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KEY POINTS:
John Key has given a clear indication that he is prepared to order the New Zealand cricket team not to tour Zimbabwe in July. There, it seems, the matter will rest while the game's governing body talks things over with the Government. That should not be the case. This is not a matter over which the Prime Minister need procrastinate. He does not want the tour, New Zealand Cricket does not want it and most New Zealanders do not want it. The cricketers should be told forthwith they are not going to Zimbabwe.
This would serve several purposes. First, it would reinforce this country's abhorrence of Robert Mugabe's flouting of human rights and democratic principles. It is certainly too early to assume things will change for the better with the power-sharing deal struck last week with Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai. Second, a Government order would rid New Zealand Cricket of the danger of being fined US$2 million ($3.9 million) by the International
Cricket Council. Under ICC regulations, a tour can be abandoned without penalty on the basis of "any action taken by a Government or public authority of any kind". Third, it would mean the Black Caps are not exposed to the security and health risks that come with playing in the strife-torn country.
In a perfect world, governments would not be in the business of delivering such dictates to private sporting bodies. Preventing sports people from playing internationally and fulfilling their contractual obligations is a serious matter. But the latter requirement, in particular, means it falls to governments, either individually or collectively, to impose sanctions when they believe it necessary. Leaving it to sporting organisations is akin to passing the buck. Predicament would pile on predicament if those bodies sought to base their international commitments on their own assessment of Government standards.
In 2007, the Australian Government accepted its responsibility and cancelled a cricket tour of Zimbabwe. Here, in 2005, the Labour Government demurred, saying it would prefer the Black Caps to stay at home but would not order them not to go. This week, the party's foreign affairs spokeswoman, Helen Clark, made it clear Labour still believes this to be the correct approach. Going to the extreme of taking away passports would be a "slippery slope", she said.
That suggests an impending compromising of New Zealanders' human rights. Yet any such concern would evaporate if Parliament were to pass carefully tailored legislation that decreed national sporting teams could not play in Zimbabwe. There would be nothing to stop individuals leaving New Zealand or going to that nation.
Clearly, New Zealand Cricket would welcome an order from the Government. That, definitively, would get it off the hook. It has a couple of fallback positions but knows neither may bear fruit. An ICC taskforce will present a report on Zimbabwe in June. This, by any normal yardstick, would lead to countries being relieved of their contractual obligation to tour there. But world cricket is dominated by nations of the Indian subcontinent that have their own security concerns. The ICC is, therefore, unlikely to agree to anything that makes it easier to opt out of tours. For the same reason, New Zealand Cricket's highlighting of security and health risks in Zimbabwe is unlikely to be greeted with a collective nod.
Diffidence has been the hallmark of New Zealand's response to the issue of sporting contacts with Zimbabwe. Cricket's governors have, to a large degree, been forced down that path by the challenging politics of the sport. The country's politicians have no such excuse. The 2005 tour should have been cancelled. This time there need be no prevarication.
