The birth of a movement that divided NZ – and changed us forever
Essay
As New Zealand marks 40 years since the Springbok tour that changed everything, we republish this essay by Trevor Richards, founding chairperson of Hart – Halt All Racist Tours.
Originally published in 2019, on the 50th anniversary of the anti-apartheid group’s formation.
It has been said that if you can remember the 1960s, you weren’t really there. No one is sure who it was that first said this. Robin Williams, Pete Townsend and Timothy Leary among others have all been credited, but it was probably none of them. It is a nice line, conjuring up some of the more colourful aspects – the drugs, sex and rock’n’roll culture – for which the 60s are renowned.
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Merv Norrish in later life. Norrish had a lengthy career as a diplomat. Lange said no such undertaking had ever been given, and the fallout led to a policy rift between New Zealand and its superpower ally. There was one problem with the claim that Lange had lied – and that was Norrish. He was the other person at the meeting, and he would later back Lange’s version of events. In 2013, Sir Geoffrey Palmer, who succeeded Lange as prime minister, published his memoir, in which he confirmed that Norrish had backed Lange’s account. During a diplomatic career that began in 1949, Norrish was ambassador to Brussels when Britain was attempting to join the European Economic Community (EEC), witnessed the opening of New Zealand’s first embassies in the Middle East, the decolonisation of Western Samoa, the Cuban missile crisis, the cancellation of the 1973 Springbok tour to New Zealand, the ban on nuclear ships, which led to the demise of the Anzus alliance, and t