A poll on the tour

Press, 21 May 1981, Page 16

A poll on the tour

No Government should let itself be blown off a course it thinks right by the whim of a public opinion poll. But the Government can be asked to take seriously the poll .which ha's indicated that more, than half the adult population now oppose the Springbok tour. A majority against the tour would not, by itself, be a reason for the Government to abandon a well-based refusal to withhold visas from the Springboks. But this refusal has a very weak base, and the poll can fairly be taken as one further indication that the Government should change its position, however firmly it has set its face-'against such a change in the past.

Some weight can still be given to the reasons the Government has given for not withholding visas. A Government should not, in the normal course of events, infringe the rights of New Zealanders to welcome whom they please to this country. But it is becoming clearer and clearer (and this was reflected in the results of the poll) that if the tour goes ahead the rights of other New Zealand sportspeople td. play where they please will be damaged. Equally, a Government should not dictate to any group in New Zealand whom that group should associate with. But the risks, if the tour goes ahead,, are far greater than the risks which will result from setting a possibly unfortunate precedent of Government intervention in an area of national life where it should normally have no .business.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to avoid concluding that the Government is reluctant to act because it fears political disadvantage will follow on its withholding visas, particularly in certain electorates in secondary cities and the smaller provinces. This has been. given some indirect confirmation by the indication in the recent poll that support for the tour is strongest in secondary provincial centres,

especially in the North Island where National appears more threatened by Social Credit than in the South.

The other notable feature of the poll was that a majority of those opposed to the tour base their opposition primarily on the likelihood of division and violence within New Zealand. It would be far better if opposition to the tour were seen, overseas, to stem from a principled objection to apartheid. Moral distaste for apartheid was shown in the poll to be a significant but not overwhelming reason for public opposition to the tour.

The importance of the damage that the tour’s proceeding will do to New Zealand society should not be dismissed as negligble. In the charges made recently that opposition to the tour is communistinspired the country has already heard a distasteful echo from a political era which it should long ago have outgrown. The tour is quite simply bringing out the worst in New Zealand society and the country is already confused and divided enough over other issues without this additional ground for division and disharmony being left to fester any longer.

The tour cannot be dismissed as it was recently by the member of Parliament for Pakufanga, Mr T. de V. Hunt, as a distraction from more important issues. Whether the tour goes ahead or is stopped is a crucial test of where New Zealand stands on questions of race and economic inequality. The wounds which the debate on the tour has already inflicted on the country are obviously, judging from the poll, looming large in the minds of many New Zealanders. While many New Zealanders will feel aggrieved if the tour is cancelled by Government action, this is a lesser price to pay than the feelings of bitterness and hostility which the tour itself will generate and which a majority, of New Zealanders seem now to want to avoid.