Mr Chapman apologises

Press, 28 May 1979, Page 1

Mr Chapman apologises

PA Wellington The president of the National Party (Mr G. A. Chapman) yesterday reversed his assertion of Friday that had the Hunua elec-toral-petition judgment been made before the closing date for-petitions, National may have been able to challenge successfully the Taupo result. He had told the OtagoSouthland divisional conference of the party that National might have been able to petition successfully against the Taupo, Hastings, and Western Hutt results. The Labour member of Parliament for Taupo (Mr J. W. Ridley) said later that the Hunua Court ruling, if applied to Taupo, would not have dislodged Labour. He said that Mr Chapman had now publicly withdrawn his assertion and had apologised. The implication that he (Mr Ridley) had been illegally elected was completely untrue. The Taupo returning officer had confirmed that if the Hunua ruling was applied to Taupo, Labour’s majority Of 609 would still be beyond the possibility of change. Mr Chapman said yesterday that Mr Ridley

had telephoned him on Friday evening about the Dunedin reference to the Taupo result. “I undertook to check the figures again on Saturday to see if, in fact, we would have made a challenge with regard to Taupo,” Mr Chapman said. “I established that having regard to the majority in Taupo after the recount, National would not have made a challenge there and so I withdrew the statement when I spoke to the Wellington divisional conference at Wanganui on Saturday evening.

“The statement still remains the same with regard to Hastings and Western Hutt because there was a turnaround of about 500 votes in Hunua and that sized turnaround would have been enough, if the figures had been the same in Hastings and Western Hutt to reverse the results.”

Mr Chapman said that he had repeated his statement of last Thursday that National had no intention cif challenging the results in either of those seats nor would he support a petition to Parliament. "As far as National is concerned the election is at an end,” Mr Chapman said.