The person behind another attack on Prime Minister John Key, a burning effigy, has spoken to 3 News.
Zeth Miru has lashed out at the Prime Minister, saying he's using attacks on him to his own advantage by trying to blame Internet Party founder Kim Dotcom.
It took Mr Miru two days to build the effigy. He says Mr Key's head was added last minute then set alight.
The video emerged yesterday morning. Mr Key initially blamed Dotcom, saying the chanting at the end of the video was similar to a video released by Internet Mana last week.
"It looked so similar to the other one," says Mr Key. "I just drew a natural conclusion."
Mr Miru posted it to the site "National Party Billboard Makeovers". Many examples on the Facebook page are anti-Semitic, a direct attack on Mr Key's Jewish family history. Some of these images have since been taken down.
"The Jewish community in New Zealand, they're hard-working, good, decent people and they don't actually deserve to be bought into some personal campaign directed at me," says Mr Key.
Labour Party leader David Cunliffe says he thinks the campaign is getting dirty.
"I do and I have no tolerance for that whatsoever," says Mr Cunliffe.
National's aren't the only billboards being quite literally defaced – there's the Trevor "moa" and Internet "na".
The major parties say billboard vandalism appears at record levels. Both National and Labour have already run out of replacement signs in some regions, with five weeks of the campaign left.
3 News
source: newshub archive
