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Many Answers: Where to go to find information on Springbok Tour

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Many Answers: Where to go to find information on Springbok Tour

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Before the tour

The South African Springboks and the All Black rugby teams had toured New Zealand and South Africa before 1981. Try these sites for information about the background of this particular tour and why it was controversial.
Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand
Te Ara is an excellent starting point for all questions about New Zealand Aotearoa. If we scroll down to the bottom of the page we can see that the website belongs to the Ministry for Culture & Heritage, so the information is well-researched and reliable.

Use the keywords 'Springbok rugby tour' to search.

There is not one specific entry for the 1981 Springbok tour, but there is information about it in several entries such as Rugby and South Africa and Politics of sport.

These entries give a summary or timeline of events leading up to the tour.

Tips: Search words, or keywords, are the most important words in our question. Usually it's better to leave out small words like 'the', 'a' and 'of' and just choose the main ones, e.g. 'Springbok rugby tour' We can always change our keywords or add more if we need to.

Supporters and protesters

Have a look at these sites to find out about opinions on both sides of the controversy.

DigitalNZ brings together lots of digitised New Zealand content and culture, and is a good place to look for information about the Springbok Rugby tour.

Enter your keywords eg 'Springbok Tour 1981' or 'Springbok Rugby'.

The results are grouped by the type of information, like images, audio, videos, newspapers, articles and research papers.

Tips: Websites that have .org or .net in the address can have good information, but you need to assess how reliable it is. Check the link on the website, if you can find one. That can tell you what the organisation's mission and values are.

Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision
Funded by the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision is New Zealand's audio-visual archive. Their collection includes film and television, radio and sound recordings, props, posters and more from over 120 years of New Zealand's history.

Select Catalogue.

Enter the keywords '1981 Springbok tour' and make sure to select Available Online.

Listen to [Springbok tour 1981 - compilation].

This is a collection of 13 cuts of radio coverage of the protest surrounding the 1981 Springbok tour of New Zealand.

Australia New Zealand Reference Centre
This is one of the EPIC resources, a collection of reliable databases. Here you can find information on why people opposed or supported the tour and about the impact the tour had on New Zealand.

Try searching with the keywords 'Springbok tour' to find lots of newspaper and magazine articles.

It's a good idea to limit the results to Full Text articles by ticking the box on the left side of the results.

Tips: To get to the EPIC resources you will need a password from your school librarian first. Or you can chat with one of our AnyQuestions librarians between 1 and 6pm Monday to Friday and they will help you online. Some EPIC databases may also be available through your public library.

This is New Zealand's public radio service on New Zealand news, current affairs, Pacific, Te Ao Māori, sport, business including opinions and analysis.

Go to the tab called Topics at the top of the page, then scroll down the page to Collections.

Find the collection called The 1981 Springbok rugby tour which is all about the game and the protest actions.

Tips: Websites that have .com or .co in the address can have good information, but you need to assess how reliable it is. Check the link on the website, if you can find one. That can tell you what the company's mission and values are.

Museum of New Zealand - Te Papa Tongarewa
Te Papa is New Zealand's National Museum and it houses collections and exhibitions about 20th Century history and culture. Te Papa has a collection of images, posters, objects and videos from the 1981 Springbok rugby tour.

Tips: We like sites that are from government or other reputable organisations, because we can trust the information. You can sometimes tell these sites by their web address - they might have .gov or .edu in their address - or by looking at their page.

The New Zealand History Collection (BWB)
The New Zealand History Collection is also a part of the EPIC databases. Here you will find a collection of ebooks on New Zealand history and biography titles from Bridget Williams Books. It has a book about what happened during the protests in Auckland.

Find the title When the Tour Came to Auckland and select Read Now.

Move through the chapters by using the arrows at the top of the page.

Or select the three lines to go back to the Contents.

After the tour

Try these websites to understand the impact the tour had on New Zealand society.

NZHistory is another reliable website from the Ministry of Culture and Heritage. It has sections on the culture, politics, people and history of New Zealand.

Select the section on Culture and Society.

Look under Sport to find 1981 Springbok tour.

Read through the pages to find out about the protest and the impact it had on the people and politics of New Zealand and South Africa.

New Zealand Geographic Archive
Another EPIC resource, this site has got some great pictures.

Search using the keywords 'springbok tour' to find articles, like Tainted Games.

Tips: To get to the EPIC resources you will need a password from your school librarian first. Or you can chat with one of our AnyQuestions librarians between 1 and 6pm Monday to Friday and they will help you online. Some EPIC databases may also be available through your public library.

NZ On Screen is the online showcase of New Zealand television, film and music video. All content is free to view. There are several films on the effects of the tour.

Tips: Websites that have .com or .co in the address can have good information, but you need to assess how reliable it is. Check the About us link on the website, if you can find one. That can tell you what the company's mission and values are.

Books and DVDs

There are books that have been written on the Springbok rugby tour of 1981 - check out your local public or school library to see what they have.

Here are some recommended titles:
SCIS no: 1839526

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The South African Springboks and the All Black rugby teams had toured New Zealand and South Africa before 1981. Try these sites for information about the background of this particular tour and why it was controversial. Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand Te Ara is an excellent starting point for all questions about New Zealand Aotearoa.

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Image credit: Anti-Springbok tour demonstrators overturn car. Ref: EP-Ethics-Demonstrations-1981 Springbok tour-04 Alexander Turnbull Library.

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The Topic Explorer helps you find quality, curated resources on a range of topics to support and inspire inquiry. Each topic features a carefully selected set of national and international resources, including websites, images, videos, books and more.

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Some argue that if the 1981 Springbok rugby tour of New Zealand had been halted from the outset, the impact on the hearts and minds of South Africans would not have been as profound. This Leanne Pooley-directed film aims to show how events in Aotearoa (captured in Merata Mita's documentary Patu!) played out in South Africa; how the tour protests energized blacks, shamed the regime, and provoked democratic change. Says Archbishop Desmond Tutu: "You really can't even compute its value, it said the world has not forgotten us, we are not alone."

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Try Revolution | Television | NZ On Screen

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Try Revolution - Some argue that if the 1981 Springbok rugby tour of New Zealand had been halted from the outset, the impact on the hearts and minds of South Africans would not have been as profound. This Leanne Pooley-directed film aims to show how events in Aotearoa (captured in Merata Mita's documentary Patu!)

