Murray McCully on Pacific Forum And World Cup Opening Night --- the Nation 10/09/11
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McCully will not apologise

Rugby World Cup Minister Murray McCully will not apologise to fans who could not get to the opening game last night because of chaos on Auckland’s train system.

Speaking today on TV3’s “The Nation” Mr McCully admitted that “hundreds” of fans had not made it to Eden Park because of the train failure.

Rugby World Cup tickets included train transport as part of the overall package.

Mr McCully hinted fans might get compensation.

“If they purchased a ticket and couldn’t get to the game they’ll be making themselves known and the appropriate commercial arrangements can be considered by those who have got an obligation<” he said.

But asked if he was going to apologise he replied: “No I'm not.

“What I'm going to say is that the system last night dropped the ball in two respects, in the public transport front and in terms of the way in which it coped with things around Quay Street.

“We are going to get that fixed.

“We are going to go through a proper process of understanding why the problems occurred and how they can be sorted out.

“But we want to do so in a way that enables all of the people who need to work with us constructively for the next six weeks, to continue to do so.”

New Zealand to stay tough on Fiji

Foreign Minister Murray McCully has rejected a call from the President of Kiribati to relax sanction on Fiji.

President Anote Tong told the Pacific Forum in Auckland this week that Fiji was like a badly behaved child in a family. He said the child would not be thrown out but talked to.

But Mr McCully told TV3’s “The Nation” that New Zealand was not ready to relax its sanctions on members of Fiji’s Military Government coming to New Zealand.

Mr McCully acknowledged that Fiji had said voter registration would begin for the 2014 elections.

“Of course we would want to see free and pure elections,” he said.

“We want to be assured that all political stakeholders are able to participate, but a starting point for that surely must be an indication that there are basic freedoms in place.

“So the emergency rigs need to go, there needs to be press freedom, and the practise of rounding up the church leaders and taking them down to the barracks has gotta stop.

But if we can get to that point certainly we've got some confidence that things can be moved forward.”

The Nation is produced by Front Page Ltd for TV3 and NZ on Air.
Richard Harman

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