Focus Question 1: What are the causes of this Human Rights issue?
There is one main cause of this human rights issue; Apartheid. The plan of the tour was first developed in April of 1980, and that’s when it all begun. Because of the type of government that was in place in South Africa at the time (Apartheid) it meant that New Zealanders opinions of whether or not the tour should go ahead were varied. If the tour were to go ahead New Zealand would have been seen as pro-Apartheid, which was something that many New Zealanders did not want to be associated with. As the Opposition leader at the time Bill Rolling said, “With international feeling running at its present level, and our own people sharply divided, I believe that an invitation at this stage would be a blow to New Zealand’s integrity abroad and a source of division and bitterness at home.” This also meant that the black nations would no longer want anything to do with New Zealand, nor attend the Commonwealth Games that were meant to be held in Brisbane the next year if the New Zealand team were to be present. Subsequently this would have forced Australia to ban New Zealand from the Commonwealth Games. It also would have meant that the Commonwealth finance ministers’ conference that was set to be held in Auckland would be moved to another country. The organiser of the tour and Prime Minister of new Zealand at the time Robert Muldoon did not listen to the pleas of New Zealanders to stop the tour because 1981 was election year. Cancelling the tour would then mean huge amount of rugby devotees would be upset in areas where National party members were only just staying in Parliament as it was, and this would cause them to loose votes. This meant that the tour went ahead, causing New Zealanders to be divided against one another in a large number of protests.