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The Grassroots of the 1981 Springbok Tour: An examination of the actions and perspectives of everyday New Zealanders during the 1981 Springbok Rugby Tour of NZ

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Report from NZ Security Intelligence Service

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Report from NZ Security Intelligence Service

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Forty years ago this month the Springbok rugby team started their controversial tour of New Zealand. The series of matches across the country caused division and riotous violence, but also triggered change. And, as Brad Flahive and Alex Liu discovered, the protest movement against apartheid-era South Africa had laid its foundations years earlier.
It was almost impossible to see the line of nightstick-wielding police officers charging after Will' Ilolahia.

His heavy nervous breathing was misting up the visor on his borrowed, bright red motorcycle helmet as he scrambled to find the new rally point outside Auckland's Eden Park.

The helmet and the padding on his arms and legs were necessary protection but useless if he couldn't see where he was running.

READ MORE:
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* Once a Panther: The revolutionary Polynesians who stopped the dawn raids

He dropped the helmet and found his way to the rallying point on Dominion Rd where hundreds of people like him, were ready to sacrifice their freedom and risk serious injury to halt a racist and inhumane ideology from permeating New Zealand society.

This was 1981.

A rugby team from apartheid South Africa was touring New Zealand and the country violently split in two factions.

New Zealand's love of rugby led many to ignore the atrocities and racial oppression inflicted on black people in South Africa.

On the other side, organised local opposition had joined the calls from the international community to stop sporting contact with South Africa.

Among that determined group were the Polynesian Panthers; they had battled racial oppression in Aotearoa for more than a decade and instinctively knew the dangers of willful ignorance.

"After what we had seen in New Zealand, we could see [apartheid] coming here," says Polynesian Panther Tigilau Ness.

That fear stemmed, in part, from the 1975 general election, where Robert Muldoon and the National Party won with a campaign that stoked fears of Communism creeping into New Zealand, a promise to kick out Pasifika communities, and resume sporting contact with apartheid South Africa.

In the years leading up to the 1981 tour, Muldoon's Government brought back dawn raids on Pasifika families. The police task force targeted Polynesian neighbourhoods and, despite international condemnation and Olympic boycotts, the Springboks weren't stopped from touring the country.

"All this talk about the best race relations in the country was just lies," says Ness.

"If we don't deal with this [apartheid] - this country? We're done."

Back at the rallying point, Ness, 'Ilolahia and the other revolutionaries prepared to regroup after the police had splintered their protest action.

What happened next is detailed in Stuff's latest podcast, Once a Panther.

Once a Panther is a podcast about the work of the Polynesian Panther Party, a New Zealand-based activist group inspired by the Black Panthers in the United States.

The Panthers were ahead of their time on several fronts: No possession of drugs or alcohol during movement time; no using the name of the movement in public for self-glory; equality of the sexes.

They were outspoken and visible - their berets and black uniform adopted from their counterparts in the United States - they appeared to threaten white middle-class New Zealand.

But in contrast to their militant structure, the Panthers' roots were in community work.

The movement started homework centres, organised a food co-operative, created a legal aid booklet with future prime minister David Lange, kept an aggressive police force accountable, facilitated prison visits and campaigned for the rights of tangata whenua.

'Ilolahia puts it more simply: "What was it all about being a Polynesian Panther? Standing up on behalf of our people, being good to your neighbour, don't take no s... and stop this racism."

So, when the Springboks arrived in 1981, the Panthers were trained and ready to lay their lives on the line.

If you look at photographs from the tour protests and riots, you'll see people from all walks of New Zealand life - people from organised groups like the Panthers and Halt All Racist Tours (Hart), but also others from religious groups, and mums and dads who felt a moral obligation to take a stand against a brutal political regime.

"1981 was the battle for the soul of New Zealand," says Trevor Richards.

Richards, the Hart movement chairperson, is probably better known as that "moustachioed bastard" and was a critical figure that led the opposition against Muldoon and the New Zealand Rugby Football Union (NZRFU), as it was then known.

"[Through] snipes at African leaders and Māori' radicals', [Muldoon] built a coalition of supporters, known commonly as Rob's Mob, by appealing to those blue-collar Labour voters who felt threatened," says Richards during an episode of Stuff podcast Once a Panther.

"They were the core of the pro-tour movement."

A lot of fuss is made about the 1981 anti-apartheid movement, which irks Richards a little "because a hell of a lot of protests went on before then - the first was in 1921".

"Māori were strongly opposed to New Zealand teams going to South Africa in 1949 and 1960 because Māoris weren't allowed to go because the South Africans wouldn't accept them.

"The NZRU was quite happy to say if you don't want them, we won't send them, so they sent all-white teams ironically named All Blacks."

In 1973, Hart successfully helped to stop the Springboks from touring New Zealand.

"I don't think enough credit is given to [former prime minister] Norman Kirk for stopping the 1973 tour," says Richards.

"In the context of the time, it was huge.

"The chairman of the Wellington Rugby Union said it was the biggest disaster we had faced since Neville Chamberlain had come back from Munich in 1939."

During the heady days of the All Blacks/Springboks rivalry, the post-war generation prioritised colonial ties over all else.

In the ideal post-war New Zealand home, families sat around the table with mum and dad on each end, ruling over etiquette and manners with a wooden spoon.

Mum and dad had survived World War II through sacrifice and rationing; thanks to them, New Zealand was safe from an alien antagonist.

But it was also bland and unexciting - and that's how they liked it.

Little did they know their next adversary peered at them over the corned beef, boiled silverbeet and mashed potatoes.

Aotearoa's baby boomer generation would demand change.

"Post-war New Zealand was insular, conservative, stifling, racist," says Richards.

"[Former prime minister] Keith Holyoake told us we had the best race relations in the world, but I doubt if many Pākehā knew the difference between a pōwhiri and a waiata."

"It was good race relations if you were Pākehā, assimilation was the official policy, but it didn't take long to discover it was a hoax."

In the late 1960s, activist groups sprouted throughout the country; the panthers, Hart and Ngā Tamatoa, to name a few.

When this enlightened generation learned of revolutions happening around the globe, pickets were a regular feature.

