Pitched Battle

by Larry Writer

  When Father Richard Buchhorn arrived at Orange police station after the match to bail out the three arrested, he was treated contemptuously by officers. Afterwards, he wrote of his frustrating experience:

  While there some senior officer entered and said that Meredith and I were not allowed to bail anyone out because we were professional bailers. This officer refused to offer any explanation or even to engage in conversation. I walked after him asking questions, but got no satisfaction, although he did mention the name of an Inspector Cook as the man who had given the instruction … although this uncertain. I returned to the station a few minutes later and asked the officer (two stripes) on duty there for clarification as to what qualifications were needed in a person seeking to bail out someone held in custody. He told me that cash, name and address were all that was necessary. [Meredith and I] went and had something to eat.

  Returned to station with Meredith and another girl, asked about bailing people out. Sgt Carter attended to me. Meredith tried to bail Nadia Wheatley out. She was interrogated as to her acquaintance and relationship with Nadia, where did the money come from etc. The money was accepted, placed in an envelope, at which stage Sgt Carter left the counter. He returned after a while and said that Meredith was not acceptable as a person to put up bail. The other girl then asked if she could bail out Jennings (her boyfriend). She was asked to give details about him, her relationship with him etc, who owned the money she wanted to use to bail him out etc.

  I then asked if I could bail out Miss Wheatley and was told that I could not, that I too had been declared a professional bailer and was not eligible to bail people out. Sgt Carter said, ‘I have been instructed that Miss Burgmann and you are not to be allowed to bail anyone out.’ After questioning, he said that Superintendent Lynch had given the instruction. Miss Burgmann said that she knew Mr Lynch and asked if we could see him. We were told that we would have to find him, as he was not at the station, and were eventually told that he was at the Travelodge Motel. I asked Sgt Carter if Mr Lynch had given my name in the instruction. He said that no name had been given, and that he would say no more.

  Father George Wilkins came in at some time during this conversation and asked what qualifications were needed in a person seeking to bail someone out. Sgt Carter said he had nothing more to say.

  Just before that, I had put to Sgt Carter a summary of the situation: That he was refusing to allow me, a Catholic Priest, to bail out anyone in custody, and that he was acting on instructions from Supt Lynch, an instruction which had not given my name. Sgt Carter offered no correction to that summation of how the position stood. We left the police station at about 7pm.

  Father Wilkins and I went to the motel, asked to see Supt Lynch, who could not be contacted.

  Father Wilkins had a long conversation with a solicitor, Mr O’ Neal, after which I spoke to Mr Serisier MLC, who invited us to come to his home.

  We returned to the police station, where we found that two [of the detained protesters] had been released on bail. This had been at about 7.45PM. Father W and I went to Serisier’s, returning [to the police station] about 8.45. By this time, only two demonstrators were still in custody. Mr Serisier talked with us. I wrote out an account of events which had concerned me, gave it to him. At about 9.30, a large car drove up to the police station, Mr Lynch went in … came out a few minutes later, drove off. At about 9.50, a police officer came from the station, and said there had been complaints from neighbours about the noise, and asked us to disperse.

  Noise? ‘This was an extraordinary thing to say,’ says Meredith Burgmann. ‘As the group consisted of two priests, a justice of the peace, and the local MP … he may have had trouble making his charges stick!’

  Angered by his treatment, Father Buchhorn on 15 July wrote to New South Wales premier Robert Askin, demanding that he explain the behaviour of the police officers at Orange police station on 14 July, and specifically that of Superintendent Lynch. It was 17 October before he received a reply from the premier, who had instructed New South Wales acting police commissioner Fred Hanson to investigate. Hanson, of course, had reported to his boss that the police had acted properly in every regard. He disputed Father Buchhorn’s account of events, and in fact called the priest a liar. Buchhorn was never going to take that lying down.

