Signgate: Who put Poto Williams' election hoarding up a tree?

  • 21/09/2017

What seemed like a stroke of "luck" has turned out to be just a political stunt from a supporter just days out from election day for Labour's Christchurch East MP Poto Williams.

Last weekend one of Ms Williams election hoardings was spotted atop a rather large tree, sitting upright and looking far superior to the hoardings of her election rivals.

Labour, Christchurch
It was stuck a long, long way up the tree. Photo credit: Twitter

How did it get there? It was previously believed the sign was blown up the tree in strong winds last Friday.

However when professional aborists from Treetech made their way to the top of the 40m tree on Thursday, they found it certainly wasn't the wind that had pushed it to the top.

"It's evident someone has gone to a lot of trouble to get me on the top of this tree," Ms Williams says.

"We had thought it was possibly the wind but it has definitely not been the hand of God that's done it."

The hoarding was found to have been bolted and tied down at the top of the tree.

Despite the free publicity, the hoarding in the tree could have been quite an issue for Ms Williams.

If her hoarding wasn't removed before midnight on Friday, it would have broken election rules requiring all hoardings and signage to be removed before election day on Saturday.

"[I'm] pleased it's down because I now comply with the electoral rule so that's really good," she said jokingly.

"If anybody is wanting to get a hoarding out of a tree, they [Treetech] are the first people I'd recommend."

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