Story: Anti-racism and Treaty of Waitangi activism

Banner-bearing protesters filled the streets of New Zealand on numerous occasions in 1981. In that year, for the first time since 1965, the government agreed to a tour by a racially-selected Springbok team. These banners in Wellington's Willis Street indicate that the tour was opposed by a broad range of groups, including university students, unions and women's organisations. Listen to this clip from radio news coverage of the protest at the first match, in Gisborne on 22 July 1981.

Transcript

The protesters are now rushing further around the back of Rugby Park and they're going to breach a new section of fence. The police are somewhat hampered at the top of the bank by of course the spectators watching the game. But the line of police put on the embankment is matching pace with the spectators, they are climbing the fence, they're climbing the fence, they're up on the fence, they're trying to bring it down but they haven't the weight of numbers yet. But young people involved there. We now have gang members on the fence. We have a number of protests, the police have arrived, another section of the fence is being pulled down. We have protesters trying to get up there. There's a man who's been hit by a baton. Police not being too gentle here. A second attempt to bring the fence down at the back of Rugby Park has successfully been repelled by the police. It wasn't as violent an attempt as the first attempt...