Tour threatens to harm Tasman ties

Press, 31 March 1981, Page 16

Tour threatens to harm Tasman ties

From

STUART McMILLAN

in Canberra.

The plan for closer economic relations between New Zealand and Australia is bound to be affected if the Springbok tour goes ahead. This has emerged very clearly from discussions 1 have had in Canberra after the postponement of the visit to New Zealand of the Australian Minister of Foreign Affairs (Mr Street). The view was not couched in any terms that could be described, even imaginatively, as a threat. Rather, it was accepted as the inevitable consequence of the way in which the tour would affect two events of great importance to Australia. The first, and most obvious, is the turmoil in which the tour would envelop the -Com--monwealth Games in Brisbane next year. The second is the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting to be held in Melbourne almost immediately after the tour is scheduled to end.

been geared up to making the meeting a success. The Prime Minister (Mr Fraser) is taking a close personal interest in the preparations. If the Springbok tour goes ahead, it is expected that the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting will be torn by strife and that much of the activity of the meeting will be devoted to rewriting the Gleneagles Agreement. That is one of the last things Mr Fraser wants to see happen. Nor. of course, does he want to see any disruption of the Commonwealth Games by boycotts. Although studies of the plan for closer economic relations are being conducted by public servants on both sides of the Tasman, real progress depends on the political will to go ahead. The talk in Canberra is, interestingly enough, not just about the economic aspects of closer economic relations, but what, is called daringly, even dangerously, "the spirit, of C.E.R.” This would entail even closer consultation than already exists between Ministers and others of the two countries.

Australia has never been host to an international meeting of the size and significance of the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting. The bureaucracy in Canberra has

The postponement of Mr Street’s visit is thus considered

to be very unfortunate at the moment, "but tensions in the relationship between the two countries, already to be discerned, are likely to be isolated, and a “spill-over,” effect on the closer economic relationship will not be averted if the tour goes ahead.