No Maoris, No Tour

Rugby was the national game of both New Zealand and white South Africa, and the two countries competed fiercely on the field from the 1920s. South Africa was ruled by a white minority, and from 1948 it established a formal system of segregation known as apartheid. When the All Blacks first toured South Africa in 1928, they agreed to leave out all Māori players, even outstanding performers such as the fullback George Nēpia. Te Ara records that the New Zealand Rugby Football Union again picked no Māori for the tours of 1949 and 1960, in accordance with South African wishes. The all-white 1949 team provoked stronger protests, from trade unions and from cultural figures such as the writer O. E. Middleton, who said there should be no more tours until South Africa abandoned apartheid. When the Springboks toured New Zealand in 1956, only the Māori Women's Welfare League spoke out officially against their racially selected team.

In 1959 the Rugby Football Union accepted another invitation to send an all-white team to South Africa. This time the response was organised. Many prominent New Zealanders formed the Citizens' All Black Tour Association (CABTA), chaired by Rolland O'Regan, father of the future Ngāi Tahu leader Tipene O'Regan. CABTA set up more than 20 regional branches and campaigned under the slogan 'No Maoris, no tour'. Thousands marched in protest around the country, and Te Ara describes the campaign as New Zealand's first organised nationwide opposition to racist sporting contacts. Sources differ on the size of the anti-tour petition: Te Ara says around 160,000 people signed it, one NZHistory page says nearly 160,000, and another NZHistory page gives 150,000. In Te Ara's assessment it was the biggest protest against racially selected sports teams anywhere in the world at that time. Others argued that politics had no place in sport.

The All Blacks had finally won a series against the Springboks in 1956, and the rematch between the two sides was much anticipated. The protests did not persuade the government to intervene. Wilson Whineray's team left as planned on 10 May 1960, and its aircraft narrowly missed demonstrators who were sprinting across the runway at Whenuapai airport. The Springboks won the test series 2–1, with one test drawn. NZHistory's overview of 1960 notes that the tour is best remembered for the fact that no Māori players were selected.

The argument did not end with the tour. Opposition to a planned 1965 Springbok tour of New Zealand led to the formation in Auckland in 1964 of the Citizens Association for Racial Equality (CARE), the country's first specifically anti-racist organisation. CARE helped organise nationwide protest against a proposed all-white All Black tour of South Africa in 1967, and by then the government was prepared to put pressure on the Rugby Football Union, which cancelled it. NZHistory links the cancellation to Prime Minister Keith Holyoake's statement that 'in this country we are one people'. In 1969 Trevor Richards formed Halt All Racist Tours (HART) to oppose another tour planned for 1970. In 1970 the All Blacks took Māori players to South Africa, but only because the South African government allowed them to travel as 'honorary whites'. A Springbok tour of New Zealand scheduled for 1973 was cancelled because the government believed it would strain race relations at home.

The 1960 campaign failed to stop the tour, but it was the first time opposition to racially selected teams had been organised across the whole country. It also raised awkward questions about New Zealand itself. Te Ara notes that until the 1960s many Pākehā, including those who opposed racially selected teams, believed their own country's race relations were beyond reproach. Yet the US psychologist David Ausubel, visiting in the 1950s, was appalled by the discrimination he saw, and Te Ara notes that in Pukekohe Māori were barred from hotel bars and barbershops and restricted to the back stalls of the cinema until the early 1960s. Later opponents of the tours argued that by continuing sporting contact New Zealand was condoning apartheid, and allowing South African racial attitudes to infect its own society. NZHistory notes that the issue of sporting ties with South Africa would eventually split the country in 1981.