Even though New Zealand was aware of the Apartheid and the racial segregation going on in South Africa we continued our sporting contact with South Africa. An example of this was the 1960 tour to South Africa, where there were protests to bring Maori's to tour South Africa. The Maori's were allowed to go as "honorary whites" this then to the Maurois deprived them of a thing called mana which continued the sporting contact with South Africa. This occurrence was ironically in the same year as the Sharpville Massacre where 69 black people were killed and also the same year as the United Nations called to end the apartheid. Eventually then in 1981 the springbok's were to come over to New Zealand and play rugby against our team. As over 80% of the country were supporting this, the tour went ahead. Even though there were 156,000 signatures against the tour it wasn't enough compared to the amount of people who were against the tour. In 1973 the Springbok tour was finally cancelled by Labor Prime minister Norman Kirk, as now 80% of New Zealand were against the Springbok Tour. Eventually in 1975 Kirk was voted out at the next election.
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