Aust. asks N.Z. Government if further action on ’Bok tour possible

Press, 22 June 1981, Page 1

Aust. asks N.Z. Government if further action on ’Bok tour possible

NZPA Sydney Australia asked New Zealand yesterday if any further action was possible by the New Zealand Government to try to prevent the forthcoming tour by the Springboks.

However. New Zealand's Minister of Foreign Affairs (Mr Taiboys) said he was not aware of any new development he could talk about. Mr Taiboys and the Australian Foreign Minister (Mr Tony Street) flew out of Manila at the week-end for Wellington together in an Australian Air Force V.I.P. jet. Both had attended the post-A.S.E.A.N. Ministerial talks in Manila and are scheduled to attend the A.N.Z.U.S. council meeting in Wellington. They were delayed in Sydney because of an engine failure on the V.I.P. jet. Mr Street told reporters that he had discussed with Mr Taiboys during the flight Australia’s concern about the effects of the Springbok tour and the heightened concern being shown by African countries. However, Mr Taiboys said he had not had the chance to talk to the Prime Minister <Mr Muldoon) who is in London, in the last few days. He (Mr Taiboys) was not aware of anything he could tell,Mr Street.

(Mr Muldoon has appeared on television in Australia saying that his Government maintained its position and would not use its powers to try to prevent the tour going ahead.) Australia is worried about the effects a Springbok tour would have on the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Melbourne in September and October and the , Commonwealth Games in Brisbane next year. Mr Street said Australian embassies in Africa reported a heightening of concern by Black African countries as the proposed Springbok tour got closer. “A head of steam” was building up over- the issue. Mr Street said he believed that on the evidence available to him that it was very likely the tour would go ahead. Mr Street said the Australian Government had made it clear that ultimately the decision of whether the tour went ahead was one between the New Zealand Rugby Union and the New Zealand Government and between the

Rugby Union and its sporting confreres in New Zealand and Australia. Ken Coates, the London correspondent of "The Press.” reports that New Zealand looks headed for a period of living with Commonwealth censure as a result of the Springbok tour going ahead. Mr Muldoon and the Commonwealth Secretary-Gen-eral, Sir Shridath Ramphal. were poles apart in attitude to the tour after the hourlong meeting. No compromise was put forward, or discussed. New Zealand first faces a possibility that the Commonwealth Finance Ministers’ meeting venue will be changed from Auckland. Mr Muldoon said after the meeting that Sir Shridath had told him of a move in the Commonwealth to change the venue, "but I don’t believe he told me it was of such strength that it was a foregone conclusion.” A disappointed SecretaryGeneral said that although he told Mr Muldoon higher principles at stake warranted a reappraisal of Gov-

ernment policy over visas, the Prime Minister left him in no doubt that he was unlikely to do that. "If New Zealand proceeds with the tour. I don’t expect the meeting to take place in Auckland and I conveyed this to the Prime Minister." Mr Muldoon said such a move would be a gross insult to New Zealand, and would lead, him to “point out deficiencies in countries taking that kind of action.” New Zealand would certainly not attend a meeting elsewhere. Mr Muldoon said the Secretary-General told him nothing significant that he was not already aware of before their meeting

But he said he told Sir Shridath that the Springbok tour would finish in the United States and a South African came second in the world surfing championships in Australia. "He was not aware of this and neither are Commonwealth members who are getting excited about the Springbok tour." Mr Muldoon said.

He went on to describe Australia's policy on visas for South African sportsmen as inconsistent. He could not differentiate between a South African representing his country as a surfer, and a team of footballers. , Sir Shridath said South Africans were "constantly slipping through the net,” and there was a world -of difference between that and a formal, official rugby tour organised at national level. He said he told Mr Muldoon that since the Gleneagles meeting, the Springbok tour would have been the single most significant sports contact to have taken place anywhere in the Commonwealth. Commonwealth countries saw the world of difference between a team and individuals and the Springbok tour was in direct contravention of the expectation of Gleneagles. It was wrong to consider the Gleneagles Agreement as subject to a caveat that .it was all right for sport contacts to take place because governments were unwilling to use visas as a means of stopping them,; said Sir Shridath. The London "Sunday Times” yesterday reported that . the Commonwealth Heads of State meeting in Melbourne in September and the 1982 ■ Commonwealth Games in Brisbane were in jeopardy because of the Springbok tour of New Zealand next month.

The newspaper said the refusal of Mr Muldoon to ban the tour was blowing up into a "big Commonwealth row.”

The Press Association reported from London that Mr Muldoon said he saw the Budget as more important than the Springbok tour just now. • "I really have got more important issues than this in front of me at the moment,” he said. “I have been working today on this year’s New Zealand Budget, for example.” He had said earlier: I don't

feel under any pressure on the matter and the Government doesn't, so far as I know, feel under any pressure. . In New Zealand Lincoln College students, after a campus referendum, have come out in favour of the Springbok tour. They are the only university in New . Zealand tb have supported the tour. The vote was 52.8 per cent

in favour of the tour and 43.5 per cent against. The students' president, Mr Geoff Bilbrough, said the figures showed that the campus was split oh the issue. The main reasons given for supporting the tour were, "politics should be kept out of sport," and that "stopping the tour would have.no effect on South African policies,” Mr Bilbrough said. One body of opinion had emphasised

that 'New Zealand should not be singled out by other countries or influenced by the other countries.”

Reasons given for being against the tour were that they were against apartheid and were concerned about both the economic consequences for New Zealand, and people.

The turnout for the referendum was 34 per cent, which Mr Bilbrough described as “especially large” for a student poll." Church leaders who support HART, the anti-partheid organisation, should “think again,” according to the member of Parliament for Ashburton (Mr R. L. G. Talbot). “It is a tragedy that some bishops and other leading churchmen are following.in HART’s shadow’,” he said last evening. HART was controlled by ’ “communist extreme- leftwing influences,” and the organisation's; activities should be viewed with “grave suspicions,” he said. Now that Parliament had passed a resolution. supporting the Gleneagles Agreement,' he hoped that protests by groups such as HART would be undertaken “in acceptance pf the fact that the rule of law must prevail.” "It is imperative that New Zealand preserves at this time the basic freedoms of association, without the type of harassment that has been evident in recent months," said Mr Talbot. The Women's Electoral Lobby wants ,the Springbok tour cancelled. At its annual conference, which ended’ yesterday at Motueka, delegates said the tour was perpetuating the exploitation of black women) in South Africa. - < '