Ugly year’ for N.Z.

Press, 7 December 1976, Page 10

Ugly year’ for N.Z.

PA Wellington | The year 1976 had been i one of New Zealand’s ugliest | years, the retiring president 'of the Citizens Association ■ for Racial Equality (Mr Tom ; Newnham) told the annual I meeting of C.A.R.E. in Auck-i i land. ! Mr Newnham recalled that! |the 1975 election had been! ! won partly by a successful ■ appeal to racial prejudice. ! “Consequently, as the im- : plications were brought !home to the whole commun- : ity, 1976 has been one of this i country’s ugliest years,” he I said. “Support for apartheid sport shamed New Zealand ■on a world stage, and here j at home the hunting down of Polynesian overstayers shamed us before our Pacific Island neighbours.” He said attention had been focused on one man, the Prime Minister. “He scoffed at the possibility of a walk-out at Montreal, and when it happened he lashed out at H.A.R.T.! and C.A.R.E., accusing us,! without aq iota of justification, of spreading lies around the world,” Mr Newnham! said. Mr Newnham said Mr Mui- ■ doon’s insistence that his; sports policy was unchanged' represented a continuing en-’ dorsement of the principles jof apartheid sport by the; New Zealand Government. I