P.M. emphasises he said tour must not proceed

Press, 1 April 1985, Page 1

P.M. emphasises he said tour must not proceed

NZPA staff correspondent Perth The Prime Minister, Mr Lange, made it clear yesterday minutes before flying to Africa that his advice to rugby administrators that the All Black tour to South Africa should not proceed was a Government direction.

Mr Lange said that if Mr Ces Blazey, chairman of the New Zealand Rugby Football Union, honoured his undertaking given at the time of the 1981 Springbok tour — that if the Government of the day gave a direction he would have to abide by it — the proposed tour would be called off. The last line of a letter Mr Lange gave the union’s 18 councillors in his meeting with them at Parliament on Saturday said: “... The Government must state plainly: the tour must not proceed.” Yesterday Mr Lange clarified that sentence in the following exchange with reporters:

Question: Let’s get it clear once and for all — it’s > a direct order from the Government for the rugby tour not to proceed? Mr Lange: The Government is putting it on the line to the Rugby Union that the tour must not proceed. Blame me if you like but with the authority of Government, I say it is not in the interests of New Zealand — that tour must not proceed. They are under no misapprehension about that. Question: Is it a direction to the Rugby Union? Mr Lange: You can call it what you like — I’m telling them not to go. He said the Rugby Union was “perfectly entitled” to

make him the scapegoat. "I am prepared in politics for New Zealand to take certain consequences in the in-, terests of the country,” he said. “If the Rugby Union feel that they have to put that on to me, to have the country’s interests advanced, so be it. I am happy for that.” In Wellington, Mr Blazey said yesterday that Mr Lange was mistaken in believing that the final line of his letter to councillors which says, “That is why the Government must state plainly: the tour must not proceed,” was the only matter delaying a decision. “There are other things in

the letter which require clarification," Mr Blazey said. “I gather he (Mr Lange) is under the impression his letter is abundantly clear. That might be his view but it is not ours.” Mr Lange said from Perth yesterday that he had told Mr Blazey and his council during a meeting at the Beehive on Saturday morning that he was directing the union not to accept the tour invitation. “Mr Blazey asked whether it was a request or a direction and I made it clear what it was — it is in fact the Government saying to the Rugby Union: don’t go,” Mr Lange said.