  On 22 December, he came back hard at Askin — ‘I regret having to inform you that some of your police are lying to you’ — and accused Hanson and his minions of trying to cover up the issue. He then reiterated the chain of events, as per his initial complaint. His final paragraph:

  So my original assertion that the treatment accorded me at Orange Police Station was sufficiently unprecedented as to be considered disturbing, arbitrary and derogatory to me personally still stands. Instead of an explanation we have received evasion and lies. This strengthens my suspicion that Police neglected fundamental rights of people under the law on this occasion. It also undermines my trust in the leadership of the Police Force and their commitment to law and order. I most deeply regret that I will not be able to restrain scepticism and cynicism when I hear you as Premier preface statements with phrases like ‘The Commissioner of Police has informed me that he has examined the circumstances most carefully …’ or ‘The Commissioner has assured me that …’ I hope you will take steps which, at a future date, will provide me with reasonable grounds for entertaining a different attitude, more in accord with the justifiable expectations of a democratic society.

  The premier backed off, conceding ‘omissions’ in the police investigation. After a few paragraphs in which Askin attempted to cover his and his police force’s backs, he finished with, ‘No reflection on your personal integrity was in any way intended.’

  Buchhorn was tempted to let the matter rest there, but could not resist a parting shot.

  Dear Mr Askin, I am gratified for the trouble you have taken in this regard. I regret having taken up so much of the energies of the Police in furnishing answers, and can only hope that this has been justified in so far as it has placed before you an example of Police conduct involving senior officers which, in spite of explanations offered, still merits severe criticism. Further it has provided you, and me, with an example of evasiveness when confronted with criticism which indicates the defects of internal inquiries into complaints regarding Police behaviour.

  I would merely point out that the substance of my allegations has neither been denied nor the actions of the Police Officers on that night adequately justified …

  Finally, the fact that I was told on the occasion of my first visit to the station that I was a professional bailer, before any questions whatsoever were asked as to my identity, address, relation to those arrested, or any factors relative to my ability to ensure that anyone I bailed out would answer bail, remains as a clear indication of an unwarranted pre-judging of this matter on the part of the Police Officer who spoke to me on that occasion.

  At this time, three Presbyterian ministers returned to Australia after investigating discrimination and racism in Asia and South Africa, and brought word that many white South Africans were stunned by what they were reading in the newspapers about their rugby team’s calamitous tour. Most had thought that Australia was a carbon copy of South Africa: isolated, conservative, run by whites, devoted to sport. They were genuinely shocked that Australians could be offended by apartheid when it was widely known that Aboriginals were treated badly and the government enforced a White Australia immigration policy. One of the ministers, the Rev. Dr Scott McPheat, said that the South African press was calling the demonstrators ‘irresponsible scum’. Another of the churchmen, Professor Robert Anderson, reported that ‘The majority of the whites read their newspapers to see what the rugby scores are, and the blacks to find out the number of demonstrators.’ Anderson reflected that while South Africa was prospering economically, there was among the non-white majority ‘a mood of uneasiness, unrest, repression and despair … What bugs the
black people is that nobody treats them as people. They are pawns in a chess game and this really grinds the more educated black. The black man is caught at every turn. He is marked and there are informers everywhere. There is a basic fear, but the whites are even more afraid because they don’t know what’s going to happen next.’

  CHAPTER 17

  STATE OF OVER-REACTION

  While the Springboks were in Orange, there came a news flash from Queensland. Premier Johannes Bjelke-Petersen, who after three years in power was still struggling to establish himself as a credible leader and present himself as a no-nonsense conservative, announced that a State of Emergency — an order usually invoked by governments to secure ‘peace, welfare, order, good government and public safety’ in times of war, natural disaster, or crippling industrial action — would exist in Queensland during the Springboks’ three-week visit and for as long afterwards as he deemed necessary. A State of Emergency had been enacted only four times in Australia’s history, each time in response to industrial strikes. ‘Make no mistake, this is a very serious situation,’ Bjelke-Petersen burbled. ‘I have acted in the face of the threat of real violence and defiance of law and order with subsequent dangers to life and property.’

