Belinda Neal won't contest election

DISENDORSED Labor MP Belinda Neal has announced she will not stand as an independent candidate at the federal election.

"My future will not include nominating for the seat of Robertson," she told reporters in Gosford on Thursday.

Ms Neal won the seat of Robertson on the NSW central coast for Labor at the 2007 election with a wafer thin margin.

But she lost a Labor Party preselection battle in March to university lecturer Deborah O'Neill.

Her decision not to run against Ms O'Neill at the election on August 21 will be a relief for her husband, John Della Bosca, a former minister in the NSW government.

Any Labor Party member who stands against an endorsed candidate at an election is automatically expelled from the party.

If Mr Della Bosca had helped Ms Neal in any way in her campaign he could have been expelled from the party himself.

Mr Della Bosca resigned as NSW health minister in September last year after his six-month affair with a 26-year-old woman was revealed.

Ms Neal suffered a public and private backlash after allegedly abusing staff at Iguana Joe's bar and restaurant on the central coast in 2008.

No charges were laid as a result of the "Iguanagate" affair, but former prime minister Kevin Rudd reportedly ordered her to undergo anger management counselling.