LABOUR CHALLENGES

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 45, 16 November 1940, Page 13

LABOUR CHALLENGES

Mr. Christie Disclaims Personalities WAI PA W A BY-E LECTION Dominion Special Service WAIBUKURAU. November 15. “Commenting on my challenges to my opponent, the National Barty spokesmen, Mr. S. G. Ilolhrud, M. 8., and Mr. J. W. Broadfoot. M. 8., carefully avoided reference to the reasons for the challenges and deplored the manner in which the campaign bad been conducted.” said Mr. 11. M. Christie, the Labour candidate in the Waipawa byelection, in ar statement issued in Waipukurau today. “I challenged my opponent's charges against the members of the Housing Construction Department. He did not answer the challenge out blamed four senior reporters who attended Ids meeting for misreporting him and stated he was referring to the letting of houses. Thus he got out of a tight corner and avoided the Royal Commission the Government offered to investigate the charges. 1 next challenged him to produce any evidence to substantiate the second charge regarding the letting of State houses, but this challenge, like the oilier, was unanswered. Following his statement that the Government had not built houses for the working people, I again challenged him to stale the name of a single person occupying a State house in the Waipawa electorate who was not either a working person or a person who was eligible to occupy a house by reason of his or her age. Again Mr. Harker was silent. “Then followed the systematic spreading by the National Barty organization of the greatest praise of my opponent’s war service. The inference in the brochure mentioned must be obvious to all, it was for that reason thhrt I issued the 1 last challenge to him to state when he left New Zealand and where he served against any enemy of the Empire. There has not yet been a clear answer to my perfectly justifiable challenge. It there was an atom of truth in the statements made by or on behalf of my opponent my challenges would merely have ended in my discomfiture. “There was nothing personal in my plain, straightforward challenges against statements which I was certain had no foundation in fact, and surely I am entitled to take the only means available to me to ensure the accuracy of my opponent's claims.”