Ruling on Bok tour stand

Press, 28 April 1981, Page 6

Ruling on Bok tour stand

PA Auckland The race relations conciliator, Mr Hiwi Tauroa, has ruled that any public body would be breaching the Race Relations Act if it withheld facilities from the Springboks. His consideration of the matter follows decisions by the Wellington City Council and the Manukau City Council to close their public facilities to the South African rugby team; during its forthcoming visit. Among those complaining to the race relations office were members of the Society for the Protection of Individual Rights. Mr Tauroa said yesterday that he had received a number of complaints about

threats to witfidraw goods and services and to close public facilities to the South African rugby team and South African people.

He cited sections of the Race Relations Act which state that discrimination is unlawful if it is based on colour, race, ethnic, or national origins. Section four of that part of the act states: “It shall be unlawful for any person who supplies goods/ facilities or services to the public or to any section of the public to refuse or fail on demand to provide any other person with those goods, facilities or services ... by reason of the colour, race or ethnic or national origins of that person ...”

Mr Tauroa said that should

the reports about the council decisions be correct and should the councils put them into effect, “then such bodies must be ruled to be in breach of the Race Relations Act.”

Mrs Jill Amos, the local body politician who sponsored the motion before the Manukau City council, said last eveing that Mr Tauroa “had his wires crossed.” The Race Relations Act, she said, was based on the United Nations declaration of human rights which was specifically aimed at breaking the apartheid practice. “The Springboks are not being discriminated against on the basis of race or colour, but on the grounds of their holding apartheid beliefs,” she said.