The right to say no

Press, 29 April 1981, Page 20

The right to say no

Bv

ELSIE LOCKE,

a Christchurch author

There is a most illogical argument running loose. The Acting Prime Minister, Mr D. S. Thomson, was the latest Government spokesman to implore the Rugby Union to accept their “real and inescapable responsibility"’ in choosing whether to support the Government stand against apartheid in sport. But at the same time he emphasised that he would never, never, never take away that right, and responsibility, to choose. To choose what? There are hundreds of mat ters on which We have no right to choose? We can’t choose to keep bur children from school, to abstain from the census, to keep a dog not dosed for hydatids. In wartime we can’t even choose our personal safety. The standard reason for denying such choices is the good of the State and of other people. On these matters the law has already ruled, or the Government of the day decides. The same principle applies to organisations. Their freedoms are likewise limited by the law and by Government

edicts. For example, the Plunket Society conducts what clinics it chooses, but cannot choose to embark on introducing euthanasia. A sporting body has the right and the responsibility to make its own choices about teams and matches and venues. The rights and choices of other people are not usually involved, because those who aren't interested simply stay away. In accepting that a sporting body has complete freedom of operations, there is a certain premise — that they are dealing with sport, and nothing else of social concern. In the case .of a Springbok tour, that premise falls down. Clearly we are not looking only at sport. We are looking at politics, diplomacy, human rights and civic peace — matters which are the province not of the Rugby Union but of the Government. Therefore the right to choose has passed to the Government, which can exercise it in a straightforward way by refusing visas to the visiting team. The Government declines to

exercise its responsibility, however, on the grounds that it is not New Zealand policy or custom to refuse visas or impose restrictions except where national security and foreign relations may be adversely affected. The blind eye is on the telescope here. Whereas the appeal to the Rugby Union to cancel the tour is based on the disastrous repercussions it must have, both internally and in our international relationships, the Government still regards the visa applications as being for ordinary sportsmen! Finally, there’s the old definition that liberty is the right to do as we choose, povided this doesn’t, conflict with the rights of other people to do as they choose. In this case the Rugby Union has been handed the choice on a matter which clearly concerns many thousands of others, with equal rights to choose. Why should the Rugby Union be granted the right to choose to say “yes”-to the Springbok tour, while the rest of us are denied the right to choose to say “no?”