"You would walk down Queen St on a Saturday night and ask the person next to you what we were protesting about tonight - there was always something to picket," remembers another Hart leader, John Minto.

Minto, another trailblazer for human rights, notoriously became the face of police anger during the tour - squads infamously named their long batons 'the Minto bar'.

He joined Hart in the mid-1970s, and by that time, movements like Hart and the Panthers were perceived to be such a threat that the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) was spying on them.

Despite the dangers, Minto was determined joining Hart would make a difference.

"I felt like this was one issue where New Zealand could punch above its weight," Minto says.

"We had this most important link that South Africa wanted with the outside world, which was playing rugby, Springboks playing All Blacks."

In the leadup to the tour, Hart organised the most significant national mobilisation the country had seen - more than 30,000 in Auckland alone - in a last-ditch effort to oppose the tour.

The NZRFU were still deciding if the tour would go ahead, and Muldoon continued to argue that the government would not intervene in sporting contact decisions.

"We delivered 100,000 leaflets to letterboxes across Auckland city... telling people to come to the big mobilisation, and it was translated into the Pacific Island languages and Māori," Minto says.

"The following week, we got the most appalling amount of racist stuff about Māori and Pacific Islanders sent to us in the mail, people furious this multilingual thing had arrived in their letterbox from these people who wanted to stop the tour.

"People did crazy things like go to the toilet and wipe themselves with the leaflet and sent it back to us in the mail - it was amazing."

The mobilisation reached far and wide, and even in places like Eltham, the middle of rugby-loving Taranaki, 12 people turned out for a protest march.

"You have to take your hat off to those people as hundreds came out to abuse them; they were the real brave people because this was heartland New Zealand."

Meanwhile, Muldoon targeted Hart in the press and labelled them treasonous for allegedly telling lies to international media about his government's policies.

"It was tough for Muldoon," says Richards. "His policies had directly led to 28 countries boycotting the Montreal Olympics."

When it was likely the Springboks would come in 1981, Hart announced it would disrupt the tour.

"The feeling throughout the whole movement as if the Springboks are playing in Hamilton, we are not going to all descend on Hamilton, we're going to have major demonstrations where we live and stretch the thin blue line," recalls Richards.

"The police couldn't send all their folks to Hamilton; they had to stay where they were based to cope with the protests there."

Despite knowing how divisive the tour had become, the NZRFU announced the tour was on. It had received assurances the team had been selected fairly, not based on race.

"We took our lead from the non-racial sporting associations who assured us there was no change, but the NZRU was easily bought off by baseless assurances," says Richards.

"There were 366 days on which the NZRU could announce the tour; they chose to do so on the third anniversary of the death of Steve Biko."

Biko was a political activist in South Africa in the 1960s and 1970s who died while in police custody.

An inquest would later reveal Biko died from traumatic brain injury, not a hunger strike as announced by the South African Minister of Police.

Accidental or not, Richards says it was a signal of what was about to come.

For 56 days in July, August and September, the country was bitterly divided. More than 150,000 people would take part in 200-plus demonstrations in 28 centres.

"You had major mainstream opposition, with the need for social change pushing it, and rugby just happened to be the issue that caught the wind of that social change the most because it was something to which all parts of the country could relate to and was important to them," says Richards.

"It would be the closest we would come to civil war since the New Zealand Wars."

Once a Panther can be found on Stuff or through podcast apps, including Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or an RSS feed.

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1981 Springbok tour 40 years on: '1981 was the battle for the soul of New Zealand'

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Forty years ago this month the Springbok rugby team started their controversial tour of New Zealand. The series of matches across the country caused division and riotous violence, but also triggered change. And, as Brad Flahive and Alex Liu discovered, the protest movement against apartheid-era South Africa had laid its foundations years earlier.

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37 audio and 8 videos on the protest and impacts

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The Spinoff - Three things you didn't know about the 1981 Springbok Tour

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The Spinoff - Three things you didn't know about the 1981 Springbok Tour

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Summer read: This year marked the 40th anniversary of the rugby tour that divided a nation. While countless books and articles have been written about that time, some important details have faded with age. Leonie Hayden looks back at three of them.
First published July 22, 2021
Merata Mita's documentary Patu! opens with a group collecting signatures on the street in Auckland to petition the government to stop the upcoming Springboks' tour of New Zealand. A young passer-by starts arguing with the organisers, asking how would they feel if a group of "wogs" or "Blacks" came over here. One group member explains that she's married to a Black South African man. Undeterred, the man continues his tirade about what would happen if "they" were in charge.

It's 1981 and Mita's grainy film footage captures one of those most divisive periods in our history since the New Zealand Wars. It was a battle that played out on the rugby field, in the streets, within the halls of parliament and at kitchen tables all over the country. But the fight for New Zealand to take a stand against South Africa's apartheid regime was far from new.

The New Zealand Rugby Football Union had left rugby legend George Nēpia and other giants of the game at home in 1928 to conform with South Africa's segregation laws. In 1959, the Citizens' All Black Tour Association had tried to demand "No Maoris, no tour" when Māori players were excluded from the team's 1960 visit. They weren't successful then, but Māori players would go on to tour South Africa as "honorary whites" in 1970 and then in 1976 - the same year as the Soweto uprising that saw hundreds of children and student protestors murdered by police.

While Robert Muldoon campaigned on sports and politics being kept separate, deftly side-stepping the Commonwealth members' Gleneagles agreement, the world had very much decided the two were connected. Black African nations boycotted the 1976 Montreal Olympics in protest of our ongoing engagement with South Africa. New Zealand was becoming a pariah.

And so when the 1981 tour was announced, anti-apartheid groups such as Halt All Racist Tours (HART), Citizens Association for Racial Equality (CARE) and the Patu Squad (led by Hone Harawira, Donna Awatere, Josie Keelan and Ripeka Evans) began a national campaign to stop it in its tracks.

Ultimately, the demonstrations and petitions to Muldoon's government - plus a national poll showing only 46% public support for the tour - fell on deaf ears and the South African team were officially welcomed to New Zealand at Te Poho-o-Rawiri marae in Gisborne on July 19, 1981.

Tā Graham Latimer's wero

It was a pōwhiri with teeth.

