Nat. candidate’s ‘stunt’ criticised

Press, 14 May 1987, Page 30

Nat. candidate’s ‘stunt’ criticised

PA Wellington National’s candidate for Gisborne has been criticised for performing a “self-seeking stunt” when she climbed, uninvited, on an Army truck during a freedom of the city parade. Mrs Georgina /Tattersfield did nothing but embarrass the Army when, as an unidentified woman with two small boys, she climbed into the driving compartment of an army truck during the parade in Gisborne last February, said the Minister of Defence, Mr O’Flynn, to Parliament. He said she had not asked for permission “and was certainly not given it” when she climbed on board the truck after it stopped at an intersection. She got off at the next intersection. RHer identity was unknown to the driver at the

time although she did tell him that she worked in the National Party’s public relations department,” he said in reply to a question about the incident by the member of Parliament for Napier, Geoff Braybrooke (Labour). “But it has since been established that she was Mrs Georgina Tattersfield. “The Incident seems a self-seeking stunt that, succeeded only in embarrassing the Army which was not at fault.” Mr Tony Friedlander (Nat, New Plymouth) later said Labour had made a “totally false” claim. He raised a point of order to tell Parliament at that least three other trucks in the parade were taking children on board, but Ae was then ruled OJit of order. .