Two appeals for rugby broadcast

Press, 13 May 1986, Page 5

Two appeals for rugby broadcast

The Broadcasting Tribunal has received two appeals against the decision not to provide live television coverage of the rebel rugby tour matches in South Africa. The appeals were from the sporting freedom group, S.P.R.I. (N.Z.), and one from a person in Waikanae.

They will be dealt with once the tribunal has received a declaration from each complainant saying that no legal action will be taken over any aspect of the tribunal’s investigation.

S.P.R.I. also received a telegram from the tribunal yesterday asking that the group identify the grounds it. claims the tribunal has to deal with the matter. The telegram said: “If the complaint being referred to is not about a programme being broadcast the complainant should indicate the grounds on which it claims the tribunal has jurisdiction to deal with the matter.”

The complaint is unlike most received the

tribunal because it does not concern a broadcast programme.

The national organiser for 5.P.R.1., Mrs Elizabeth Sutherland, said it was almost an impossibility for the average person to "wade through” the relevant act and powers of the tribunal to identify these grounds. “We are trying to find our way through the act at present, but the whole thing is weighed against the average person,” she said last evening. Mrs Sutherland hopes to have the declaration and additional Information sent to the tribunal today. A spokesman for the tribunal said yesterday that how and when the appeals would be dealt with would be decided once the declarations and information had been received.

It has been reported that the rights to broadcast the rugby tour are held by a New Zealand company, Videocorp. These rights were said to be unavailable for two years.