The welcome for the Springboks took place at the same time as Māori activists were spreading glass across Gisborne's Rugby Park ahead of the first game. The speakers that evening comprised Te Poho-o-Rawiri kaumātua, dignitaries of the Tairāwhiti Māori council, and the president of the New Zealand Māori Council, the late Sir Graham Latimer.

To many the welcome would have looked like a sign of a generational divide - conservative assimilationists on the marae versus activists on the field - but Latimer ensured the pōwhiri wasn't an occasion that ignored or played down what was at stake. In fact, he very politely told Springboks captain Wynand Claassen and his team they wouldn't be welcome again while apartheid remained in South Africa.

Per tradition, it was Latimer's role as the New Zealand Māori Council president to extend a greeting to any international group being welcomed onto a marae. The speaker before him, Tom Fox, had emphasised with some pride, and to much applause, that the Tairāwhiti branch was the only Māori council that actively supported the tour.

Latimer, however, was less effusive. "I am fully conscious of the fact that I do not have a complete mandate to make this welcome," he began. "Seven out of the nine district councils that make up the New Zealand Māori council are opposed to the tour, and one is undecided." A long pause, silence from the crowd.

"Fifty-four per cent of the general public of New Zealand has expressed opposition to your tour. That's in a poll. The last time such a tour was mooted, only 16% were against the tour. That you have come has been seen by some as a major victory but it must be recognised that if there were only another 6% against the tour, there would be neither a political party not a rugby union game enough to extend an invitation to you."

He continued: "There can be no doubt in my mind that we will not be making another such welcome on a Māori marae - I emphasise that point - unless your government can show it is prepared to change its policies on apartheid. We hope we can look forward to a time in the not too distant future when you could be welcomed on any marae. It would be a pity if this could be looked upon as the last international tour by South Africa."

Latimer finished by giving an especially warm mihi to Errol Tobias, the first player of colour to tour with the Springboks. "I believe he represents hope for 18 million South Africans, for whom there appears to be little hope."

The genius of Latimer's challenge was in its statesmanlike delivery. While much of his speech was received with (presumably) shocked silence, he was still rewarded with a huge round of applause at its conclusion, even though he had just told those gathered they would not be welcome in future under the same circumstances. The extraordinary recording of that evening, housed in the Ngā Taonga archive, captures a mild-mannered assassin executing an entire squad with diplomacy.

Naturally we have no way of measuring the effects of that speech on either the Springboks or apartheid. But it may have been the last time the issue was discussed politely.

Police violence was far worse than they'd like you to remember

Nicknamed the Day of Shame, July 22 saw the Springboks' opener against Poverty Bay. Three hundred protestors marched to Rugby Park in Gisborne via a nearby golf course and attempted to breach a fence. Rugby fans jumped into action and a brawl broke out between the two groups. Police arrived to break up the fighting, and only two men managed to run onto the field. Thirteen were arrested and many were hurt in the resulting brawl, but it was nothing compared to the violence that was to come.

Over the course of the next two months, police, in particular the infamous Red and Blue riot control squads, would become more and more comfortable with using extreme violence against unarmed protestors, causing serious and sometimes permanent injuries. Pro-tour rugby fans were also brutal in their retaliation.

Singer and journalist Moana Maniapoto, then a first-year law student at the University of Auckland, remembers when the fence came down at the second game in Hamilton on July 25. "Everyone's leaning on it, pushing and pushing it, and then the next minute the fence came down and you just heard this 'Run!' You're just swept along. So then I'm in the middle thinking, 'what am I doing here? They're gonna kill us!'"

She recalls looking up at thousands of angry faces in the stands. "They were totally rabid. Screaming, yelling and throwing cans of beer at us.

"The police arrived, just the ordinary cops, not the Red Squad, and I actually thought, 'oh this is good, surely they're not gonna let us get murdered'. Then the commissioner came on and said the match has been called off and there was this huge roar from the crowd. At first it was like, 'yay!' and then 'oh my god. How the hell are we gonna get out of here?'"

Maniapoto, along with land protector Eva Rickard and another friend, managed to escape into the surrounding streets. "The cops were sporadically placed so you had to make a run for it to the gate. Then the cops recognised Eva and they were abusing the shit out of her. But we got out, and we were very lucky, my friend's father heard on the radio that the match had been cancelled and he circled until he found us. A lot of people got attacked."

Marx Jones and Grant Cole flour bomb Eden Park in a hired Cessna.

She would go on to attend protests in Rotorua and at the third test in Auckland - the latter resulting in a violent clash between police, protestors and rugby fans on the streets of Mount Eden. "Red Squad came out of nowhere and nutted off at everyone. I was with the least militant bunch when they charged. We were just standing there. Couldn't believe it. I was batoned, kicked by heavy police boots while on the ground. Shock for a young freshie like me. They just smashed into us and left people lying on the ground in their wake."

For further proof you need only watch the violence through Mita's lens. The dull thud of police batons hitting flesh and human skull, and the wails of the injured, some of them young teenagers, is the haunting soundtrack for nearly half the film.

Maniapoto scoffs at the selective memory that it was "New Zealand" who took a stand against apartheid. "It's held out as a landmark, framing New Zealand as a global social justice advocate. It wasn't New Zealand; it was people power. It was activists, people from across all walks of life, and there were far fewer of us than there were in the stands."

She talks abut the Nelson Mandela exhibition hosted at Eden Park in 2019 - a strange venue considering the violence that played out on the surrounding streets 38 years earlier. She says at the launch none of the speakers from the New Zealand Rugby Union came close to admitting they'd been wrong, or offering an apology. Instead everybody spoke proudly about the stand taken by the protestors. Says Maniapoto: "They're starting to rewrite the history!"

The good bishop saves the Patu Squad

It was at the last test at Eden Park on September 12 that a young Hone Harawira, one of the leaders of the predominantly Māori and Pasifika Patu Squad, was finally caught.

Harawira and a handful of others had been arrested at Waitangi earlier in the year, and although they had been denied bail, they were turfed out of the cells for causing a ruckus and told when to attend their court date. They didn't show up.

The group had outstanding warrants for their arrest before the tour even began.

"It must have got out to the police that we were all going to be involved in the tour, and one by one we were all picked up. One of the brothers, they got him before it started! So he spent the whole of the tour in Mt Eden," Harawira chuckles.

