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.
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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.
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