  The State of Emergency, believed to be the first in world history to be invoked over a sporting tour, would give police unlimited power to search and arrest people and to enter premises without a warrant, protect officers from civil action taken against them, allow the government in the event of union strife to take control of public transport and essential services, and empower the armed forces to maintain order.

  Importantly, it gave the government the authority to stage the Springboks’ matches against Queensland on 24 July, the Junior Wallabies on 28 July, and Australia on 31 July on the main oval at the Brisbane Exhibition Ground instead of at Ballymore rugby ground, Lang Park, or the Brisbane Cricket Ground, which were considered by Police Minister Max Hodges and Commissioner Ray Whitrod to lack the necessary security to repel demonstrators. The Royal National Association had earlier denied use of the ground to the rugby administrators who wanted to stage the Springboks games there, because it feared trade-union reprisals during the Brisbane Show in August. ‘Our responsibility is to see that the rugby union players are protected,’ explained the premier. ‘The best area to afford this is the Exhibition Ground. A declaration of a State of Emergency, with all its implicit powers, will enable the police to ensure the safety and well-being of spectators and players.’ The cost of having police dedicated to the Springboks for three weeks was in excess of $150,000, when the annual state budget for special operations such as this was $50,000.

  In the wake of the declaration, Queensland police minister Hodges ordered several hundred 53-centimetre-long softwood police batons to be manufactured at a Public Works Department joinery shop, to be issued to police controlling the demonstrations. The Building Workers Industrial Union consequently told its members employed at the joinery to stop work.

  According to author Matthew Condon in his remarkable book Three Crooked Kings (an expose of corruption and crime in Queensland, and especially during Bjelke-Petersen’s reign), the 60-year-old premier — terrified that the riots that had occurred in other states during the Springbok tour would take place in Queensland, thus undermining his hard-man image — secretly told the Queensland Police Union that officers would not be penalised for any action they took to suppress the demonstrators. To buy their loyalty, he offered a pay rise for police officers and the establishment of the superannuation fund they had long sought. ‘You stay with me,’ he wheedled, ‘and I’ll stay with you.’

  Bjelke-Petersen claimed that a factor in declaring the State of Emergency was secret police information that had been passed to him that the anti-apartheid movement was planning to engage in violent tactics in Queensland. Among those schemes, he claimed, was the throwing at the players of tennis balls filled with shards of broken glass, but ‘now we have special power to cover any eventuality that arises’. He wouldn’t divulge how many police would be on duty at the matches. ‘Oh yes, this is something everyone would like to know … It will all be revealed at the appropriate time.’ When the Queensland Trades and Labour Council threatened a statewide strike if the State of Emergency wasn’t rescinded, Bjelke-Petersen chortled, ‘Threats of strikes don’t interest me.’

  Outside Queensland, even among conservatives, Bjelke-Petersen’s State of Emergency was seen as a ludicrous over-reaction. BBC Radio named the Queensland government the most reactionary in Australia. The Australian Trades and Labour Council described the State of Emergency as the panic-stricken move of a comic-opera Government. ‘We deplore the Queensland Police Force being used as a political arm of the Government and involving members of the force in confrontation with the community.’ Although he had no truck with demonstrators, Queensland federal Liberal MP and former navy minister Jim Killen considered the State of Emergency unnecessary and deplorable. Bjelke-Petersen’s South Australian counterpart, Don Dunstan, reacted with disbelief: ‘It is extraordinary that any government should declare a State of Emergency to abrogate the civil liberties of the citizens in order to defend Springbok players from ordinary demonstrators.’ The move could only be interpreted throughout the world as ‘support for the ambassadors of apartheid’ by a nation that was also racist.

  At an anti-apartheid campaign meeting at the University of Queensland, law lecturer Paul Gerber called the State of Emergency ‘inane and almost insane’. It would have no effect other than to make Queensland a laughing stock in the eyes of the world, ‘even more than it is already’.