Harawira says he was caught early on after the test that ended with Marx Jones' aerial flour bomb attack, so hadn't been involved in the upturning of a cop car, or the violence that erupted on an unprecedented scale outside Eden Park. Nevertheless, Harawira was charged with the assault of a police officer who'd had both collar bones broken.

"It wasn't me but they wanted someone to pin it on so they pinned it on me."

He says he had seven charges against him. "They were serious charges. Three charges of participating in a riot and four charges of assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. Which all carried a total of something like 98 years."

Justice being neither blind nor in a hurry, Harawira wouldn't stand trial for another two years, alongside many others who he notes were mostly brown, despite the vast majority of protestors being Pākehā. "Most of them were members of the Patu Squad."

As he had many times before, Harawira planned to defend himself in court. He'd had University of Auckland law lecturers Jane Kelsey and David Williams to rely on for advice, but this time he wasn't sure it going to be enough.

"The day before my court date, I'm sitting out the back in the cells thinking 'jeez, what am I gonna do?' Then the brain wave came to me. Bishop Desmond Tutu had been invited over by the Anglican church to come and do a speaking tour. Interest was still very high in apartheid South Africa. My mum knew George and Jocelyn Armstrong, who were part of the organisation that brought him over.

"So I rang my mum and said look, I want Bishop Tutu as a witness. She said, 'He wasn't there!'. I said, 'that doesn't matter! I want him for my witness'. So she said 'OK when is it?' And I said 'Tomorrow! I'm gonna need him by about 10.30.'"

The next day Harawira and 10 others prepared to stand trial.

When the time came for him to give his defence, his star witness wasn't there. "I read my statement. I'd come to the very end and I was dragging it out. I didn't want to get out of the dock 'cos I knew it hadn't been enough to get me off. Then the door burst open, and someone looked at me with a big smile and just nodded and I knew then. So I asked the judge: 'Can you please call my witness?'"

Harawira still laughs at the memory of the stunned faces of the judge, prosecution and jury as as the now-Archbishop Desmond Tutu, in his signature dark suit and purple cleric's shirt, walked into the courtroom.

"And then I'm thinking, 'What the fuck, now what do I do?'

"So he takes the stand and I go, 'Could you please tell the court your name?' And then I said, 'Can you please tell the court your address?' And he gave an address in Soweto. Instantly, if the room wasn't already charged, everyone was completely wide-eyed now.

"And then I said, 'Can you please explain to the court what apartheid is?'. And away he went. He must have spoken for 20 minutes. It was absolutely stunning. You could have heard a pin drop."

He says that after Tutu had finished, neither he nor the prosecution could think of any more questions.

"As Bishop Tutu stepped out of the dock, all 11 defendants, we all stood up. Then our lawyers stood up, then the public, the screws from Mount Eden, the police stood up, then the jury stood up. Half of them were in tears. If was one of those moments. I knew right then and there we were gonna get off." He crows in delight at the memory.

The group were acquitted of all charges.

"It's kind of hard to believe but it's all true. Meeting Nelson Mandela himself and going to his tangi, that's another story."
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Three things you didn't know about the 1981 Springboks tour

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Summer read: This year marked the 40th anniversary of the rugby tour that divided a nation. While countless books and articles have been written about that time, some important details have faded with age. Leonie Hayden looks back at three of them. First published July 22, 2021 Merata Mita's documentary Patu!

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Nearly 40 years on, Mark looks back at the 1981 Springbok Tour and the protests that took place against NZ’s sporting ties with Apartheid…

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Collection items

The winter of 1981 saw the Springboks rugby team tour New Zealand, and Kiwis divided. Recent Maori attempts to reclaim ownership of government requisitioned land at Bastion Point had focused attention... Audio

This audio is not downloadable due to copyright restrictions.

Access All Areas: A Country Divided

Tom Scott is a cartoonist, satirist, author and playwright. His latest project is a television docu-drama centred on the controversial 1981 Sprinkbok tour of New Zealand. Rage is the story of two... Audio

Tom Scott: Rage

Anti Springbok tour demonstrators overturn a car, Auckland, New Zealand. Dominion post (Newspaper): Photographic negatives and prints of the Evening Post and Dominion newspapers. Ref: EP-Ethics-Demonstrations-1981 Springbok tour-04. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. http://natlib.govt.nz/records/23168677

External Links

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The winter of 1981 saw the Springboks rugby team tour New Zealand, and Kiwis divided. Recent Maori attempts to reclaim ownership of government requisitioned land at Bastion Point had focused attention... Audio This audio is not downloadable due to copyright restrictions. Access All Areas: A Country Divided Tom Scott is a cartoonist, satirist, author and playwright.

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If you are are using this link within DHS, you will not need any passwords but if you are accessing it from outside the school you will need the EPIC password here

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Access to the EPIC resources for schools is restricted for use by staff and students of New Zealand schools. Please refer to Accessing EPIC resources for more information about this.

For EPIC school login queries email epic@dia.govt.nz from your New Zealand school email address.

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Access to the EPIC resources for schools is restricted for use by staff and students of New Zealand schools. Please refer to Accessing EPIC resources for more information about this. For EPIC school login queries email epic@dia.govt.nz from your New Zealand school email address.

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1981: a divided New Zealand

Tour supporters were determined that the first Springbok visit to New Zealand since 1965 would not be spoiled. The anti-tour movement was equally determined to show its opposition to it. Although HART committed itself to non-violent disruption, Prime Minister Robert Muldoon condemned the organisation for having 'spread lies about New Zealand' overseas. People involved in the anti-tour movement were described as stirrers and troublemakers.

John Minto, the national organiser for HART in 1981, became one of the public faces of the anti-tour movement and attracted special criticism from Muldoon and pro-tour supporters. The long batons used by riot police during the tour were nicknamed 'Minto bars'.

Several other organisations were prominent opponents of the tour, including CARE (Citizens Association for Racial Equality) and NAAC (National Anti-Apartheid Council). Many other organisations were based around local action. Co-ordinated action was a feature of the protest movement.

