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=629553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/629554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}