Australia and the World Past and Present

Malcolm Fraser’s support for sporting sanctions against South Africa was a key feature of his foreign policy.

Fraser was served as Prime Minister of Australia from 1975 to 1983.

A perennial question is whether politics has a place in sports. When it came to apartheid, international sport and sanctions Fraser believed that there should be.

He argued that allowing normal sporting relations with South Africa would lend legitimacy to a system of racial oppression.

Some conservative leaders around the world viewed South Africa primarily through a geopolitical lens. They saw that the South African government as strongly anti-communist. The Cold War was in full swing and communism was making headway in southern Africa. As well as strategic considerations, Fraser also viewed South Africa through a human rights prism.

He believed that Australia had a responsibility to oppose apartheid. This conviction extended to international sport, which South Africa had long used to project an image of normality despite increasing international condemnation.

The issue became particularly significant because sport occupied such a prominent place in South African society. Rugby union and cricket were central to the country’s white minority culture.

International sporting contacts were regarded by the apartheid government as evidence that South Africa remained accepted by the outside world.

Sporting sanctions were a selective and targeted way of applying pressure to the South African government. Some countries were calling for sweeping economic sanctions. Others argued that such measures would hurt Black South Africans as many of them depended on foreign investment for their livelihoods. Sporting sanctions would disproportionately have an impact on white South Africans (as they made up the most of the athletes engaging in international competition) as well as the South African government.

Britain and the US at the time were pursuing a less combative approach with South Africa and encouraged “constructive engagement.”

One of the most important developments during Fraser’s prime ministership was the 1977 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Gleneagles, Scotland. There, Commonwealth leaders negotiated what became known as the Gleneagles Agreement. Fraser played a leading role in supporting the agreement, which committed Commonwealth governments to discourage sporting contacts with South Africa.

Australia adopted a firm policy discouraging sporting contacts with South Africa. The Fraser Government refused to provide official support for tours and made clear its opposition to sporting exchanges.

While Australia’s sporting organisations remained formally independent, the government exerted considerable political pressure against tours.

One of the greatest tests of Fraser’s commitment came during the controversy surrounding the 1981 Springbok rugby tour of New Zealand. The tour divided public opinion in New Zealand and attracted worldwide attention.

Fraser publicly criticised the decision to proceed with the tour, warning that it threatened Commonwealth unity and undermined international efforts to pressure the apartheid regime.

He was disappointed that New Zealand Prime Minister, Robert Muldoon, adopted a relatively hands-off approach. Muldoon argued that while his government did not support the tour, it was up to sporting bodies to decide whether it would go ahead. His government could have decided not issue the South African’s with visas, but it did not. Other Commonwealth countries alleged that New Zealand was not living up to the Gleneagles Agreement, while Muldoon argued that it was.

Fraser’s position occasionally generated criticism within Australia. Some sporting administrators argued that politics should remain separate from sport and believed that sporting exchanges could encourage reform through personal contact. Others maintained that athletes should not be punished for government policies over which they had little control.

Fraser’s support for sporting sanctions was part of the wider international campaign against apartheid.

While sporting boycotts alone did not bring about South Africa’s democratic transition, they contributed to the country’s growing diplomatic and cultural isolation.

Fraser’s support for sporting sanctions against South Africa was notable. At the time, many conservative leaders around the world were looking to engage South Africa rather than sanction it.

Here was a conservative leader arguing for sanctions and largely from a human rights perspective.

Fraser’s support for the sanctions were a significant aspect of his foreign policy legacy.