Donald Rod: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Donald Rod: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:625;Page:19751] 
12.  
ROD DONALD (Co-Leader—Green) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: 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? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Deputy Prime Minister) 
 on behalf of the 
 Prime Minister 
: 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 Donald 
: Is the Prime Minister concerned that a tour by an official New Zealand cricket team to Zimbabwe could be seen as giving tacit approval to Robert Mugabe’s pariah State and therefore could undermine the Government’s condemnation of the rigged election recently held in Zimbabwe; if not why not? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: No because both the Prime Minister and the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade have made clear on many occasions New Zealand’s abhorrence of the Mugabe regime. 
Rod Donald 
: Will the Government consider advising New Zealand Cricket that if it withdraws from the Zimbabwe tour on moral or political grounds the Government would underwrite any fine imposed by the International Cricket Council; if not why not? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: No. That would create an unfortunate precedent for the future in many similar kinds of cases I would have thought. 
Rod Donald 
: Does the Prime Minister consider that there is value in New Zealand pursuing sporting boycotts against Zimbabwe given their effectiveness in helping to overturn South Africa’s apartheid regime in the 1980s; if not why not? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Yes. Certainly sporting boycotts have worked in the past but no New Zealand Government has ever attempted to prevent a New Zealand team going overseas as opposed to preventing a team coming to New Zealand. 
Rod Donald 
: 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? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL 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. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I seek leave to table two documents. One is a press statement that sets out that Sir Robert Muldoon was right and the Labour Party was diametrically wrong on the question of Robert Mugabe. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I seek clarification. Before I grant leave can the honourable Winston Peters assure us that he will in fact table the document? 
Madam SPEAKER 
: That is not a point of order. Would the member please sit down 
Document not tabled. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: The second document is a statement from the Labour Party bitterly criticising the then National Government for not stopping the Cavalier’s tour of South Africa. 
Document not tabled.