Tour dominated P.M.’s mailbag

Press, 21 January 1982, Page 9

Tour dominated P.M.’s mailbag

PA Wellington The Springbok tour dominated the mail of the Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) last year, as it dominated the news.

More than 38,000 letters from the public arrived at ,Mr Muldoon's Beehive office and almost 26.000 of them concerned the tour and the subsequent police appeal. No breakdown was available from Mr Muldoon's office on the proportion of the letters that were for or against the highly controversial tour but as an issue it obliterated all others.

The 12,312 non-Springbok tour letters in the over-all total of 38,282 letters for the year included controversies such as Mr Muldoon's contribution to the Commonwealth summit in Melbourne and letters wishing him well for

the “'General Election and congratulating him after •.winning at the polls. The postbag was the biggest for several years but was still well short of a record. The biggest recent mail delivery was in 1978; when letter-writing campaigns on both sides of the abortion question swelled the postbag to more than 50.000 letters, about half oi them on abortion.

Mr Muldoon received slightly more than 29.000 letters in 1980 in which the Thomas case, abortion, support during the National Party's leadership crisis and opposition to the visit Of the U.S.S. Truxton were the issues.

In 1979 he received 23.413 letters, including more on Thomas and abortion and several hundred on forest preservation.