SPIR (Society For The Protection Of Individual Rights) was one organisation that actively put forward an alternative view to that of the anti-tour movement. Men such as Ces Blazey, the NZRFU chairman, and Ron Don, the chairman of the Auckland Rugby Union and an NZRFU councillor, also gave the pro-tour movement a public face. Over the course of the tour these people and organisations became household names due to their exposure in the media. Some people wore their allegiances on their sleeve with badges that promoted their position on the tour. Heated debate and argument raged across the nation from dining room tables to smoko rooms as each side tried to make its point.

Many of the protesters had grown up in the relatively prosperous 1950s and 1960s. Many were also rugby fans. Prosperity and peace had given them the freedom to challenge the old order. This generation had come to political consciousness marching against the Vietnam War, French nuclear testing and nuclear ship visits in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The anti-tour protest movement included many urban, educated professionals but also enjoyed strong union support.

Historian Jock Phillips sees the tour as a clash between the 'old and the new New Zealand', which revealed itself in five main ways:

the struggle between baby boomers and war veterans

city versus country

men versus women

black versus white

'Britain of the south' versus independent Pacific nation.

Some people connected the plight of black South Africans with racism here. For generations New Zealand had prided itself on having the 'finest race relations in the world', but events during 1981 challenged this assertion. The protesters specifically attacked racism, and Māori increasingly joined the protests. As they did so, they confronted non-Māori New Zealanders with a question: 'If you campaign about race in South Africa, what about at home?' Looking back, John Minto thought that the tour's greatest impact on New Zealand society was to stimulate debate about racism and the place of Māori in New Zealand.

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Tour supporters were determined that the first Springbok visit to New Zealand since 1965 would not be spoiled. The anti-tour movement was equally determined to show its opposition to it. Although HART committed itself to non-violent disruption, Prime Minister Robert Muldoon condemned the organisation for having 'spread lies about New Zealand' overseas.

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Film: police and the first test - 1981 Springbok tour

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1981 Springbok Tour - Poster Collection - Heritage - Christchurch City Libraries

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A selection of thumbnails of posters from Christchurch City Libraries - click through to view the posters

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Central Library closure - collection availability

Unfortunately much of our heritage collection is currently not available through our online catalogue - because of the closure of the Central Library, much of this collection is in storage. We hope to make it available again soon, but in the meantime, we suggest visiting the National Library of New Zealand in Thorndon (Corner Molesworth & Aitken St) to access these book titles and newspaper resources.

Books

Newspaper articles

Unfortunately, contemporary newspaper accounts of the Springbok Tour from 1981 fall into a time period where newspapers are generally not even indexed for searching, let alone available in full text online - see our finding historical Wellington newspaper articles resource.

That being said, information about (and sometimes the full text of) many anniversary accounts (10 years, 20 years later etc.), can be found online (see Online databases below) - and contemporary accounts can be accessed on microfilm if you know approximate dates (we've provided a table of key dates below).
Finding Historical Wellington Newspapers
Key dates
Tip: Remember that many reports will not appear in newspapers until the following day.

12th September 1980

New Zealand Rugby Football Union (N.Z.R.F.U.) formally invites the South African rugby team to tour New Zealand.

1st May 1981

First organised mass protests take place throughout the country.

14th May 1981

The Prime Minister Robert Muldoon is presented with an ultimatum by the Commonwealth to cancel the tour or lose hosting rights to Commonwealth Finance Ministers Conference due to take place in Auckland.

10th July 1981

The NZRFU meet for the last time to decide whether the tour should proceed or be cancelled.

19th July 1981

The Springboks arrive in New Zealand landing at Auckland airport.

22nd July 1981

First game played - Springboks vs Poverty Bay in Gisborne.

25th July 1981

Springboks vs Waikato game in Hamilton called off following a pitch invasion by protestors.

27th July 1981

The government says it won't back down in the face of violent protests and promises the police the assistance of the NZ army if required.

29th July 1981

Anti-tour protests outside Parliament reach a new level of violence in an event which becomes known as the "Battle of Molesworth Street"

31st July 1981

The Prime Minister threatens to call a snap election if anti-tour violence continues to escalate.

1st August 1981

Springboks vs. Manawatu in Palmerston North

2nd August 1981

In his speech at the annual National Party Conference, Robert Muldoon claims that the extreme-left wing agitators have taken over the anti-tour protest movement.

11th August 1981

Springboks vs. Otago in Dunedin.

13th August 1981

The grandstand at Rugby Park in Christchurch is destroyed by fire in a suspected arson attack after a Springboks training session at the ground.

15th August 1981

First test played in Christchurch

29th August 1981

Second test played in Wellington

12th September 1981

Third test played in Auckland.

13th September 1981

Springboks depart New Zealand

Magazines - online databases

Our online databases can also be used to access a large number of articles about the tour which have previously been published in magazines. Though the databases do not go back as far as 1981, they do contain many retrospective articles written since then.

To access contemporary accounts of the Springbok Tour in magazines, we recommend visiting the National Library on Molesworth Street (see collection note above).

To find magazine titles of interest, have a read of the article below:
Story - Magazines and periodicals in New Zealand
Heritage Links (Local History)

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Unfortunately much of our heritage collection is currently not available through our online catalogue - because of the closure of the Central Library, much of this collection is in storage. We hope to make it available again soon, but in the meantime, we suggest visiting the National Library of New Zealand in Thorndon (Corner Molesworth & Aitken St) to access these book titles and newspaper resources.

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Some remember it as an honour to play the Springboks during their 1981 tour of New Zealand. Others remember the tour as rugby's nadir. For some, apartheid was a dim reality that "had nothing to do with rugby".

Others watched South Africa's racial policies divide friends and family.

GWYNETH HYNDMAN spoke to people who witnessed the impact 30 years ago, when the Springboks played Southland at Invercargill's Rugby Park on August 8.

R AY HARPER was a rugby administrator and national councillor on the New Zealand Rugby Union during the 1981 Springbok tour.

"The tour split families; it split friends. It was unbelievable how it affected people - it is very hard to explain that to a young person now.

We had barbed wire around the grounds about eight weeks before they played here, and rugby clubs took turns patrolling the grounds.

Rugby was of two minds in New Zealand. Most of us felt that [apartheid] didn't have anything to do with us. There were 14 of us on the Rugby Union; demonstrators had just broken a fence down at one of the games, and we all had our doubts about continuing. In Wellington, we were told to go on with it, that the police didn't want to be seen as backing down because of the protests.

