National MP Nicola Grigg puts out call for members, to aid selection

National's Selwyn candidate Nicola Grigg has asked supporters to sign up party members so she can get re-selected. Photo / Supplied

The National Party's Selwyn candidate and sitting MP, Nicola Grigg, has sent an email to supporters to sign up their friends to support the party so that she could proceed to selection as the party's candidate for the next election.

"As we work hard to change the Government at next year's election I am writing to ask for your help in signing up new members to the Selwyn electorate," the email said.

The email, sent on Tuesday, went on to say that "[b]uilding the membership of the Selwyn electorate is critical to the Party rules for me to be reselected as your candidate to run in the 2023 General Election".

"At present our electorate is short of the Board-imposed target, and I am unable to go to selection" the email said.

At issue are National Party membership targets set by the party's board for each electorate.

Those electorates are challenged to hit a membership target before they can select their candidate for the next election.

The targets are different for each electorate, reflecting the different dynamics of each seat.

Grigg's Selwyn, a very safe National seat, would have a different target to neighbouring Wigram, a safe Labour seat held by Labour's Megan Woods.

If Grigg fails to hit the target, a selection will still happen and she would likely be reselected anyway, unless a popular opponent mounted a challenge.

Grigg did not comment for this story, but a National Party spokesperson said that the party Board "sets a stretch membership target for each electorate to meet before going to selection".

They said that in Selwyn, this target "will probably be met in the coming weeks".

National does have a rule that in electorates with fewer than 200 members, the board runs a selection contest instead of local members, however a National spokesman confirmed that "Selwyn has well in excess of 200 members and will be a local selection".