Sound Archives: The Springbok Tour that Never Was

1973 Neville Lodge cartoon in the Evening Post newspaper on the problems facing Norman Kirk’s new Labour government [Alexander Turnbull Library]

Portrait of Norman Kirk, 1973 by K E Niven and Co [Alexander Turnbull Library]

National Party leader Rob Muldoon at the party's annual conference, 1975. Evening Post newspaper [Alexander Turnbull Library]

Forty-five years ago this week,  debate was raging in New Zealand over something that never happened – the 1973 Springbok tour of New Zealand, which had just been cancelled by the Labour government of Prime Minister Norman Kirk.

In today’s trip to the sound archives of Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision we will hear about this and the reaction of Kiwi rugby fans, which set the scene for the showdown of the 1981 Springbok Tour.