Munro Asked To Contest Waipa

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30093, 29 March 1963, Page 12

Munro Asked To Contest Waipa

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, March 28. Sir Leslie Munro has accepted a request from several members of the National Party in Cambridge to allow his name to go forward to a selection ballot for the newly constituted Waipa seat in the next General Election.

The Waipa seat will be vacant with the retirement of Mr H. Johnstone at the end of this Parliament. “When I knew Sir Leslie Munro was keen to return to New Zealand and enter public life, I thought he would be an ideal man to allow his name to go forward for the selection ballot;” said Mir A. L. Hurdley, chairman of the Cambridge branch of the National Party .today.

“There is no doubt that his outstanding ability could be of great value to New Zealand—and particularly to New Zealand farmers who have to earn New Zealand’s exchange with their exports.”

The Prime Minister (Mr Holyoake) said in Wellington that he was “most interested” to learn that Sir Leslie Munro has accepted nomination for the Waipa seat.

“I hadn’t known of the invitation to Sir Leslie, but of course, there was no rea-

son for me to be informed,” Mr Holyoake said. There was nothing to stop Cambridge members of the party—or any other party members for that matter—nominating Sir .Leslie Munro as a candidate, so long as he was a financial member of the party, a spokesman at National Party headquarters in Wellington said this morning. However, he said, the Waipa electorate would not be calling for nominations, before June and members then would proceed to select the candidate in the prescribed manner. The statement said six or seven names were being mentioned in connexion with nominations for the Waipa seat.