HART hits out at N.Z. Govt

Press, 30 June 1983, Page 2

HART hits out at N.Z. Govt

NZPA staff correspondent London New Zealand, Britain, and the United States deserved to be treated no better than South Africa by the international community if they persisted in collaborating with South Africans over sports contacts, said HART’S chairman, Mr John Minto, in London.

The New Zealand Government’s refusal to take effective action to stop sports contacts put it alongside countries such as Britain and the United States in helping to sabotage the effectiveness of the international campaign to isolate South Africa in sport, he said.

Mr Minto was speaking at the international conference on sanctions against apartheid sport organised by the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee (Sanroc) under the auspices of the United Nations Committee against Apartheid.

He said the Prime Minister, Mr Muldoon, had written to the New Zealand Rugby Union about the invitation to seven All Blacks to play in South Africa next month pointing out the Government’s obligations under the Gleneagles Agreement and asking the union care-

fully to consider the implications of the visit. “But nowhere was there any request to the union to withdraw and not to go to South Africa,” he said. The Rev. Terry Dibble, secretary of the Citizens’ Association for Racial Equality (C.A.R.E.), told the conference that Mr Muldoon knew the rugby union would ignore his request. “This attitude contrasts very sharply with the intense pressure that was put on athletes and sports organisations by the New Zealand Government for the purpose of boycotting the Olympic Games at Moscow in 1980,” he said.