The National Party has deleted a Twitter post taking a jab at the Government's funding of a meth rehabilitation programme after Trade Me complained it impacted its brand.
In the deleted post on Tuesday, National created what appeared to be a fake Trade Me auction of a $2.75 million meth rehab scheme run by the Mongrel Mob.
The post used similar branding to Trade Me, and implied the Mob would be selling meth, marijuana and "misc pills" at the same time it was running its programme.
However, Trade Me was not consulted on the use of its branding and spokesperson Millie Silvester told Newshub it breached the site's intellectual property.
"We don't want anyone messing with our brand - something we've built with pride over 22 years. We have been in touch with National to ask them to remove this tweet which they've done."
A spokesperson for the National Party told Newshub the tweet was deleted after Trade Me got in touch.
Before the post was removed, it was received with a fair amount of humour, with social media users mocking the National Party for using a picture of a bong instead of a meth pipe to demonstrate P use.
Green MP Chloe Swarbrick weighed in, retweeting the post and adding the comment "are you guys okay".
