Expelled

"Having fought a number of elections as an independent who started out in public life by being expelled from the Labour Party due to my support for troops in Vietnam, and having come up from 61 votes in a by-election at the age of 21 to 1561 votes for the Dunedin mayoralty and 6651 for the Dunedin city council. I believe it to be in the best interests of my supporters that I associate myself with a party consistent with my moderate right of centre out look," Mr Wedderspoon said.

"The Liberal Reform Party provides this accommodation for urban to well as "rural interests, whereby the South Island, and especially Otago, can work for the just returns of development which this negligent, indifferent National Government, based on the Wellington bureaucracy, can not and will not give."

Mr Wedderspoon said the Liberal Reform Party's objective in both North and South Islands would be to or ganise as much opposition and embarrassment to "this weak, leaderless National Government" consistent with the Party's "constructive and responsible policies."