Mr O’Flynn ‘not senior official’

Press, 28 November 1977, Page 2

Mr O’Flynn ‘not senior official’

PA Wellington Mr F. D. O’Flynn, recently selected as Labour Party candidate for Island Bay at the 1978 General Election, has denied a statement by the president of the National Party (Mr G. A. Chapman) that he was a “senior official” of the Labour Party. Mr Chapman described Mr O’Flynn, the former member of Parliament for Kapiti as a “senior official” of the party during a speech to a National Party meeting in Taupo last week. “Mr Chapman was making a rather nasty charge that senior party officials were misusing their positions and influence to get Parliamentary nominations for themselves,” Mr O’Flynn said.

“He described such people as 'a group of ambitious, self-promoting political aspirants.’ What ever may be thought of this kind of personal political argument, it is quite untrue as far as I am concerned.

“The only party offices I have held were the presidencies of two Wellington party branches, one in the 1940 s and the other in the 19505,” Mr O’Flynn said. “I am taking legal advice about these statements, particularly Mr Chapman’s assertion that ‘over the last few weeks we have several senior members of the Labour Party organisation lining themselves up for party candidatures’. “Mr Chapman then named me, describing me as a ‘senior party official’ which is completely false as far as I am concerned,” Mr O’Flynn said.