Integrity Briefing: Dirty Politics 2.0? Lobbying in the Shadows

One of this week’s political storms has exposed an operator pulling strings behind controversial attack ads. In early April 2025, Wellingtonians and Aucklanders woke up to giant billboards mimicking Green Party election hoardings. Except these weren’t authorised by the Greens at all. Plastered with Green MP Tamatha Paul’s smiling face and slogans like “Defund the Police”, the posters were clearly designed to shock and outrage.

The Sensible Sentencing Trust – a hardline law-and-order lobby – initially took responsibility, justifying the ads by claiming Green MPs like Paul have an “anti-victim mentality” and want police defunded and prisons abolished. But it turns out the real architects of this hit job were operating what looks like a classic case of dirty politics rebooted for 2025.

The billboards certainly achieved their goal, grabbing headlines and provoking condemnation from the Green Party. Paul and co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick were livid, arguing that they had been misrepresented. The entire episode had a strong whiff of the “Dirty Politics” era.

Revelations in the media have unmasked a little-known political marketing outfit, The Campaign Company, as the creative force behind these attack billboards. The Campaign Company (TCC) is the brainchild of Jordan Williams, better known as the front-man for the right-wing Taxpayers’ Union.

In fact, Williams brazenly boasted about his firm’s role in the billboard caper, crowing on social media: “My incredible team at The Campaign Company did the creative behind this campaign. The Greens took it hook, line, and sinker…”. He effectively confirmed that TCC orchestrated the anti-Greens ads on behalf of the Sensible Sentencing Trust, a paying client.

According to reporting by Andrea Vance yesterday in The Post, Williams admitted his firm was indeed “behind the attack billboards” targeting Swarbrick and Paul. In other words, what looked like a tough-on-crime advocacy group’s campaign was, behind the scenes, a hired political hit engineered by a professional influence agency. See Vance’s news report here: Firm owned by Taxpayers’ Union boss behind Green Party attack billboards (paywalled)

A new player in NZ’s influence game

So what exactly is The Campaign Company? Despite its low public profile, this outfit is fast becoming a key vector for under-the-radar political influence in New Zealand. It was founded in late 2021 by Jordan Williams, who installed himself as owner and sole director.

Williams was already a fixture in right-wing activism – he co-founded the Taxpayers’ Union (and remains its Executive Director) and helped launch the Free Speech Union. With TCC, he’s created a vehicle to sell political campaigning services to clients – effectively a consultancy that runs PR, advertising and digital strategy for those wanting to sway public opinion or policymaking.

TCC describes itself blandly as a “digital campaign agency providing creative, technology, and advisory services for political and commercial clients”. In reality, its hired guns who will run aggressive campaigns for whoever can pay.

Williams has leveraged the skills and connections he honed over a decade as part of international networks of free-market think tanks to deliver these services.

A Who’s who of astroturf and conservative political campaigns

The client list of The Campaign Company reads as a who’s who of New Zealand’s recent “pop-up” political campaigns. Public records and investigative reporting have linked TCC to campaigns for:

• Groundswell NZ: the farmer protest movement famous for tractor convoys and the “Howl of a Protest.” As it turns out, Groundswell’s supposedly organic uprising wasn’t entirely home-grown. In late 2021, just days after TCC was formed, the domain name for Groundswell’s “mother of all protests” website was registered to the Taxpayers’ Union and then quickly switched to The Campaign Company. This fuelled speculation (and later confirmation) that Williams’ outfit was providing the back-end digital campaigning for Groundswell. Indeed, Stuff reported that while “Groundswell may truly be a couple of farmers sick of meddling townies,” the group “had the foresight to pay The Campaign Company – run by the Taxpayers’ Union’s Jordan Williams – to help design its digital campaign,” giving the protest movement an outsized online presence. Financial records show Groundswell paid at least $78,200 to TCC for campaign services during the 2023 election period. In short, TCC turbo-charged Groundswell’s reach, blurring the line between an authentic grassroots revolt and a professionally engineered lobbying effort.

