Labour Sets 60 As Age Limit For New Candidates

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31672, 7 May 1968, Page 32

Labour Sets 60 As Age Limit For New Candidates

(From Our Own Reporter) WELLINGTON, May 6. The Labour Party will reopen nominations for its candidate for the Wellington Central seat in Parliament as a result of a change made in the party’s constitution at the annual conference of the party today.

Mr R. O’Regan, aged 63, the party’s candidate for Wellington Central at the 1966 general election, is now excluded from candidacy because he exceeds the age limit of 60 imposed on candidates who are not already members of Parliament.

When nominations closed on March 30 other prospective candidates for the seat included Sir Francis Kitts, who was a member of Parliament from 1954 to 1960.

The executive of the party proposed a clarification of the rules in a last-minute addition to its annual report. The secretary, Mr A. J. McDonald, who presented the

report, said that an ambiguity had slipped into the constitution at the last conference, which decided that the new candidates should not be older than 60. “I am sure that the intention of the conference was that no-one reaching the age of 60, other than a sitting member, would be eligible to stand for the Labour Party,” he said. ' Only one delegate spoke against the amendment. Mr R. F. Dillon (Mount Maunganui branch) said the mandatory restriction for qualification at 60 was possibly too cut and dried. A candidate who had been unsuccessful two or three times might find himself ruled out soon after at a by-election because he had reached 60, said Mr Dillon. The report, which was later adopted without dissent, also proposed changes in the con-

stitutional procedure to deal with any member who stood in opposition to an official Labour candidate. “We believe that in cases of this nature the person, or persons, concerned should automatically forfeit all privileges of party membership,” said the report. At present the constitution provides that any member who accepts nomination in opposition to the official candidate shall be disqualified for nomination as a candidate for six years and shall have the right of appeal to the executive or the annual conference. The president of the party, Mr N. V. Douglas, M.P., supported the executive's decision to appoint a woman organiser. “For too long the party has failed to establish effective line* of communications with women's organisations,” said

Mr Douglas in his report to the conference. “If our society is to develop as we would wish it to develop, then the present contribution made by women to education, to industry and to technical and scientific progress must be extended by a wider and deeper involvement and participation of women in the political, economic, and social life of the country ” Delegates would remember that at the last conference he had stated strongly his regret that the Labour Party did not get a “fair go” from the daily press, said Mr Douglas. “I said that we must take steps to get our own message to the people and that I believed the best method open to us was the publication and distribution of our own pamphlets. I still subscribe to that statement.”