‘I went from being revered to being reviled’
Red Squad’s Ross Meurant reveals the ‘poison chalice’ of having to police the Springbok tour.
The 1981 Springbok Tour was to have a major impact on my life. At first it seemed the tour handed me a golden chalice. But, as time passed by, I found that chalice to be filled with poison.
From famous to infamous. From revered to reviled. The vicissitudes of life.
The tour produced a consistent level of extreme street violence, not seen since the New Zealand Wars, nor seen since.
The country was divided down the middle – for or against the tour. Prime Minister Rob Muldoon had a political motive for permitting the tour to proceed. The election returned National to the Treasury benches – with a majority of one. The police were the meat in the sandwich.
As second in command of the Red Escort Group I was to play a major role in the street tactics, which we developed, and invariably as commander of the front-line squad of the group.
The ‘‘defeat’’ of police by the protesters at Hamilton’s Rugby Park did have an effect on most police and on me. Whereas until that day I didn’t give a damn, that event galvanised me to demand an opportunity to restore one’s
pride in an outfit (the police) I was still proud of at that stage of my career.
And so, when Police Commissioner Bob Walton said to the nation after the event that he could not have done more even if the entire police force had been at the ground, I knew he was talking a crock of crap.
Muldoon was out of the country at the time, but a few days later, when Red Squad was in New Plymouth waiting for the tour to be called off, I was summoned from the mess (dining hall) to take a call from Muldoon. He asked me to repeat what I had 24 hours earlier told Justice Minister Jim McLay (at the time I was a branch treasurer in McLay’s Birkenhead electorate).
Six years later, sharing a whiskey with Muldoon and Winston Peters in Parliament, where I had arrived as MP for Hobson, Muldoon reflected on that conversation.
He said my comments – that Red Squad could have stopped the protester break-in at Hamilton’s Rugby Park had they been ‘‘let out of the cage’’, and together with Blue Squad could stop any future ground invasions – were critical to his decision to continue with the tour.
Red and Blue squads could not have achieved as they did, had it not been for the supporting police units. But unquestionably, their training, evolving tactics and commitment paved the way to victory for the police.
Rintoul St in Wellington and Onslow Rd in Auckland were two of the most violent scenes Red Squad encountered. Blue Squad had a similar scene of violence outside Lancaster Park in Christchurch.
To this day, I remain proud of what Red Group achieved.
But as time passed, the group became the face of police brutality. The clowns affair (where protesters dressed as clowns were beaten) and the photograph of a section of my squad in Onslow Rd, to this day contribute to latent lingering hostility.
As I gained a higher profile from authoring the bestselling book The Red Squad Story, and later as an MP, it was I who copped the vilification and odium heaped upon Red Squad. The poison in the chalice of gold.
Ross Meurant resigned from the police at inspector rank in 1987 to enter Parliament as a National MP. Today he is honorary consul for Morocco and trustee and CEO of commercial assets owned by absentee Russian investors.