Games Body replies to students

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32941, 13 June 1972, Page 18

Games Body replies to students

Asking the Commonwealth Games Organising Committee to take a stand on next year’s Springbok tour was asking it to exceed its constitution, said the committee’s chairman (Mr R. S. Scott) yesterday.

He was replying to a request from the University of Canterbury Students’ Asso-

ciation that the committee make public whether it was for or against the tour. Mr Scott said that although the organising committee, by its very constitution, was opposed to racial discrimination it could not, because of its limiting terms of reference, make judgments on the actions of others.

The organising committee, he said, was established only to plan and provide the machinery for the 1974 Games, a task it was doing on behalf of the British Commonwealth Games Federation and its affiliate, the New Zealand Olympic and British Commonwealth Games Association. “To make a statement on next year’s Rugby tour would be to exceed the terms of reference which the organising committee has adopted.” Mr Scott said he would be happy to meet representatives of the Students’ Association and discuss the whole question with them. Tomorrow the association will hold a referendum among its members on whether it should ban the use of its facilities at Ham to the Games committee if the Springbok tour goes ahead.