CONVENTION ON RACISM

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32967, 13 July 1972, Page 2

CONVENTION ON RACISM

Ratification this year

(N.Z. Press Association)

WELLINGTON, July 12.

New Zealand this year would ratify the international convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination, said the Prime Minister (Mr Marshall) today. Replying to a letter from the Citizens’ Association for Racial Equality, Mr Marshall said: “The fact that the convention has not been ratified has nothing whatever to do with the proposed South African Rugby tour of New Zealand.”

C.A.R.E.’s secretary (Mr T. O. Newnham) had written to the Prime Minister seeking the reason for New Zealand’s failure to sign the convention.

Mr Marshall said in his reply: “It was not possible for us to ratify the convention before the entry into force of the Race Relations Act on April 1 this year. “The New Zealand instrument of ratification would have been deposited then had it not been thought desirable to await the enactment of parallel legislation by the Governments of the Cook Islands and Niue to which New Zealand’s commitments under the convention will extend.

“Legislation has now been passed in Niue and I am hopeful that the legislation in the Cook Islands will also be passed quickly,” Mr Marshall said.