Electoral Act 1993

Election expenses, donations, and annual financial statements - Election expenses of candidates

205EA: Apportionment of election expenses of election advertisement between candidate and party

You could also call this:

"How election ad costs are shared between candidates and parties"

When you look at an election advertisement, it might be promoting both a candidate and a party. If an advertisement does this, the costs of the advertisement must be split between the candidate and the party. This split is based on how much of the advertisement is about the candidate and how much is about the party.

The costs of the advertisement include expenses for both the candidate's part and the party's part. You calculate the split based on what the advertisement is, like a video or a poster. The way you work out the split must be fair for the type of advertisement it is.

Only the costs that are allocated to the candidate are considered their election expenses. This means that if some of the costs are allocated to the party, those costs are not included in the candidate's total election expenses.

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This page was last updated on 18 July 2025

View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM3487730.

Topics:

Government and voting > Elections

205E: Apportionment of election expenses of election advertisement between candidates, or

"How to share the costs of election ads between candidates"

205F: Offence to pay election expenses in excess of prescribed maximum, or

"Breaking the law by spending too much money on election expenses"

Part 6AElection expenses, donations, and annual financial statements
Election expenses of candidates

205EAApportionment of election expenses of election advertisement between candidate and party

This section applies if an election advertisement comprises both—
a candidate advertisement; and
a party advertisement.

If this section applies, the election expenses of the election advertisement must be apportioned between the candidate and the party in proportion to the coverage the advertisement provides to the candidate and to the party.
For the purposes of this section,—
election expenses of the election advertisement means the advertising expenses incurred in relation to both the candidate advertisement and the party advertisement; and
the coverage provided by an election advertisement must be calculated in such a manner as is appropriate in relation to the form of the election advertisement.

Only the expenses apportioned to the candidate in accordance with this section are election expenses of the candidate.

Notes

Section 205EA: inserted, on 1 January 2011, by section 8 of the Electoral (Finance Reform and Advance Voting) Amendment Act 2010 (2010 No 137).