KEY POINTS:
Wouldn't it be nice if New Zealand Cricket just did the right thing by its players and the country and said no to giving aid and comfort to dictator Robert Mugabe by touring Zimbabwe in July. It's not as though it can't afford to.
For months, we've been
fed a diet of sob stories about how the cricket bosses don't really want to go and are worried for the welfare of their players and all that, but theirs is a poor organisation and, if they refuse to tour, the nasty International Cricket Council might fine them up to $3 million.
Like a sucker, I'd fallen for this woe-is-us story. Until last weekend, that is, when the Sunday Star-Times reported that, over the next three weeks alone, NZ Cricket will rake in more than $25 million from the television rights to the current Indian tour.
The payment was called "the biggest one-off broadcasting windfall in Kiwi sport". NZ Cricket boss Justin Vaughan hoped his organisation's income this year would be "north of $40 million".
Stand aside the slumdog millionaires, NZ Cricket is suddenly rolling in it. Which makes the cost of doing the right thing much less painful.
Not that the cricketers seem to be thinking this way. They're still pressuring the Government to say they can't go.
Such a direct travel ban would get them off the hook as far as any ICC fine was concerned, counting as "force majeure".
Prime Minister John Key has signalled he's willing to take this approach because of health and safety grounds for the players, and moral grounds. Over the weekend, he said: "We don't support that regime. We don't support what is happening in that country and we don't want to give a signal that we do."
Earlier in the week, he'd thrown in "the risk of cholera" as well, drawing the barbed response from his predecessor, Helen Clark, that cholera was unlikely to be a worry for people staying in five-star accommodation.
Mr Key's seeming willingness to cavalierly block kiwis' rights to travel for political reasons is in stark contrast to former National Prime Minister Robert Muldoon's handling of the 1981 Springbok tour. Sir Robert and his Cabinet defended the tour of New Zealand because to ban it would have sacrificed the "individual rights" of Kiwis wanting to watch and play rugby.
Interestingly, Mugabe got involved at the time, calling Sir Robert a "racist" at a subsequent meeting of Commonwealth heads of government.
Not to be outdone in the insult stakes, Sir Robert replied he didn't expect the president to understand, because at the time he had "been in the jungle shooting people".
But getting back to the present. Pragmatically, banning travel to Zimbabwe because "we don't support that regime" is a cheap and easy fix - for the cricketers at least. But it does set an awkward precedent that Clark and her British counterpart, Tony Blair, tried to avoid.
The right to travel freely is one that New Zealanders cherish. Do we want our Government suddenly picking out regimes it doesn't like and banning our right to visit. That sounds like a trip back to the bad old days of the Cold War.
When you boil it down, t an awful lot of countries could fit into that category. China, for instance, is hardly a bastion of democracy and individual rights. There were those who argued we should have boycotted the Beijing Olympics for that very reason but no one took them too seriously. Then there's cricket-loving Pakistan, which seems to drift in and out of dictatorship at the blink of an eye.
Indeed if you sat down and started a list, there are many regimes that might not pass muster. Add to them the temporary fallings out that nations go through,
such as after France dispatched its security agents to commit an act of state terrorism against us by blowing up the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland.
The risk is that if we start agreeing to our Government curtailing our freedom to travel on an ad hoc basis, where might it end?
The unprecedented windfall pouring into NZ Cricket's pockets over the coming weeks means it now has the luxury of being able to do the principled thing and stand up to the ICC. If it doesn't want to take a public political stance, fair enough.
But on health and safety grounds for the players alone, there is more than enough evidence to justify the cancellation of this tour. Trying to drag the Government in to provide a stiffening for their backbone is unedifying to say the least.
New Zealanders' freedom to travel without interference from our governors has been a hard fought one. It shouldn't be surrendered lightly.
Certainly not just to save a rich, private sporting organisation from the threat of a fine.
