Mr Kirk adds name to tour petition

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32893, 17 April 1972, Page 1

Mr Kirk adds name to tour petition

riVeio Zealand Frees Aeeoeiation) GISBORNE, April 16. After being publicly challenged by the Bishop of Waiapu (the Rt Rev. P. A. Reeves), the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Kirk) last evening signed a petition calling upon the Government to persuade the New Zealand Rugby Football Union to cancel the visit next year of the South African Rugby team.

The challenge was issued after the Bishop and Mr Kirk took part in a panel discussion at the policy conference in Gisborne of the Maori

affairs committee of the I Labour Party. The panel had virtually I completed its discussion. I when Bishop Reeves, saying I that everybody at some stage I should take a stand on I something, produced the peti- I tion and challenged Mr Kirk I to sign it After saying that the peti- I tion did not represent any I departure from the policy of I the Labour Party, Mr Kirk ' signed it Conditions in N.Z. ’ Mr Kirk said in his address that race relations had become a fashionable political | football for many in the community who felt they needed a cause to follow. A lot of people were concerned about a football tour, he said, but he only wished there were as much concern with the part of Maori and Island people in New Zea- < land society. “If thev want to reach out and change the world, let them reach and change our part of it first,” he said. “I don’t condemn those who are concerned about the tour, I only wish thev were half as concerned about things happening here now.” “Policy unchanged” Mr Kirk said today that there had been no change in the party's policy on the tour. He said he had been disturbed at an item on the late news on television on Saturday. which had suggested that there was a change of policy, and he had asked the N.Z.B.C. to make a correc- , tion. This had been done later in the programme. Mr Kirk said that the wording of the petition called on the Government to persuade the Rugby Union. The policy of the Labour Party towards the tour had always i been one of persuasion and dissociation. “Labour is opposed to a 1 tour bv any teams selected on a racial basis,” he said, i “We would dissociate ourselves from any receptions for the team and would make ' this view plain to the New ; I Zealand Rugby Football . Union. • “No conflict” > “A Labour Government > would approach the union i and tell it of the basis of r its opposition to the tour, the reasons for the opposi1 tion. and would ask the union

to take all these views into 1 consideration,” he said. 1 “I cannot see any conflict i with that in the text of the 1 petition,” said Mr Kirk. “A Labour Government <

would not stop the tour; the final decision in that would rest with the Rugby Union, but we would make our views on the matter pretty clear to the union,” he said.