• Hobson’s Pledge: the lobby group fronted by Don Brash that opposes Māori co-governance. TCC’s fingerprints are on Hobson’s Pledge’s covert propaganda efforts as well. In 2023, an innocuous-looking website called “We Belong Aotearoa” popped up, preaching uplifting messages of unity and inclusiveness – but noticeably absent was any mention of who was behind it. Only by digging into the domain registry did RNZ reporters discover the site was created by Hobson’s Pledge via The Campaign Company. The site was essentially an astroturf vehicle to rally opposition to co-governance under the guise of multicultural togetherness. TCC registered multiple domains for Hobson’s Pledge (e.g. webelong.nz, isthisracist.nz, equalhealth.nz) to deploy in campaigns. The strategy: create a polished, seemingly independent movement that masks the true agenda of its architects. Only later, after exposure, did Hobson’s Pledge grudgingly add a note on the site admitting their role.

• “Save Our Stores” – Big Tobacco’s anti-regulation push: Perhaps the most brazen example of TCC’s astroturfing was a 2023 campaign opposing the Government’s new Smokefree law (which will drastically cut the number of tobacco retailers). Ads flooded Facebook urging Kiwis to “support a petition to save our dairies” and repeal the Smokefree Act, all under the banner Save Our Stores. It was framed as a grassroots uprising of dairy owners fearing for their livelihoods, complete with an “about us” profile of a humble Lower Hutt shopkeeper. But details on the website revealed the real funders: British American Tobacco NZ and Imperial Brands (i.e. Big Tobacco) were “proudly supporting” and “providing” the campaign. And who registered the saveourstores.nz domain and built the website? None other than The Campaign Company, acting on behalf of Imperial and BAT. In other words, a tobacco industry lobby in grassroots disguise – precisely the kind of ethically dubious PR stunt TCC excels at.

In all these cases, a pattern emerges: The Campaign Company specialises in running anonymous or misleading campaigns that appear to be independent “grassroots” initiatives or third-party advocacy, but in fact are bankrolled and directed by clients with very specific political agendas. Whether it’s farmers, crime victims, dairy owners, or concerned citizens, TCC will happily dress up your cause in populist clothing and push it into the public arena – for a price.

Even then, much of it remains opaque – New Zealand’s weak lobbying disclosure rules mean a private outfit like TCC can run influence campaigns, with no requirement to publish what clients they serve or how much money is involved.

Lobbyist or not? Facilitating influence for paying clients

Williams bristles at the label “lobbyist,” and perhaps technically The Campaign Company is not a lobbying firm. They aren’t known for prowling the halls of Parliament to directly buttonhole MPs (at least not publicly). Instead, their influence is wielded through media and the public. TCC’s stock-in-trade is shifting the political narrative, softening the ground for policy or political outcomes that their clients desire, by manufacturing public pressure or buzz.

It’s a subtler form of lobbying, perhaps best termed as “outsourced political influence”. When Big Tobacco wanted to gut the Smokefree law, they didn’t just send a suit-wearing lobbyist to the Beehive; they hired TCC to gin up a faux-grassroots petition so it appeared ordinary Kiwis were rising up against nanny-state regulations. When Hobson’s Pledge wanted to mobilise against co-governance, they didn’t just rely on Don Brash’s speeches; they paid TCC to create an upbeat multicultural front to make their case seem more palatable. In effect, TCC provides the tools of influence that let vested interests wage political campaigns by proxy.

This is exactly why The Campaign Company has now been added to The Integrity Institute’s new “NZ Lobbying and Influence Register.” The Register, which was launched this week is an independent public ledger of entities that exert influence in politics and policymaking. We’ve intentionally cast a wide net for inclusion.

