Deal to end 3-cornered elections: NSW Nationals
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The New South Wales Nationals leader has ruled out three cornered election contests under a new deal with the Liberal party.
Andrew Stoner received a standing ovation after addressing the state Nationals annual conference in the Riverina town of Wagga Wagga today.
Mr Stoner says a deal, to be signed by the end of the month, will address recent issues within the Coalition about contesting the seats of Monaro and Wollondilly.
"For lower house seats across the state, there will be a number of seats in which the Liberals run and a number of seats in which the Nationals run so no three cornered contests whatsoever," he said.
"Each party then goes away and pre-selects, in the Nationals case one of the seats in which we'll be running, we'll be pre-selecting via a community-based model."
The National Party of Australia announced at its state conference on Friday, that it would do a trial run of community pre-selections in one electorate at the 2011 New South Wales election. The move, which would be organised similar to primaries in the United States would be an Australian first.

At present only members of the party are involved in the pre-selection process.

NSW leader of the National Party, Andrew Stoner said, "This reform will empower even more people to become part of the process to select the best advocate for their local region. Community preselections have the potential to revitalise Australian politics and restore public faith in our democracy." If the trial shows to be effective, they will expand the process in the 2015 elections.

It was also announced at the state conference that three-way contests between the National Party, Liberal Party and Labor Party would be eliminated under a new agreement between the Liberals and Nationals. The coalition parties have agreed not to run against each other in each electorate, with some electorates having Liberal candidates and others having National candidates.