Group wants Young out

Press, 31 January 1989, Page 2

Group wants Young out

By

GLEN PERKINSON

The National Party ginger group the Sunday Cub has called for the party's president, Mr Neville Young, to resign. The club’s secretary, Mrs Vai Miller, said Mr Young’s statement yesterday that high-powered and highly paid political strategists who ran Mr George Bush’s United States Presidential campaign might help the National Party had angered the club. “He is confessing the bankruptcy of his own thinking,” she said of Mr Young. She said the National Party was strong enough in itself and did not need to import assistance. She blamed the “continued ineptitude of the party’s organisational hierarchy” for its election defeat in 1987. "The present president appears inclined to foster the splits and infighting in the organisation,” Mrs Miller said. She said that Mr Young’s seeking help overseas for the Opposition was “a sign that his powers of organisation are not measuring up.” “The Sunday Club believes that in the best interests of the party that Mr Young should step down at the next annual meeting.”

Mr Young was reported yesterday that Republican Party advisers had already visited New Zealand and discussed campaigning with the National Party. Mr Young had said he wanted to see the National Party all over the Labour Party at the next election and Republican Party expertise in polling techniques, fundraising and campaigning were probably the best in the world. It was quite possible some of those advisers that helped Mr Bush becprae the United States President would work “for nothing because of their commitment to conservative politics,” Mr Young said.