Wellington,The Taxpayers’ Union, Tuesday 5 April 2016 - The Taxpayers' Union  is labelling the $1 million dollars spent on branding of the merged Aoraki Polytechnic and Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology, which included a logo nearly identical to another Christchurch organisation after using the same Wellington agency, "grotesque." Taxpayers’ Union Executive Director, Jordan Williams, says:

“A million dollars meant for education was wasted on a branding project. That is a grotesque amount of money for any government agency, but especially when the its purpose is to educate students.”

“The obvious question is what led to so much money being spent on a logo which looks copied? How can the Polytechnic expect students not to cheat, when its marketing department appears to plagiarise branding?”

See also: Canterbury polytechnic's new logo has a lookalike with software firm