E2NZ.org

1981 Springbok tour, dark days for NZ

The Rugby World Cup is very likely to become a focus for civil disobedience among NZ protest groups who are threatening civil disobedience and the flour bombing of matches.

“…Groups protesting against Government economic policies are proposing “civil disobedience” to disrupt the Rugby World Cup – possibly including flour-bombing Eden Park.

The protesters, including unions and church groups, plan to march up Queen St in Auckland from noon tomorrow against last week’s Budget cuts to KiwiSaver, family tax credits and public services and state asset sales.

Spokesman Meredydd Barrar of the newly formed Coalition for Social Justice said the groups also “intend to take action during the World Cup to alert the world that New Zealand is not as squeaky clean as people might perceive. We might have to flour-bomb Eden Park again,” he said.

Anti-apartheid protesters famously dropped bags of flour over the stadium from a plane during the final test of the Springbok rugby tour in 1981…” read the rest in The Herald

During the 1981 Springbok tour (“The Flour Bomb Test”)  Eden Park was peppered with flour bombs and flares dropped from a low flying Cessna. All Black prop Gary Knight was knocked to the ground by a  flour bomb. Outside the ground violence erupted on a grand scale.

In Hamilton the match against Waikato was called off in front of a full house after a pitch invasion by several hundred anti-tour protestors, and rumours that a light aircraft had been stolen from Taupo and was headed for Rugby Park. (source)

New Zealand Exposed

Among the people threatening to disrupt the tournament are Maori activists Titewhai Harawira and Ngaire Te Hira.  In February they announced  they were going to use the Rugby World Cup to “expose” New Zealand’s treatment of Maori.

Titewhai Harawira was reported as saying

“We are going to use the international media to expose what is going on in this country,” she told the Sunday Star-Times.

“I want to be telling international media that all those reports they get that say we are well looked after and our land is intact are rubbish. We are going to be talking to the international media, absolutely.”

Harawira said she hoped to provide visitors with a “whole chronology of what has happened in this country”.

“I will talk about how legislation has taken away and denied us,” she said. “We have time to put it all together, hand it out and talk about it.” read more here

Unite Union is running a campaign for a $15 an hour ($12 US) minimum wage and is says it “plans to use activities around the Rugby World Cup to press hard for the significant increase in the minimum wage.“

Of course getting the truth out about New Zealand is nothing new.

There are people who have been exposing the truth about New Zealand for many years. A group of expatriates set up a website called Expatexposed.com to draw attention to the raw deals that migrants get in New Zealand. Many of its members were taken-in by misleading marketing and the promises of work and higher living standards that never materialised.

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