Embassy critical of Aust. newspapers

Press, 6 August 1981, Page 9

Embassy critical of Aust. newspapers

NZPA Canberra The South • African embassy in Canberra has attacked the “unprecedented" Australian press coverage of the Springbok tour of New Zealand. “There must surely be more important issues of concern." says an editorial in the latest issue of the embassy's monthly newsletter. It suggests' that press coverage of the controversial tour "has been out of all proportion to its importance within the Commonwealth."

Over a two-week period in July. 32 Australian newspapers carried “an unprecedented 236 reports concerning the tour controversy.

“The editorials were critical and the news reports were negatively speculative of the consequences. Only letters to the editor gave any indication that many Australians support the tour." the editorial says. It also notes that a radio phone-in poll in Sydney saw some 83 per cent of the 498 callers support the tour.

In the first week in August, said an embassy spokesman, there had been 152 reports in the same Australian newspapers covering the anti-tour demonstrations but only “one or two" reports on the rugby match.

"It would seem then, as subjects of the Commonwealth of nations, that most Australians do not put much significance on the fact that a few of their fellow Commonwealth compatriots across the Tasman wish to engage in a sporting contest with South Africa." . The editorial says it was ironic that during the same two-week period only one Australian newspaper devoted a single paragraph to a four-month tribal war just ended in Ghana, a West African Commonwealth country. "One thousand citizens were killed in the war. all of

them Commonwealth subjects." says the editorial. The embassy has until now kept quiet about the Springbok tour. According to the editorial, the embassy was moved to comment when it became clear that “Several ill-in-formed commentators are intent on involving the South African Government. “To date, much of the criticism has been directed at the New Zealand Prime Minister, Mr Muldoon, but it now appears that, having failed to persuade him to intervene, many commentators are looking towards South Africa as the culprit." the editorial says.