‘Disgusting’ TV tour coverage

Press, 5 August 1981, Page 6

‘Disgusting’ TV tour coverage

PA Wellington The Government member of Parliament for Pakuranga, Mr T. de V. Hunt, said last evening he was “disgusted" with, the' way that television had handled the Springbok tour issue.

In his Budget speech. Mr Hunt said people had “seen through" the overplaying of the anti-tour protests and that was why they “despised" television at the moment. “The influence of the P.S.A. in interfering in the televising of these matches is irresponsible. This is the best reason I know for moving to private television." he said.

Mr Hunt said the moving of the Commonwealth Finance Ministers' conference from Auckland was an insult to New Zealand.

He asked how the meeting could move to the Bahamas when that country was competing in a fishing competition with South Africa at present. He was worried that genuine protesters were being manipulated by people who were opposed' to the Government. Mr T. K. Burke (Lab.. West Coast) compared the Govern-

ment's approaches to the Rugby Union to those it made to the Olympic and Commonwealth Games Association last year.

. The Government had not asked the Rugby Union to call off the. tour, said Mr Burke, but when the associa-' tion was deciding whether it should send a team to the Moscow Olympic Games after the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, it was visited “late at night” by the then Acting Prime Minister. Mr Maclntyre.

Before Mr Maclntyre's visit, the association had voted 12 votes to four to go to Moscow. After Mr MacIntyre's visit, "a new vote was taken." said Mr Burke. “I believe that vote was six to five to stay at home," he said. He then said that the Budget had allocated $lOO,OOO to the New Zealand Games this vear.

“What does the rest of the world think about the seriousness with which this Government approaches its international responsibilities . . . when they compare the

‘think well.' ‘reconsider.' ‘weigh the consequences.' the ‘think again' (approaches to the Rugby Union) with’ the personal visit, the $100,000?” Miss-Marilyn Waring (Nat.. Waipa) said her views on the tour were well known but she would continue to smile cynically until she heard the leaders of the world who worked so hard for the rights of black Africans include in their list of priorities the invisible, separate women of the main oil-producing countries.

Miss Waring raised a statement by Mrs Yvonne Wilcox, of the Society for the Protection of Individual Rights. who reportedly criticised the United Nations for being “the biggest collection of hypocrites, murderers. liars, and thieves" with whom New Zealand had ever had the misfortune to be associated.

United Nations agency workers dealing with refugees in Ethiopia and Kampuchea were none of these things and nor were those of the World Health Organisation helping to eradicate disease.