  Deputy leader of the federal Opposition, Lance Barnard, said Bjelke-Petersen deserved to be laughed out of office. ‘He is not preparing for an armed insurrection from the Queensland hinterland or a marine invasion from the eastern seaboard … or even a sudden landing of Martian spaceships on Doomben Racecourse,’ scoffed Barnard. ‘The only steps the Premier has neglected to take in this extraordinary declaration is the reading of the Riot Act outside the Exhibition Ground and the issuing of pikes and muskets to the Loyal Yeomanry and Citizenry. The whole situation defies parody. Gilbert and Sullivan could not do it justice!’

  Meredith Burgmann called the declaration of a State of Emergency over a sporting tour a heavy-handed over-reaction by a foolish man out of his depth, and, she added cannily, ‘worth a thousand arrests as far as world headlines went’.

  Even The Canberra Times conceded on 15 July that the Queensland premier had gone too far. ‘Although rugby union ranks only a poor second to rugby league in popularity as a sport in NSW and Queensland, and vastly lower in other states, the tour has been given everywhere the news treatment normally reserved for top international sporting events, and the conflict is providing the ideal stimulant for the polarisation of national opinion …’ The newspaper condemned the Queensland government for committing a gross and misleading abuse of power by utilising a State of Emergency to deal with demonstrations that other states had managed to control by routine means.

  The reported sadistic intentions of some demonstrators and the violence used by some police must be deplored, but neither has so far produced a major crisis. The justification adduced by the Queensland Premier that the emergency had to be created to compel the Queensland Royal National Association to allow the main oval on the Brisbane Exhibition Ground to be used for the Springbok matches — because it is less vulnerable to attacks from demonstrator-propelled missiles — is, to say the least, curious.

  There has always been universal agreement that no government has the moral right to invoke the drastic powers implied by a declaration that a State of Emergency exists unless a given situation contains a real, grave and cogent threat to the public welfare. A prolonged national strike, the appearance of hostile warships in Moreton Bay, or a major national catastrophe would justify the use of such powers. The prospect of a demonstration-plagued football match does not. It is unlikely that e
ven South Africa, a police-riddled, oppressive and frightened State, would go so far.

  All of which was water off a duck’s back to Bjelke-Petersen. ‘Well, I’m not going to worry about what a mob of socialists and communists from south of the border say.’

  Now, he gloated, his opponents were well and truly on the back foot. ‘The way the unions and demonstrators are going about defying law and order and wrecking our general living standards and way of life, they could not help us better than they are now. My word! They have been piously proclaiming non-violent intentions but have every intention of not practising what they’ve been preaching. I sincerely hope that those who have plotted violence and disorder will understand that their intentions are known and will not be tolerated by the Government.’

  It could not have been the press conference that South Africa’s ambassador-designate John Mills was expecting when he moved into his new office in Canberra fresh from South Africa. Reporters were not interested in quizzing him about trade, diplomacy, or tourism, only about the strife-torn Springbok tour. Mills, 50, looked ill at ease when he faced the media, but he talked tough. He was no milquetoast. Mills had had a distinguished World War II career and written a well-received book on his escape from a prisoner-of-war camp. He declared that the protests in Australia against the Springboks would only harden his government’s resolve on apartheid. ‘It is a fairly general reaction when people are hitting you on the back of the head not to pay too much attention to what they are saying. This is not the way to bring about any sort of fundamental changes. Change will come in South Africa, but only after South Africans themselves have made up their minds in what is in the best interests of their country. There is a great deal of anguished debate going about the problems we face in South Africa. Whichever government was in power would face the same intractable problems as the present Government. Hitting South Africans on the head — and they are pretty hard-headed and don’t like being pushed around very much — I find these kinds of things counter-productive …’ Mills, who took pains to inform the media that he had himself played cricket with coloured sportsmen — ‘In California … I was captain of a team with a Ceylonese vice-captain and an Egyptian wicket-keeper’ — saw his role in Australia as ‘a bridge over troubled water, if I may say that’. Outside, 40 demonstrators chanted, ‘Paint Mills Black and Send Him Back!’