Playing for time?

Press, 1 April 1985, Page 1

Playing for time?

By

PATRICIA HERBERT

in Wellington

The New Zealand Rugby Union has soured its relationship with the police by a ng for time on the i African tour decision.

The president of the Police Association, Mr Keith Morrow, yesterday protested against the delay, describing it as just so much posturing. “I think it is scandalous. The whole country seems to be dancing at the will of 18 men,” Mr Morrow said — a reference to the 18-member Rugby Union council which, decided on Saturday to defer the matter at least until April 17, the date of its next scheduled meeting.

Mr Morrow said the uncertainty was “absolutely ruining” the lives of police officers and their families. “They cannot make any forward plans. That is what I am really upset about. The whole thing is reaching a farcical level.

“I just can’t see how they (the councillors) can almost nonchalantly turn their backs and defer it yet again and then say it is only likely that they will make a decision on April 17.” In the meantime, he said, the police would have to continue to pour funds into training and the purchase of protective equipment against the possibility that the tour would proceed. “If they (the All Blacks) don’t go, what a glorious waste of money that might have been spent somewhere else in improving the service to the community,” Mr Morrow said.

He emphasised that the police had no opinion one way or the other on whether the All Blacks should go to South Africa. They were concerned only about the postponement of the decision.

“It is so much waste of time,” he said. “If they are going, they should come out and say so.” The cost of maintaining law and order, should the tour go ahead, has been estimated at $4 million excluding salaries. The esti-

mate was contained in a Police Department report released at the week-end. The Assistant Commissioner (Crimes and Operations) Mr Brian Davies, yesterday echoed Mr Morrow’s criticisms. He said the delay was starting to cause concern because the police had to keep planning for a “yes” outcome in the knowledge that, if the answer was “no,” the money and man-hours ploughed into the exercise would be wasted. Also, their time-frame was coming under pressure as many details could not be completed until the decision was known. The chairman of the' Rugby Union council, Mr Ces Blazey, announced the deferment on Saturday afternoon after councillors had spent almost four hours behind closed doors discussing a letter the Prime Minister, Mr Lange, had given them that morning. Mr Blazey said the council had decided that it needed “clarification of some points in the letter” but would not elaborate on what these were. A careful reading of Mr Lange’s letter, copies of which have been released to the news media, reveals only one possible source of confusion — whether the statement that “the tour must not proceed” amounts to an order or an instruction. There are grounds to support either interpretation. In one passage, Mr Lange acknowledges that the final decision must reside with the Rugby Union. He says that, while the Government is totally opposed to sporting contacts with South Africa, it cannot and will not interfere with the right of all New Zealanders freely to enter and leave New Zealand. But he offsets this by suggesting that, should the interests of rugby and the national welfare conflict, his responsibility to protect the one must take precedence over the council’s responsibility to advance the other. “The interest of New Zea-

land is what I wish to urge on you and your fellow councillors at our meeting,” he says. "That interest is my responsibility just as the administration of rugby is yours. “My assessment of that interest has convinced me that a rugby tour of South Africa would do New Zealand great damage and for that reason, the tour must not proceed.” Mr Lange has since scoffed at Mr Blazey’s saying that the Rugby Union needs further clarification of Mr Lange’s position. He said in Australia yesterday that he had told the 18 councillors when he met them on Saturday that he was giving them a direct order from the Government not to go ahead and that they had been “under no misapprehension about that at all” when they left him. “I’m telling them not to go,” he said. He also said that Mr Blazey had asked him in the course of the meeting if the statement that the tour not proceed was a request or direction and that he had told him specifically that if the Rugby Union accepted the invitation, it would be acting "against the direct will of the Government.” The Leader of the Opposition, Mr McLay, is in no doubt that Mr Lange has presented the Rugby Union

with an unequivocal deemand and has described it as “the grossest possible interference with the rights iemantf ahd’ has" described All evidence suggests that, whatever reasons the council offers for the deferment, it is playing tactics. First, the councillors had two full hours in which to seek whatever further information they might want of Mr Lange. He waited in his office from 11.30 a.m. to 1.30 p.m. on Saturday for word from them. Second, Mr Blazey has made it clear, as has Mr Lange on former occasions, that the Government can only seek to persuade and that it is up to the Rugby Union either to oblige, or not.

This attitude emerged at

a press conference after the council meeting on Saturday in an exchange between Mr Blazey and the veteran sports writer, Terry Mclean.

McLean: What about the constitutional side of it? Do you intend to seek legal advice?

Mr Blazey: At the present time, I don’t think that is necessary.

McLean: Well, the statement by the Prime Minister is totally unconstitutional I would imagine within the Westminster Parliamentary system — where a Government has directed a sports body to do something. Mr Blazey: Did he (Mr Lange) actually use the word ‘direct’?

McLean: Well, he has ordered you that the four must not proceed. Mr Blazey: I think that whatever happens, it will be a matter ultimately for the New Zealand Rugby Union to decide what it is going to do.

McLean: You are an old Army officer of many years experience. You understand orders, plain orders, and this is a plain order — the tour must not proceed — and you are, with respect, you are shilly-shallying? Mr Blazey: As an Army officer of a very long time, I understand orders but after all you need to be clear in your orders and also to have the authority to give your orders and all sorts of other things. If, as McLean suggests, the council is “shilly-shal-lying” the question is why. One councillor has indicated that the Rugby Union wants some kind of statement from the Government as to the developments it requires in South Africa before changing its policy on sporting contacts. Mr Morrow has taken the deferment as an indication that the tour will go ahead on the basis that a “no go decision” could easily have been announced on/Saturday. C' However, it could equally be an expression of simple truculence. Mr Blazey has hinted that Mr Lange’s letter goes beyond the resolution passed by Parliament on Thursday.

While it" strongly urged the Rugby Union not to accept the invitation, it was amended by the Opposition to recognise that it was the Rugby Union’s decision to make and that the Government must always preserve the rights of all New Zealanders to act without intimidation provided their actions were within the law.

With this amendment, it was passed unanimously. Given this, Mr , Lange’s directive may have been stronger than the councillors had expected. They may, in the end, feel obliged to obey it but they will do so with a certain bitterness and will not want to hand him victory on a plate. Mr Blazey said Mr Lange had not asked for an answer before he left on his African mission and that it would not have made “a heck of a lot of difference” if he had but it is known that he hoped for one. His trip would probably have turned into something of a triumphal procession had he left with an assurance that the tour was off. As it stands now, the Rugby Union will make its decision on the day he returns to New Zealand — April 17.