ASA partly upholds complaint against National election flyer over KiwiSaver claim
The Advertising Standards Authority has partly upheld a complaint against a National Party election flyer, finding that the party's claim Labour's capital gains tax would "hit" KiwiSaver breached rules on truthful presentation (RNZ).
The flyer promoted Chris Bishop as National's candidate for Hutt South and was received by a complainant in July. It stated: "Labour's capital gains tax would hit the family bach, rentals, small businesses and KiwiSaver." The complaint centred on National's criticism of Labour's capital gains tax policy.
Labour says KiwiSaver is exempt from its proposed capital gains tax. Under that proposal, the tax would apply to commercial property and residential investment property. The family home, lifestyle blocks, farms, inheritances, shares, businesses and other commercial assets would also be exempt.
National argued to the ASA that some KiwiSaver accounts invest in businesses that own commercial buildings, and those investments would be affected by the tax. A minority of the ASA complaints board accepted that reading, finding the statement was a general claim that KiwiSaver funds would be affected in some way, and that National's explanation was sufficient.
The majority disagreed. They found that most people would take the flyer to mean their KiwiSaver funds would be directly subject to the tax. The majority ruled it was misleading to list KiwiSaver alongside other assets without a qualifier or clearer explanation. They found the KiwiSaver claim breached the principles of truthful presentation and advocacy advertising, which require ads to be truthful, balanced and not misleading.
The ASA told the National Party not to use the advert again in its current form.
Not every element of the flyer was found to be in breach. The board did not uphold the complaint about the claim regarding small businesses, with a majority finding it was unlikely to mislead most people.
The decision adds to the ASA's body of election-period rulings. In decisions published on 20 August 2026, the Complaints Board also ruled on the use of the phrase "You and your family get to keep your capital gains" in a radio advertisement for Karaka (ASA).
The split ruling points to a genuine difficulty for the ASA. National's argument rests on an indirect chain: KiwiSaver funds invested in commercial property would be exposed to the tax at the entity level, which could feed through to returns. Labour's position is that KiwiSaver itself is exempt. Both can be true depending on the level of analysis, which is what divided the board.
The broader context here is what the ruling means for campaign advertising. The ASA assesses political ads against the same truthful-presentation standard as commercial ads, judging them by the reasonable "consumer takeout" — the impression an ordinary person would take away — rather than a party's technical justification. A claim that survives on a narrow reading may still breach if the ordinary takeaway is misleading. The partial upholding, rather than a full uphold, also shows the board is willing to assess individual claims within a single advertisement rather than ruling on the whole thing.
The minority view is worth noting. Where a statement can be read as a general claim of indirect impact rather than a specific claim of direct taxation, the board may accept it without a qualifier. The majority's threshold for when that general reading is enough, versus when a qualifier is needed, appears to turn on whether the asset is listed alongside others that are directly affected.
