Students To Oppose Tour

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32078, 28 August 1969, Page 21

Students To Oppose Tour

The New Zealand University Students’ Association intends strongly to oppose the 1970 All Black teur of Soulh Africa, according io its new presi-dent-elect, Mr P. H. Grocott, of Christchurch.

“We have come to realise the very considerable potential which the New Zealand University Students’ Association holds as a political pressure group,” Jfr Grocott said yesterday. The primary issue concerning the association, he said, was education and university reform—but other social issues, such as the proposed Rugby tour of South Africa and tile role of the Maori in New Zealand society, ranked a close second. 1 Students at Auckland and Waikato were giving a lead on the later issues, Mr Grocott said. About 50 students in Auckland had formed a group called Halt All Racial-

Ist Tours, and would be supported by the New Zealand. University Students’ Association, he said. The association should provide effective co-ordination of political pressures on a national level, said Mr Grocott. Mr Grocott, who has just completed a term as president of the University of Canterbury Students’ Association, is 23, and a son of the Rev. J. D. Grocott, immediate past president of the New Zealand Methodist Conference.

He was educated at the Christchurch Boys’ High School, and at Canterbury University has completed his B.A. degree in history and political science, and is now completing a thesis on student activism for his M.A. degree in political science. Mr Groeott’s main sparetime interest is tramping and mountaineering. He is a

member of the Canterbury University Tramping Club and the Canterbury Motintaineering Club, and has had to decline membership of the Christchurch-based 1970 New Zealand Andean expedition in order to take up the presidency of the New Zealand University Students’ Association, a full-time post. Mr Grocott next year will live in Wellington.