Harawira Hone: Major Events Management Bill — Referral of S.O.P. 106 to Commerce Committee 
Harawira Hone: Major Events Management Bill — Referral of S.O.P. 106 to Commerce Committee 
[Volume:638;Page:8715] 
HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
: 
 Kia ora Mr Deputy Speaker. Kia ora tatou katoa i te Whare. The Major Events Management Bill is not just about streakers and the like although I have no doubt that that kind of carry-on will be banned as well. Supplementary Order Paper 106 is about convicting people for pitch invasions and that makes me think back to that day that Keith Locke was referring to—Saturday 15 July 1981—when a few hundred people forced their way on to Rugby Park in Hamilton and stopped the match between South Africa’s ambassadors for apartheid and Waikato. 
I was going to say that a few hundred Kiwis forced their way on to Rugby Park but I also recall that on that day I ran into Gary Foley and a bunch of the Koori brothers who had come across from Australia to support the anti-apartheid movement. I remember them laughing at a bunch of us who had come down from Otara on that morning dressed for action with full-faced motorbike helmets padding heavy jackets and boots. Gary and his mates were in their swish day gear: nice pants body shirts and dark glasses. Little did they know that by the end of that day they would be covered in their own righteous blood and the boys from Otara would be having the last laugh. 
I can remember the image on the evening news of another lost soul from overseas—a man who clearly did not fit into his world—peering anxiously from under the grandstands at Rugby Park. I knew that his debut would not take place on that day either. His name was Errol Tobias—the forgotten winger—and he is the man who is never interviewed on sports programmes any more. He is the token black whom the South Africans had picked at the last minute to try to deflect the world’s anger and attention away from the continued oppression of their black citizens at home while their wholesome white Springboks were playing rugby half a world away. 
I raise these memories because I have no doubt that a number of people in this House were also in Hamilton on that day—a big day in one of our nation’s darkest times and a time when many MPs rightfully claimed their badge of honour for marching against apartheid. It was a time when 32000 people signed a petition against the tour and it was a time when two of the country’s powerful organisations also came out against the tour—the Federation of Labour and the Labour Party. So I ask whether Labour members’ memories have become so blurred by power that they would deny their own kids the rights they fought for so passionately in 1981. How quickly we can deny our own history if 25 years later we pass legislation to make such actions illegal. And whom does this suit? 
To make pitch invasions illegal may be great for the hosts and producers responsible for the timing of sports broadcasts to keep sponsors like Adidas and Nike happy and to ensure that international broadcast rights and fees are not jeopardised. But it does nothing at all for the right of every Kiwi to voice opposition to the hosting of sports events that are clearly against the national psyche. I raise these memories because 5 July 1981 is an important day in the history of this nation. It is when we said to the world that we were serious about our opposition to a regime that practised terror on its own citizenry. 
I also recall a couple of feisty little ex-pat Cuban generals Ripeka Evans and Donna Awatere Huata trying to get everyone rarked up for some serious action while just down the ranks a bit Father Terry Dibble and Reverend George Armstrong were leading others in that old protest classic “We shall overcome.” I remember Donna and Peka putting me and a couple of the other brothers from Otara into the front line with clear instructions not to listen to anyone else but them. I do not mind admitting that we laughed at these two little hens telling us what to do before we realised that we did not even have a plan and that maybe they actually knew what they were talking about. I remember that it was Donna’s father who made me actually listen to Donna. Donna’s father—Colonel Pita Awatere who had been a commander of the Maori Battalion—had led a march along with others almost 20 years before that. That march had been up Queen Street to protest the New Zealand Rugby Union’s decision to leave Maori out of the team to tour South Africa just to comply with South Africa’s apartheid regime. I can remember saying to the boys at that time: “Watch Donna and when she says ‘Go’ we go.” 
When I study the 1960 protests I see that people protested on rugby fields even then. Yet here today we would think to put an end to that tradition. I say again how easily we forget our proud tradition of protest and demonstration. I recall vividly the cattle trucks surrounding the park the police on every corner the protons on their way to the game and the hatred and filth spewing from drunken ruby supporters. I can remember thinking: “Come on Donna we can’t wait forever.” as we marched closer and closer to the park. I remember that 90 percent of the protesters were just dressed normally and that our lot from Otara looked a bit out of place amongst all the thousands of keen and happy Pakeha who were marching alongside us singing and chanting. 
I remember seeing people in the second row of the protest march just behind the lead banner with wire-cutters bolt-cutters and ropes. They were ready to pull some fences down. I remember Donna giving me the old “hold your horses Maori boy” look as we got up to the park. I could feel the spit the beer the abuse and the cans that were getting thrown at us from over the fences. Then all of a sudden we were right alongside a fence. 
I raise these memories because they speak of a people galvanised into action. The right to take that action is being denied by this Supplementary Order Paper. I also remember looking at Donna and seeing her pointing at the fence and yelling: “Go! Go! Go!”. Before the poor guys in the second row could even get their wire-cutters going properly everyone had grabbed the fence and before we could say “Springboks go home!” the fence was gone gone gone. Where just seconds earlier hundreds of protons had been hurling abuse at us suddenly the bank was clear and we surged on to the field behind Wally Te Ua and a bunch of other priests and their Melanesian cross. I remember getting out in the middle of the field and seeing everybody jumping around like idiots clapping and singing. I looked across the protest ranks and saw that only a few hundred of us had got on to the field. I looked around the whole park and saw that tens of thousands of rabid rugby followers were incensed at us for getting on to that field. 
I raise these memories because invading the pitch on that day was like putting a poultice on the national obsession for rugby at any cost and saying to the world that there were deeper meanings for Kiwis than just a game of bloody football. 
I can remember the howls of drunken fury from the protons in the grandstands—it was quite funny really. I can remember them hurling empty cans of beer at us and watching their cans fall short. They then threw full cans of beer that came raining into our ranks and poleaxed those without helmets. I can remember the Pakeha protesters throwing the cans on to the ground in front of us. I can remember the boys from Otara grabbing the full cans and taking a swig before hurling them straight back into the grandstands again. 
 I can remember that people were proud to be on the park on that day yet today we would make that pride a sin by accepting this Supplementary Order Paper to suit the Rugby World Cup. I can even remember that one of the really really great memories I have from after that day was knowing that in the whole of racist South Africa people were riveted to their screens on that day—they were all watching TV waiting to see their beloved Springboks take the field—and that 400 Kiwis ruined their day. I heard stories come out of the “Republic of Rednecks and Racists” that people there were calling their television stations and demanding that the New Zealand Police shoot us so that the game could go on. I raise these memories so that we are wary of sneaky Supplementary Order Papers that give greater weight to the timing of sport than to hard-won civil liberties. 
Last week I spoke out against the paranoia and the racist assumptions that drove the overloaded Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill. Today I link that same paranoia to this Supplementary Order Paper—“SOP” could be an acronym for the suppression of protest—and I warn the House that if we do not have the courage to start opposing these insidious little pieces of creeping fascism then we will one day soon find our own children charged with treason for daring to oppose a game of football. The process for connecting the dots is already there. 
Steve Biko once said: “The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.” The Maori Party will not vote for a Supplementary Order Paper to satisfy the oppressive demands of sport and television producers and advertisers and we will not support the demand to set aside valid protest. Kia ora tatou.