Con flict seen in race job

Press, 12 February 1981, Page 1

Con flict seen in race job

PA Palmerston North The National Council of Churches has questioned the ability of the Race Relations Conciliator, Mr Hiwi Tauroa, to hold office.

In a motion carried by a small majority, the council expressed its “profound disappointment” with the desire of Mr Tauroa while holding the office of Race Relations Conciliator, to seek to become coach of the All Blacks during the proposed Springbok tour. “We feel-it will impair his ability to hold his office with impartiality,” said Dr S. L. Edgar, a Baptist minister, of Wellington. Mr Tauroa has been nominated for the All Black coaching post, and has said he wants to .take it up in spite of South Africa’s apartheid policy, and the opposition he expects to receive. He said that although his Job was to oppose racial discrimination, he

was not against coaching teams to play against South Africa or the Springboks touring New Zealand. “It was only that people twist it round and say that if you support the tour, you support apartheid,? he had said. An Auckland Maori mission, the -Rev. Hone Te Kaa, said at the meeting yesterday he was upset to think a man who . called himself a conciliator should seek such a post. He first proposed the motion on Tuesday but it was deferred by vote to allow the meeting to consider it. f '

The Bishop of Aotearoa (the Rt. Rev. M. A. Bennett) Baid on Tuesday that the decision of the Race Relations Conciliator in “no way helped” the struggle of the Mack people for freedom and equality. “You don’t need until tomorrow to know that,” he said. “You are just playing games.”