Election tactics such as this billboard by Kenneth Wang have annoyed some Botany voters. Photo / Richard Robinson

Election tactics such as this billboard by Kenneth Wang have annoyed some Botany voters. Photo / Richard Robinson

Some Botany residents say they feel left out of their own electorate, which has largely turned into a battle between Chinese candidates for Chinese voters.

The new seat in East Auckland is one-third Asian and has more voters born overseas than in New Zealand.

But the intense competition for Chinese votes in particular has created a backlash among other voters.

Some Botany residents shunned a meeting to meet the candidates because they did not like campaigns in the electorate being run "like a Chinese market" and the fact that the facilitator for the meeting was Chinese.

Five of 10 non-Chinese residents who spoke to the Herald also complained about receiving political pamphlets in a language they did not understand, the media turning Botany into a Chinatown by just focusing on the Chinese candidates and the "vote one, get other MPs free" campaign of some candidates.

In a Herald street poll of 100 voters in Botany, 61 per cent said they did not like it being seen as a "Chinese/ethnic battleground electorate".

"In all my years as a New Zealander, I have never seen anyone pitch for votes by saying, 'Get one or two MPs free if you vote me', except these Chinese," said a 45-year-old sales executive. "Honestly, I find their Chinese market tactics demeaning and insulting.

"I don't think I am being racist, because I am questioning how they campaign and it has nothing to do with their race."

Most spoke on condition that they not be named because they did not want to be perceived as racist.

Another, who wanted to be known only as Sandy, 24, said: "It's ridiculous that I receive flyers in my mailbox from the candidates in Chinese or whatever, and I am made to feel like I'm a foreigner in my homeland's election."

She said she was "really sick" of the "Chinese-style campaigns" and would give her vote "to any other candidates ... except the Chinese ones".

Sandy, a receptionist, did not go to the candidates' meeting because "even the facilitator is Chinese".

Facilitator Lloyd Wong is a Botany resident and a Public Trust lawyer.

He shares the same surname as National MP Pansy Wong, who is one of three Chinese-born candidates standing for Botany.

The others are Act's Kenneth Wang and Simon Kan from the Kiwi Party.

The Botany electorate was formed last year by incorporating parts of Clevedon, Manukau East and Papakura.