DPA
Sydney: The Australian government will support cricket authorities in case they have to pay a fine if the September cricket tour to Zimbabwe is cancelled in protest over human rights violations by the government of President Robert Mugabe.

Prime Minister John Howard said Friday that Australian cricketing authorities were liable to a fine of $1.6 million from the International Cricket Council if it pulled out.

"We would indemnify Cricket Australia for any compensation that it might have to pay to the international body," Howard said. "It would not be fair to visit the cost of a foreign policy decision on a sporting body."

Howard said both he and foreign affairs minister Alexander Downer would talk with Cricket Australia about the implications of cancelling the tour.

Both Howard and Downer are scheduled to meet visiting Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo Pius Ncube. The archbishop, a fierce critic of Mugabe, urged Australia to cancel the tour.

"Let's boycott and not go there, so that in this way we can embarrass and put pressure on this immoral government of Mugabe and his cronies," Ncube told a gathering in Sydney.

The national team toured Zimbabwe three years ago. Spinner Stuart MacGill refused to go, becoming the first well-known Australian sportsperson to exercise his conscience and boycott a proposed overseas tour.