IF ONLY the New Zealand of 1981 had possessed health and safety legislation to match the laws of 2018. It took Pat McQuarrie, at the controls of the light aircraft he had stolen from Taupo airport, and his threat to fly it into the grandstand of Hamilton’s Rugby Park, to persuade the Police Commissioner, Bob Walton, that it might be in the interests of the health and safety of the spectators gathered to watch the Springbok-Waikato Rugby match on 25 July 1981 to cancel the fixture.
Fast-forward 37 years and just think how easy it would be to achieve the same result today. No need for the likes of Pat McQuarrie in 2018. A few hundred raggle-taggle left-wing gypsies threatening to “confront” Rugby patrons if they attempted to enter the ground is all it would take to convince the New Zealand Rugby Union that the game would have to be called-off.
Crikey! If we’d had the same health and safety rules back then as we have now, then the Springboks wouldn’t have got to play a single game! The anti-tour movement was just so huge in 1981 that its entirely credible threat to organise major disruptions of air travel, the railways and the motorways would have been more than enough to induce Rob Muldoon to instruct the Rugby Union to withdraw its invitation to the South Africans.
Certainly, the state television network would have required little more than the threat of interference with its super-expensive transmission equipment to announce its determination to boycott the Springbok Tour altogether. Of course, without television coverage of the matches it would hardly have been worth the Rugby Union proceeding.
Such a shame that in 1981 the authorities cared so little for the health and safety of New Zealanders that they were prepared to deploy thousands of Police and employ the armed forces to lay thousands of metres of barbed-wire to ensure that the rights of Rugby players and spectators were not infringed. Not only that, but if any protester attempted to prevent the Rugby matches from proceeding then they could expect to be cracked over the head with a Policeman’s baton.
Yep, the consequences for exercising your right to free expression back in 1981 could be severe. When the Springbok-Waikato game was called-off, the protesters who had made it onto the field were lucky to escape with their lives. Bottles and beer-cans rained down upon their heads, leaving many of them bloodied and bruised. Spectators pouring out of the park then attacked the first-aid station treating the injured.
New Zealanders back then were horrified at the level of violence unleashed on the protesters. But that’s only because people were much less aware in 1981 that if a person “talked shit” then they deserved to “get bashed”. It was nowhere near as well understood in those days that speaking-out against the prevailing ideas of the time constitutes nothing less than an open invitation to everybody who subscribes to those ideas to have at the dissident with fist and boot.
The 1980s were such unenlightened times. The appalling events of that era could never happen in the Aotearoa-New Zealand of 2018. Our health and safety laws simply wouldn’t permit it!
Dont speak to soon Chris, a good long batoning gives you the ultimate Red Leftist Badge
New Zealanders go to commerical media to find out what vehicle got overturned and what political parties want them to say for the day. Commercial media is hardly what I’d call a great philosophical leader.
[ ” Yep, the consequences for exercising your right to free expression back in 1981 could be severe. When the Springbok-Waikato game was called-off, the protesters who had made it onto the field were lucky to escape with their lives. Bottles and beer-cans rained down upon their heads, leaving many of them bloodied and bruised. Spectators pouring out of the park then attacked the first-aid station treating the injured ” ]
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Yep.
They were REAL protests back in them days.
But funny how the worm has turned.
Back then it was the vocal Left getting the bash from the Right for standing up for a human rights issue, … NOW … we had a few empty headed Righties trying to preach their particular brand of hate and division , – and because of a few extremists nothing happened. Not that extremist views that hint of violence should be condoned. It only is counterproductive.
And there’s the difference.
The 1981 Springbok Tour was focused around apartheid South Africa at the time,…where real humans were being killed by a very real political system based on race.
Fast forward to Lauren Southern in 2018 and we have a very mild response ( by 1981’s standards ) to a pair of idiots with a socially divisive and destructive ( notwithstanding issues irrelevant to this country ) message that could have benefited NZ in no way whatsoever.
The difference is no one got ‘ the bash’.
But there were some death threats.
And perhaps that may have been the catalyst for denial of access.Or perhaps in this post ‘ War on Terror ‘ , ‘911’ world people are taking things a little more seriously about the easy global movements of individuals and what that could possibly mean to security.
As far as I’m concerned … that security applies to foreigners with a negative and divisive / destructive and irrelevant message ,…such as Southern.
Yet as far as Don Brash is concerned, – HE is a NZ citizen.
And that changes everything.
We can deal with him as a fellow Kiwi, – not a foreigner, as whether we like it or not , – Brash is part of the ongoing fabric and evolution of race relations in this country and is thus important. Brash should be able to express his views however unpopular as a NZ citizen. We deal with our own as we see fit in debate and as fellow citizens of NZ who are relevant to NZ and NZ issues.
And we as a people also reserve the right of ‘access denied’ to whomever we want , whenever we want , – and if they are not a NZ national and if they are of unsavory character ?, – there’s the door.
And that’s OUR freedom of expression as a SOVEREIGN NATION.
And that turns the whole ‘freedom of speech / expression’ defense used by Southern completely on its head.
Chris. How can I put this delicately…FUCK OF WITH YOUR OBSESSION ON “FREE” SPEECH!!!!!!!!!!!!!
hey, i like this “free speech” gig. I can tell an old coot wittering on in his dotage to piss off. Noice!!
By the way Chris, had anti-tour protestors heed your call to stay quiet (https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/08/07/how-the-new-zealand-left-transformed-southern-and-molyneux-from-unknown-rightists-into-free-speech-heroes/) and not draw attention to the tour, so it didnt gain traction in the media, I wonder what would’ve happened?? Nothing. The tour would’ve been a roaring success for conservative New Zealand and the apartheid regime in Sth Afruca.
How dare you use the memory of the protest movement to further your personal bekiefs!!
“Beliefs”. Excuse the typo above. I was mentally hyper-ventilating at the time
You are a troll or a fucking moron if you think that’s what this piece says MJOLNIR . Stop the reactionary nonsense for a minute and engage the brain.
Oh, so no free speech for anyone disagreeing, Alex? If anyone is being “reactionary”, I think your response merits that description.
‘Better’ PC based laws make for more or less ‘democracy’, I suppose, or is that what you wanted to tell us, Monsieur Trotter?
A good old scrap gets people back to basics, and what life is all about, survival of the fittest, I suppose. That is lost now, hence all sorts of illnesses, allergies and psychological conditions, costing us billions.
Throw kids back into the mud, let them scrap, fight, and roll in dirt, so to get resistance of the body and mind.
It works for some, for the others who really need more help, find better ways to support them.
This post was created out of mental boredom, I reckon.
+1
+ 100%
‘ Our health and safety laws simply wouldn’t permit it!’
Now THAT was funny.
Sir Robert Muldoon wanted a punch up with the Springbok Tour to take the country’s minds off the mess he had single handly created with the NZ Economy and his crazy Think Big Projects.
In WW2 evidently he left NZ as a sergeant and came back as a private anyone in the military able to verify that, or is someone just feeding me a whole heap of bullshit ?
The Red Squad had a Field Day ?
The game of rugby itself, is a health & safety risk
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