You could have cut the tension in (the rugby council) room with a knife. It grew into ... well, we don't want to see this kind of thing in New Zealand again. It just developed and then before you knew it the demonstration became more than the game by miles. In a country like ours we don't need that.

Later on, the rules in South Africa changed - I don't know, I don't know if we'll ever know, will we - if the protests here had any impact on that.

This is quite a strong rugby province - people would come from Riversdale and spend a whole night [patrolling] at the grounds. No-one knew what to expect from the protests. I found out later police were coming by my house every two hours to make sure everything was all right. I was away at that time, and my wife was here on her own.

The (Southland) team was good - it was a tremendous thing to play South Africa. We thought of it as a game; didn't think about the politics.

We never talked about the politics of it either. Even after. The South Africans were gone and then it was all over. We just shut up shop on it. It was a subject, even in the pubs, that was never brought up."
J OHN MINTO was involved in forming Halt All Racist Tours, a group set up in 1969 to protest against rugby tours to and from apartheid South Africa. He became the national chairman of the organisation in 1980, and was involved in protests around New Zealand. He was arrested at an anti-tour protest in Invercargill in 1981.
"The morning I got arrested we went to do a wake-up call at the Grand Hotel, where the Springboks were staying. Made a hell of a racket in the morning. We were doing it because the Springboks weren't welcome in New Zealand because of apartheid, because of that policy that was coming here.

All the cars caravanned down from Dunedin, so there were a few of us there that morning.

I hadn't intended to get arrested. I had a protest later on that afternoon I needed to be at. I was just about to move back for the most part; didn't get right in there. But they grabbed me and bashed my head into the car.

He (a police officer) saw me and just said 'Aah, Minto; I'll take you', and he just grabbed me and bashed my head into the car.

I wasn't that hurt; it could have been worse.

I was fined for breaching the peace and resisting arrest. I think I might have been fined because they knew it was excessive; the charge was a pre-emptive way of handling any trouble from me.

In Auckland, we had raised $100,000 for legal costs, for the trials of people protesting the Springboks tour - (the court cases) went on for months.

There was a long lead-in time to stop the tour. We were planning and preparing for almost two years. We had a massive education campaign. We toured films, did public protests, petitions, delegations. It was a massive campaign really.

A lot of people went from `keep politics out of sport' to seeing how bad things were there, that Mandela wasn't the terrorist he was made out to be.

In Invercargill about 75 per cent of people were in support of the tour.

I remember coming back down to Invercargill for a court appearance, and people were coming down on to the street, out of their offices, to abuse me. One of the taxi drivers yelled at a taxi that I was getting into: `Don't give him a ride!'

Invercargill was a very parochial town back then. It's changed, of course. I spoke to a rural women's group and they were lovely, although one woman came up to me afterwards and told me she'd been waiting 30 years to tell me to my face that what I had done was despicable. I think in some ways confrontation and anger can be good; it's the process of change happening."

L EICESTER RUTLEDGE played 113 games for Southland between 1972 and 1983.

"I was about 28 when we played the Springboks. We certainly saw the barbed wire; we didn't see any protesters. I think it was brave of protesters to be out there facing [pro-tour] Southlanders. For us it was an opportunity to play against one of the greats of rugby. Keeping our record was the challenge.

The Springbok players got tremendous hospitality from the people of Southland. The Drummond Rugby Club treated them to farmstays, meals, jet boat rides. It was great for them, especially compared to being locked in hotel rooms (in Auckland and Wellington).

Southland did a marvellous job hosting the team for the week ... did a tremendous job protecting the team.

I remember that the volunteers slept in the dressing sheds at (Rugby Park) when they were patrolling the grounds.

(The protests) were absolutely no concern whatsoever to us. We were oblivious to apartheid. You've got to remember that there wasn't a lot of news coverage back then - we never saw any of that.

We learned a lot after that, especially after travelling to South Africa. We believed that sport and politics should never mix.

Looking back, I don't know if the New Zealand protests were a part of the demise of apartheid. There were big changes after that.

When the All Blacks went back to South Africa - there never would have been a World Cup if things hadn't changed - we watched Mandela come out [to the field], and when we heard the reaction of 90,000 people you just said, `This man has got to be a great man.'

We were young men growing up; we had no concerns about [the politics]. It was never spoken of.

The only stuff we ever saw was of the flour bombing over the game in Auckland on the telly. When we played them here, it was just another game on Rugby Park against a great team.

[The Springboks] were good people. We always had a function afterwards; a few drinks [at the clubhouse], and they were well-mannered and respectful. I think they would have just wanted to get home by then.

They gave us a good thumping that day - but for us, just young people playing against the Springboks, that was just huge."

N EVILLE COOK was a constable with the Invercargill police in 1981.

"We'd been briefed about the protesters and we'd been reading the news. We were anticipating their arrival.

Police had a difficult role - we were there to preserve law and order but my neighbours were marching that day as well. They said they were scared, but I hope it wasn't of me because we were there to protect them.

The protesters had arranged an ambush outside the hotel. When they arrived we were ready. If police hadn't been prepared they would have created a lot of havoc, and it was all just to make a political point.

Gang members also saw it as an opportunity to get amongst it.

A huge majority of the public felt it shouldn't go ahead because of apartheid. In Wellington, some [protesters] had bolt-cutters [for the fences] and they had weapons, batons hidden up their sleeves, that sort of thing; and they had orchestrated a made-up plan about police brutality.

In Christchurch, some of the protesters made complaints about [officers] who weren't even on duty that day - the complaints weren't true.

In Invercargill, there was a confidence that we were there to protect protesters from people who were for the tour.

I never saw any of the games - we were either working or sleeping. That was the biggest grump for the police on duty.

We had never had specialist training or riot equipment before that. We never had to have it - if there were fights [in Invercargill] it would be something like 10 people, not hundreds of people.

We were well-trained for their [Springboks] arrival - it all came off pretty well.

Logistically, it was huge around the country. The organisation of police all over [New Zealand] was a huge effort - it was more like a military operation.

Not everyone agreed with the tour, but everyone saw they had a job to do. They just got on with it. It wasn't a happy time for police. It wasn't a good time for anybody, whichever side they were on. Playing the Springboks here had a lot of significance.

People were talking about the police being under stress; if there was stress in the police force it was more like, `Why can't we see the games, too?'

