NEXT YEAR’S ELECTION

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29880, 21 July 1962, Page 15

NEXT YEAR’S ELECTION

National Parly Prepares "The Press" Special Service WELLINGTON, July 20. Sixteen months ahead of the event, the National Party is preparing for the 1963 General Election, says the report of the party’s Dominion Council to be presented to the annual Dominion conference tomorrow. “This in-between election year can slip away very quickly and can delude party executives as to the real need for preparatory work for election year,” says the report. “The council has decided on a membership campaign in the balance of 1962. and already a number of electorates have planned ‘National Party weeks' or special membership drives. “It is important in the remaining months of 1962 for divisions and electorates to complete their plans for 1963 so that when the new year begins, party activities can move forward without encumbrance of detailed preliminaries which can be disposed of this year." The report says the party’s structure "is now very wellgeared to organisational needs.”

Of the new electoral boundaries which will apply at the next election the report says that “from the party's point of view we appear to be at no over-all disadvantage compared with the previous boundaries.

“The large size of some country electorates, particularly in the South Island, though inevitable under the nresent law. gives grounds for some misgivings because of , the travelling demands they make on their members of Parliament,” it adds.