PRESS STATEMENT IMMEDIATE

In accordance with the Party's stated intention to the Speaker of the House last week, it has late today made a Statutory Declaration to the Electoral Commission to request that the UnitedFuture Party be re-registered as a political party.

The UnitedFuture Party has seen a surge in both renewals and new members in the last few weeks and is still processing many of these at the present time.

"Party membership is now well in excess of the required minimum for registration and it continues to seek and attract new members who wish to be associated with its Liberal Democratic policies, principles and values."

"Despite, and maybe because of, the events of the last week involving Party Leader Hon Peter Dunne M.P. we have had continuing membership applications from across the country, with huge levels of support for what the Party stands for", said Robin Gunston, Party President.

"I am grateful to the people of Ohariu for supporting me at this very difficult time, and as promised last Friday I will put all my efforts into representing them as their electorate MP, and in building the future fortunes of the Party" said Peter Dunne,

"There are still significant areas of the UnitedFuture supply and confidence agreement we have with the Government that we have pledged to work with them on and the Party will emerge out of this in a strengthened position, looking to attract new talent leading up to the next General Election. " he said

The Electoral Commission has already come back to the Party and indicated that there are some information issues that need to be sorted out as they regard this as the registration of a brand new party, not one just de-registered some 11 days ago that they had previous information about!.

The Party had proceeded on the basis that a fully electronic registration and payment process would be acceptable as records that comply with section 63 (2) vi of the Electoral Act 1993, as well as being the most efficient process to expedite matters as The Speaker wanted this process done as quickly as possible. The Electoral Commission however, for a new party registration, will only accept a signed paper copy of a member's application, as it has an exemption from the Electronic Transactions Act.

The party offered a full electronic record of all membership details requested plus a log of traceable electronic payments from members but it seems this does not suffice.

The party will be pursuing such matters with the Electoral Commission tomorrow, to resolve these issues, as it doubts that any new party would find it easy to meet the requirements of the Electoral Commission. This appears to go well beyond what is in the Electoral Act and mitigate against having a vibrant democracy with a broad spectrum of political representation.

ENDS

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