Election can be held during tour

Press, 4 August 1981, Page 1

Election can be held during tour

PA Wellington The continuation of the Springbok tour would not be relevant to the Government in any decision to call a snap election said the Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) yesterday.

If the tour was still in progress he did not believe it would be at all relevant — “My recollection is that the last time we had one, in 1951, the strike was still in progress when the election was called," he told a press conference. . He said that in constitutional terms an' election could be held, he believed, on August 29. It was a well tried and accepted constitutional procedure to go to the country on an issue — “It has happened time and time again in Westminster-style democracies.

“If you have an issue, and it’s an issue which has come up all of a sudden, the term is go to the country and let the people decide which way to go. It is the classical method of deciding an issue of this kind — to go to the

country. “I don't want a snap election but there will be circumstances in which we

would have one. That hasn't altered in the past 12 hours," he said. A snap election would be held both for the benefit of the people of New Zealand and the Government. "If we were threatened by civil disturbance of a type which brought into serious question the authority of the State in the field of law and order it would be entirely proper to have a General Election, and we would do it." Mr Muldoon said one had to be pleased when there was not a confrontation with, the

police but it was obvious the protest people realised it would not be very pleasant for them if it was. The situation had not changed his position in that the protest people were in control of the situation. He

had not briefed the Cabinet earlier in the day on the prospects of an early election.

Dealing with the position of the Gleneagles Agreement at the Commonwealth Heads-of-Government meeting scheduled for October in Melbourne, he said he believed British Government pressure was not to have the agreement tightened up.

Mr Muldoon said the British Prime Minister (Mrs Thatcher) wanted the agreement reaffirmed in its present form — “The form we believe it is in — not what the Commonwealth people believe it is in.

“I'd obviously be happy if we made it clear the original Gleneagles Agreement is still the present Gleneagles Agreement. In which case what the British Government has said, namely that New Zealand is not in breach of the agreement, would be made clear. “We're not in breach of it and the British Government has said so."

Tour meeting today, page 2