We had a pretty good idea of what to expect in Invercargill. Organised protesters had a pretty good network, but we were tapped into that network. We knew what they were doing.
L YNN McCONNELL was the sports editor at The Southland Times when the Springboks played Southland in 1981.
I can remember some of the police saying they didn't get on with the Springbok players. I think it was their manner and attitude - they tried to buy the police drinks when they were at their hotel. They [the police] didn't like that - they felt like they were being bought, like the players thought [the police] were there to protect just them. I think it might have been a cultural difference. But the police in Invercargill didn't want to be seen as taking sides."

"I remember that all the local rugby clubs used to patrol Rugby Park at night. I went there for a meeting and I was leaving in my car. It was dark; I think I hit the gate coming out and there was this loud bang. About four or five guys came running out of the dark at me. They were ready for anything.

We were on tenterhooks. The expectation was that there would be trouble. The press box was up high and was thought to be vulnerable to attack. Behind the box was a manhole and coiled rope, so we could slide down if someone threw a Molotov cocktail at us and there was a fire.

But when the Springboks arrived, there were no protesters. The Invercargill airport terminal was the first one the players could walk through.

As for the game itself, I think people were really jolted by the sight of the barbed wire. After they left they went and played Otago, then came back to Invercargill before they went to Christchurch. I think they brought them back here because they could move around down south. They could relax here. There were stories of how they were seen shopping in town. They couldn't really do that anywhere else.

The only time I ever really encountered resistance was two years later. About 14 reporters [from around New Zealand] were invited to South Africa. Everyone else had to do it as a holiday. The Southland Times was the only company that sent me as an official representative. I was the subject of many angry letters to the editor. My wife had just had a baby and I had another young one at home, so you're worried that while you're away something might happen to them, but nothing happened.
T IM SHADBOLT was involved in anti-tour protests around New Zealand in 1981.
When I got there I got in contact with the political editor of The Cape Times [Leon Marshall ]. I had a marvellous time with him. The two-hour interview made my trip worthwhile - it put the whole thing in perspective. Change was beginning in South Africa. A lot of it was window dressing [in 1983], but it was happening. It was seen as a step.

I remember [Leon Marshall ] told me that the tour in New Zealand exposed the team, more than anywhere else, to how much apartheid was hated in the world. The whole trip had a huge influence on me."

"In 1981 I was a student in Auckland, involved in a group called CARE [Citizens Association for Racial Equality]. My first protest as a kid was in 1960, when the All Blacks went to South Africa. I was raised by Methodist ministers who were very much against apartheid and it was a subject that already had a sharp edge, even in 1960.

By 1981, protesters had technology; they were more organised. The student protests of the 1960s had become an establishment by then.

I remember it as being an incredibly violent and terrifying time. [Prime Minister Rob] Muldoon had no problem with police having batons by then.

I was arrested for inciting a protest in Gisborne - I've probably been in more protests than anyone else anywhere in New Zealand.

In Invercargill it was pretty quiet though, aside from Minto getting arrested.

By the time I came down to Invercargill it was still an edgy subject; I thought they were going to loathe me. But it turned out that all of my senior council were involved in the protests in 1981.

There has been a dramatic change since then. It used to take a longer time for information to flow down to isolated places in the south. Now there's the internet, and then we've got an increase in students.

Though it's a funny thing with Invercargill, it's always been considered conservative. But I don't know if it's fair to say there's been this huge change. They've elected some real characters into office over the years."

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Some remember it as an honour to play the Springboks during their 1981 tour of New Zealand. Others remember the tour as rugby's nadir. For some, apartheid was a dim reality that "had nothing to do with rugby". Others watched South Africa's racial policies divide friends and family.

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The 1981 Springbok (South African) rugby tour was among the most divisive events in New Zealand's history. In the 1960s and 70s, many New Zealanders had come to believe that playing sport with South Africa condoned its racist apartheid system. Others disagreed. Learn about the trauma of the tour, when feelings ran high, and pro- and anti-tour factions often clashed violently.

'I have a moral objection to the apartheid system and, like most sportsmen, I want less political influence in sport.'

Graham Mourie, All Black captain, 1982

1950s New Zealand - men on top

Entering the 1950s, New Zealand society seemed prosperous, peaceful, and integrated. The 'us' behind this image of unity were heterosexual, Pakeha blokes (male European New Zealanders) - the country's dominant players. Other groups, however, found themselves marginalised.

Rugby was at the centre of male socialising, as was beer, which men consumed in large quantities in licensed hotels, pubs or clubs. Alcohol consumption was illegal in other public places.

Rugby rules

In the rugby world, New Zealand's greatest rivals were South Africa. The favoured winter sport of the British upper classes was by now firmly established in both the Empire's former colonies.

The rivalry between the All Blacks and Springboks (the South African rugby team) reached fever pitch around the middle of the 20th century. With the exception of horse racing, no other sport enjoyed anywhere near the same public support.

Apartheid & sport

South Africa's policy of apartheid - racial separateness - was officially adopted in 1948. Apartheid excluded non-white players, and therefore Maori, from touring there. In the 1950s, few New Zealanders questioned this.

Rugby came first, and rugby officials chose to respect the policies of whichever country was hosting. This meant that Maori were excluded whenever the All Blacks toured South Africa, but not when the Springboks toured New Zealand.

All Blacks versus South Africa

The All Blacks, without Maori players, toured South Africa in 1949, losing all four tests. In 1956, the Springboks toured New Zealand, and the All Blacks, with Maori players included, triumphed.

Anti-apartheid movement

In the 1960s and 70s, public disapproval of apartheid grew. The issue exploded in 1981 when the Springboks toured New Zealand.

The Springbok tour was one of the most divisive events in New Zealand's history. The country split into pro- and anti-tour factions, which often clashed violently at the matches.

Apartheid ends

The 1984 Labour Government was officially against apartheid, and discouraged sporting contact with South Africa. Under internal and external pressure, South Africa's apartheid system began collapsing in 1990. The All Blacks resumed touring there in 1992.

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The 1981 Springbok (South African) rugby tour was among the most divisive events in New Zealand's history. In the 1960s and 70s, many New Zealanders had come to believe that playing sport with South Africa condoned its racist apartheid system. Others disagreed.