NSW Nationals leader Dugald Saunders MP addresses questions about party’s backflip on endorsing Dr Warwick Yonge

Port Macquarie News

NSW Nationals leader Dugald Saunders visited Port Macquarie on February 14. He addressed questions about the party’s backflip on endorsing Dr Warwick Yonge. The decision comes ahead of the upcoming by-election on March 15.

Transcript

00:00Yeah, look, really sad situation that we don't have our former candidate running anymore

00:18for Port Macquarie. In very simple terms, Dr. Young was not endorsed by the Central

00:23Executive at a meeting the other night. There are things that I gather he has mentioned

00:28in a statement he's released, which I won't be talking about. And the job now is to actually

00:34find the candidate for Port Macquarie that can represent the New South Wales Nationals

00:38and win the seat. There's been a series of issues raised that I wasn't comfortable with

00:43the candidate having to deal with in the public eye. And I wasn't comfortable with the party

00:49having to deal with from a political perspective in the future. And everyone on Central Executive

00:54agreed the best way forward was to allow Dr. Young some space to do his own thing

00:59and figure things out, not put him in the public eye. And therefore he was not endorsed

01:04as the candidate. It's not embarrassing at all. It's a matter of what happened. It's

01:09life. We're all human beings. No one came here hoping something would go wrong. To try

01:14and suggest it's embarrassing is ridiculous, quite frankly. It is unfortunate is what it

01:19is. Every single MP who came here was here for the right reason. And that was to support

01:24the candidate and make sure he felt like he had support. Now things change. Life changes.

01:30Every day something can be thrown up. That's what's happened in this circumstance. It's

01:34terribly unfortunate that it has. But it's no one's fault. It just happened. And we now

01:40wish him all the best. We move on. We will have a candidate that will represent Port

01:45Macquarie in the best possible way. And we are here to win the seat of Port Macquarie.

01:49The reality is you never want this sort of thing to happen. No one wants a candidate

01:54to then not be the candidate anymore. It's not the first time it's ever happened. It's

01:58not the last time it'll ever happen. There's been very famous candidates who've left mid-interview

02:03on radio. It's not the first time it's happened. Doesn't mean it's a comfortable thing. Doesn't

02:08mean it's my preference. But at the end of the day we move forward and we make sure we

02:14represent Port Macquarie the best we can.

02:19For more UN videos visit www.un.org

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