Candidate selection reforms

Press, 10 April 1978, Page 16

Candidate selection reforms

By

BARRY SIMPSON

in Nelson

The Nelson branch of the National Party intends to ask this year’s National Party conference to accept a remit requiring members of the party’s candidate selection committees to have at least one year’s standing as members of the party. The branch is trying to eliminate the lobbying and block-voting procedures which are known to have affected the selection of National Party candidates in Nelson and, more lately,, in Pakuranga.

The sitting member of Parliament for Pakuranga, Mr P. G. A. Downie, was ousted as this year’s National candidate for the General Election by a section of the electorate’s membership block-voting him out of the running at the electorate selection meeting. Those engaged in this scheme may have got the idea from Nelson where, in the 1976 by-election, the same ploy was used successfully to choose one of five candidates at the selection meeting.

Asserting that the party’s present rules can be abused by members with a sectional mterest, one prominent Nelson party member said he felt the final selection of candidates should be left to the electorate executives.

At the moment, the executive plays a very minor role in the candidate selection procedure.

Any elector, not a member of another political party, may become a financial member of the party and is then eligible to be elected to a candidate selection committee.

The selection committee comprises the electorate committee plus one representative for every 20 members of that branch. A branch with, for example, 1600 members, would have a selection committee of 80. These would be elected at a general meeting at least one week before the selection meeting. It is at this point that the svstem becomes open to abuse. I do not know the precise procedure adopted at Pakuranga, but a telephone call to Mr Downie confirmed my suspicion that it was very similar to that employed at the 1976 Nelson by-election selection meeting. It happened like this. In 1976, after some initial lobbying, a group of prominent Nelson businessmen decided that one of the five candidates up for selection was to be preferred. This man. they felt, should be selected.

Many joined the party shortly before the general meeting to choose the candidate selection committee was held. By employing the “internomination” device — each nominating the other — al) those who so strongly supported a block vote for their candidate, were elected to the selection committee. They comprised more than 50 per of the selection committee. Not surprisingly, their preferred candidate was elected on the first ballot. The voting figures were supposed to remain secret, but I later learned that the chosen candidate’s majority was huge. There were four other candidates for selection that night. Two of them, Messrs R. A. McLennan and I. W. McWhannell had campaigned vigorously, Mr McWhannell twice, against the redoubtable and very’ popular sitting member, Sir Stanley Whitehead. One or other of these men was strongly tipped to be selected. Both missed out. Block-voting and lobbying are frowned upon in the party’s old “handbook” where it is stated that “the spirit of the party’s selection procedures has been strongly against lobbying for particular candidates or organising block-voting.” Strangely, this admonition

to members of the selection committee to cast a “free” vote, is not contained in the latest constitution and rules.

Mr Muldoon obviously has a strong view on these tactics. He was reported on March 11, when commenting on the Downie affair, as saying that a major review of the party’s candidate selection procedures would take place after this year’s General Election.

He said then: “It is. possible to mount a campaign at local level to produce a result. That campaign can be mounted by energetic people who do not necessarily represent the grass-roots National voter.”

The party’s Nelson branch recognised this last year after surveying the ruins of the by-election. It put up to the national conference a remit that no member should be a member of a selection committee without having been a member of the party for two years. Because of the pressure of business, the remit never made the floor of the conference. It was, however, heavily supported at committee level.

This year, with the Downie affair still creating ripples, the branch has put the remit up again, but reducing the membership qualification to one year. An alternative system. the branch feels, “is badly needed.