Greater Wellington apologises for incorrect Te Reo Māori translation

Throughout the election period Greater Wellington Regional Council has been running an "Enrol, Stand, Vote" campaign to encourage communities to have their say on local politics.

The "vote" phase of the elections campaign is run in conjunction with city and district councils across the region. This year the councils all agreed on a cross-council visual approach so that people in the region see one consistent message and visual encouraging them to vote.

Another council leads this process by developing and designing the creative, adding different council logos and brand colours.

The campaign posters ask "Why will you vote?" and feature a Māori translation which was meant to convey the same message. However, on Greater Wellington's campaign material the translation is incorrect. 

The Te Reo we used was translated by another council who then realised this mistake and amended it before their campaign went live. They were unaware we did not have the correct translation and Greater Wellington takes full responsibility for this error. 

Greater Wellington apologises for any offence caused by the incorrect translation of this slogan and will be removing all signage used as part of this campaign.

We understand how important it is to provide our communities with the correct translations when using campaigns featuring Te Reo Māori and sadly in this case we failed to do so.