Selwyn Electoral Petition hearing starts today

Most people will be unaware there is an electoral petition being heard today. It is next door to the Bain trial at the Christchurch High Court and being heard by Justices Randerson, Allan and French.

Normally an electoral petition has a huge amount of media coverage. This has had none to date (but will be some today), because to be blunt there is no chance of sucess. It has been brought by serial litigant Roger Payne.

He was vetoed by the National Party Board as a candidate. There were excellent reasons for this. He broke his solemn sworn word in 2002 when he went for the Rakaia nomination, and having failed to win, stood for Christian Heritage – despite signing a pledge he would not stand for any other party in that election.

Readers can read previous material about Mr Payne here.

If the petition is sucessful, then Amy Adams would lose her seat and there would be a by-election. As I said at the beginning, I do not believe there is any chance of this occuring. Payne is a serial litigant and a very costly nuisance.

The lesson for National is they should never ever have let him rejoin the party after he was automatically expelled in 2002 when he stood for Christian Heritage. I helped get him refused from joining Wellington Central (knowing his history) but he eventually conned some sucker in the South Island into taking his $5. That $5 has probably cost the Party 1000 times that.