frogblog

The other aspect of the Government’s shameful spinning on the Zimbabwe issue is the way it has tried to seamlessly move from ambivalence to staunch opposition to the tour without anyone noticing, So, let’s have a little history lesson. What started as a “we’re not going to get involved - whether the tour goes ahead is up to NZ Cricket”, has become “it would be terrible if the tour went ahead”!

On April 13, Rod had this exchange with Michael Cullen (speaking on behalf of Helen Clark) in Parliament:

Rod: When she said yesterday “personally I wouldn’t be seen dead there�, was she hoping that individual New Zealand cricket players would follow her lead and withdraw from the proposed Black Caps tour of Zimbabwe; if not, why not?
Cullen: The Prime Minister was expressing her personal view. The decision as to whether the New Zealand cricket team tours Zimbabwe is one for the players and New Zealand Cricket to make…
Rod: Will the Prime Minister encourage the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Phil Goff, to follow the example of the British Government and meet with New Zealand’s representative on the International Cricket Council with a view to requesting an international sporting boycott of Zimbabwe; if not, why not?
Cullen: That is a matter for Mr Goff. I think it is fair to say that the current policy of the International Cricket Council makes these decisions very difficult for sporting teams, and the policy could well be revisited, but that, again, is a matter for cricketers and cricketing organisations throughout the world.

On May 12, Keith asked Phil Goff a question in Parliament which went as follows:

Keith Locke: Does the Minister agree with the Prime Minister, who told the University of Cape Town in 2002 that “dubious ethics� were involved every time any New Zealand representative team played in South Africa while apartheid prevailed; and does he agree that it would similarly be a case of dubious ethics if the Black Caps tour of Zimbabwe proceeds; if not, why not?
Phil Goff: The answer to the first question is yes, and to the second question no. The reason for the difference is that there is a difference between playing sport against a team that was inherently part of the apartheid system and chosen on apartheid grounds, and the Zimbabwe cricket team, many members of which, I suspect, strongly oppose what their own Government is doing.

One could interpret from those two answers that, though the Government would rather the tour didn’t go ahead, it was reasonably relaxed about the prospect. Certainly, it wasn’t a matter it needed to urgently address, and certainly it didn’t require the same moral indignation as the Springbok Tour in 1981. Well, in the past week, their rhetoric has heated up considerably, probably because it could sorely do with a nice dust-up with a foreign enemy now that domestically it’s in trouble. As always, Labour has followed public opinion rather than led it.

Compare the above answers, to this quote from Phil Goff yesterday:

There comes a particular point in time where the issue of human rights is so overwhelming, and the abuse of them so gross, you simply cannot separate the fact that we would be in Zimbabwe at the same time as hundreds of thousands of people were being made homeless. If we don’t draw the line here, where do we draw the line? Do we wait for the mass deaths of people?

Well, quite. It would have been nice if it hadn’t taken the Government so long to get suitably indignant about this issue. It’d also be nice if journalists pointed out the extent to which the Government dropped the ball on this one, by waiting two and a half months to so much as lift a finger to try and prevent the tour.

UPDATE: Oh, and the latest spin: the reason Goff didn’t take action sooner? Umm, because it wasn’t till last week that he realised the tour was definitely going ahead! Boy, he must have spent a lot of time out of the country…

UPDATE 2: No Right Turn has useful advice in how to target NZ Cricket’s sponsors, including the National Bank, as another means of opposing the tour. Kakariki has posted the letter she has written to the National Bank, as one of its customers. Meanwhile, those who haven’t done so already would do well to sign this online petition against the tour, which now has more than 1600 signatures. Also, a Stuff poll of more than 3500 people a few days back found 85% support for Zimbabwe being banned for NZ Cricket.

UPDATE 3: Herald cricket writer Richard Boock has an interesting commentary on how Phil Goff botched his diplomacy with the ICC by ignoring the politics of cricket. Rather than rushing to get support from the two other “white man’s countries”, he really needed to get countries like India, Pakistan, and the West Indies on board, and convince them that while suspension from international cricket shouldn’t be taken lightly, Zimbabwe is a special, extreme case.

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