Selection issue ‘already covered’

Press, 22 February 1978, Page 12

Selection issue ‘already covered’

PA Wellington The National Party Dominion executive at a meetin” decided not to take the controversial Pakuransa selection issue any further, the party’s president (Mr G. A. Chapman) said. Mr Chapman, in a statement issued after the meeting, said he had given the executive a full report on the party’s Rules Committee’s findings on allegations of irregularities in the selection of Mr P. de V. Hunt as candidate for Pakuranga in place of the sitting member, Mr G. P. A. Downie. He said he had received a further submission from Mr K. Morgan, one of Mr Downie’s supporters, which he had referred to the chairman of the Rules Committee, Mr J. Watts, a Wellington lawyer and National Party Dominion councillor.

“Although it was not specifically mentioned in t 1.3 submissions, I am advised by the Rules Committee that the particular point he raised was investigated in the course of the Rules Committee’s very thorough deliberations,” Mr Chapman said. “On that basis, I am writing to Mr Morgan informing him that, as with his original submissions, there exist no grounds on which Mr Hunt’s selection could be invalidated and that the Dominion executive accept the Rules Committee’s findings and do not intend to take the matter further.”