Efforts to stop golf tour

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32705, 7 September 1971, Page 1

Efforts to stop golf tour

Efforts will be made to stop the South African golf team’s visit to New Zealand. These will include a picket-line outside Parliament to coincide with a meeting of the. Government caucus, according to tfie chairman of the Halt Afi Racist Tours organisation, Mr T. Richards.

The organisation was determined to exert as much pressure as possible, consistent with the democratic process, in an effort to stop the tour, Mr Richards said, referring to an announcement that the New Zealand Golf

Association had rejected proposals put to it by H.A.R.T. The organisation would do everything it could to force either the golf association or the Government to' stop the tour, he said. Initially, it asked that the Government make an immediate ’ decision on the proposal that it convene a conference among all bodies involved in sports contacts with South Africa. For almost a month, H.A.R.T. had been urging the Government to make a decision on this proposal, Mr Richards said, and if it had to remind the Government every day that such a decision had to be made, then it would. The organisation had-writ-

ten to every Government member of Parliament asking them to urge the caucus to give the proposal immediate consideration.

,All 'those who supported the proposal were asked to send telegrams to the Prime Minister (Sir Keith Holyoake) on Wednesday urging the caucus to take an immediate decision, Mr Richards saidH.A;R.T. would hold a picket-line on Thursday, and if this failed would send the Prime Minister a telegram a day. The organisation had written to the Prime Minister asking him to seek a report from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the international implications -of sporting con-

; tacts with South Africa, Mr ; Richards said. i The golf association would i find it hard to treat such a report “. . . with the same I degree of nonchalance that > has been accorded material ' we have supplied them,” he said.

H.A.R.T. would present the golf association with information it had received on the selection of the South Afri- ; can team, and the effects 1 that such a team touring New ' Zealand would have on sport * in South Africa. “If all this fails to result 'in the cancellation of the ’ tour, we shall have no alter- ■ native but to implement ' round three of the battle I against the tour,” Mr Rich- . ards said.