As I explained at the launch, “this NZ Lobbying & Influence Register details the political activities and influence of a wide range of players – companies, lobbying firms, industry groups, unions, NGOs – anyone with a hand in shaping government policy.” In other words, it’s not just the traditional lobbyists-for-hire who meet ministers over canapés that we are shining a light on, but also outfits like TCC, whose work facilitates political influence in less direct but equally potent ways. If an organisation often spends its days trying to bend the ears of ministers or officials – or shaping public sentiment to put pressure on those ministers – it belongs on this register.

The Campaign Company clearly qualifies. It may not call itself a lobbying firm, but it does lobby the public on behalf of paying clients, hoping to influence policy from the outside in. In some ways, that can be even more impactful (and insidious) than the conventional lobbying that happens in the corridors of power. By orchestrating media campaigns, petitions, protests, and ads, TCC and its ilk aim to manufacture a political climate that suits their clients’ interests. Politicians feel the heat from what appears to be public opinion, when in reality that opinion has been massaged and amplified by a PR machine. It’s lobbying in all but name.

Shining light on the dark arts of influence

The exposure of The Campaign Company’s role in the “Defund the Police” billboards saga could be a watershed moment. It highlights how political influence can be bought and sold in New Zealand’s currently regulation-free lobbying environment, and how easily the public can be misled about who is pushing a message.

For too long, NZ lobbyists and political marketers have operated in the shadows. New Zealand’s transparency rules around lobbying are notoriously lax – the OECD recently ranked us near the bottom of the developed world for regulating influence on policymaking. There’s no mandatory public register of lobbyists, no routine disclosure of who is meeting whom or who’s funding campaigns.

This Wild West of unregulated lobbying allows outfits like The Campaign Company to flourish behind closed doors. So, by cataloguing players like TCC – listing their known clients, campaigns, and affiliations – we hope to assist the public, journalists, and honest politicians in scrutinising these “elite political participants.” It’s essentially a civic transparency project to map out the ecosystem of influence that operates largely unseen.

The entry on The Campaign Company in our register lays out much of what I’ve described above – the formation of the company, its ties to the Taxpayers’ Union and Atlas Network, its work for Groundswell, Hobson’s Pledge, tobacco interests, local body campaigns, and so on. Bringing all this into one place is important. It means any curious citizen can quickly find out who is behind a seemingly grassroots campaign or a rash of attack ads.

No doubt TCC would prefer to keep its client list and tactics in the dark – that’s how the dark-arts business works. But democracy is healthier when these connections are visible. Voters deserve to know, for example, when a “community campaign” to Save Our Stores is actually backed by multinational tobacco companies and run by a right-wing PR firm. They deserve to know when a tough-on-crime billboard attacking an MP is not just the spontaneous outcry of concerned citizens, but a pre-packaged marketing exercise by a political consultancy. This opacity is precisely what The Integrity Institute’s Register aims to challenge.

New Zealanders have long prided ourselves on being relatively free of the swampy lobbying culture that pervades other capitals. But the truth is we are no longer immune. Our politics is increasingly “Americanised” with dark money and proxy campaigns, as seen in the 2023 election where third-party groups spent a record $2 million pushing agendas (mostly for the right).

The Campaign Company is a key player in this trend. By dragging its activities into the daylight, we can have a much-needed debate about the integrity of our political process. Is it acceptable for our public debates to be manipulated by unaccountable PR mercenaries? How can we ensure transparency and fairness when wealthy interests can hire firms to amplify their voice far beyond that of an ordinary voter?

Ultimately, the addition of The Campaign Company to the NZ Lobbying & Influence Register is about accountability. This isn’t about stopping their operations – but it arms the public with information. It says: “Here is a company that facilitates influence over our politics. Watch it. Scrutinise it.” Our Register is a living document, and we invite more information and corrections. In time, perhaps Parliament will catch up and institute a proper mandatory lobbyist register or transparency rules. Until then, consider this an “unofficial” interim solution – a bit of civic DIY to level the playing field.

Dr Bryce Edwards

Director of The Integrity Institute