by Larry Writer
Inside the oval, around 1,000 protesters booed the Springboks when they ran onto the field to face the ACT side (which included a chunky Maori halfback named John ‘Tomato’ Tamaturoa). Just two protesters (both women) managed to breach the barbed-wire fence, which was guarded by two lines of police. They were quickly arrested, along, during the afternoon, with 46 others, for hurling objects, possessing missiles, hindering police, and behaving offensively. Later, police found on the oval several glass vials containing ethane dithiol, a chemical that can irritate the skin and lungs and gives off a pungent odour.
Those facing charges included ACT Advisory Council member Ken Fry (later a long-serving federal Labor MP), who was filming the police for the Council of Civil Liberties, and Chris Swinbank, the 20-year-old Canberra anti-apartheid-movement leader and fourth-year honours student in applied mathematics who was charged with assaulting police, resisting arrest, and causing malicious damage. And, to make an example of the highest-profile protester, Meredith Burgmann was collared, too. ‘The arrest was completely unjustified. I was being peaceful,’ she says today. ‘They arrested me because they recognised me and had been warned about what I’d done in Sydney. I was with my mother and was determined not to get arrested this time. I just didn’t want to spend any more of my time in court, or prison. It eats up your life. So I was standing there with my arm through Mum’s watching the game, and the police came through the fence, up the hill, and grabbed me from my mother. They took me away and they charged me. The charges were bogus. They accused me of cutting barbed wire and running onto the ground. Lies. My mother, being the good Christian lady that she was, was horrified that the police were alleging this absolutely untrue stuff. She suddenly realised that things that she had always believed in were not true anymore.’
In court, Lorna Burgmann stood up and told the magistrate, ‘My daughter was on my arm all the time. I will swear on my oath she did nothing.’ Says Meredith, ‘Because of my grandfather, our family name meant something in Canberra. There is a high school and a college named after him, so Mum calling the Canberra police liars was a huge issue.’ Her mother’s testimony was instrumental in Burgmann beating the serious charges, but she was still convicted of hindering Constable Bernard Wood in the execution of his duty and fined $11. Knowing that she was as innocent of that charge as the others, she appealed. The conviction was overturned when, on 5 August after a five-day hearing in the ACT Supreme Court, Mr Justice Cannon was unable to reconcile beyond reasonable doubt the evidence given by police and that provided by Burgmann and her supporters. ‘It cost my family $1,500 to quash that $11 fine,’ she says.
And it was worth every cent, Lorna Burgmann said outside the court. ‘Meredith has done other things and hasn’t disputed the facts. This time she didn’t obstruct the policeman. She was holding onto my arm until she was arrested and we felt that the conviction for hindering the policeman couldn’t be allowed to happen. We had no idea this hearing would go on for five days although we knew it would cost a lot, but we felt Meredith should only be convicted for what she has done.’ Lorna credited her daughters Meredith and Verity for causing her husband and herself to shake off their political apathy. The woman who had been a financial member of the Liberal Party until 1966 told reporters that ‘The mention of McMahon makes me sick, and I’m more receptive of things like long hair these days.’
There was a disturbing image at the Canberra match that nobody who saw it would ever forget. A young demonstrator was tackled by police and was marched across the field. In the turmoil, he lost his trousers. The crowd hooted and brayed. That young man, Jack Waterford, would become one of Australia’s most celebrated journalists, a Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year in 1985 and winner of the Order of Australia in 2007 for ‘service to journalism, particularly as a commentator on national politics and the law; to raising debate on ethical issues and public sector accountability, and to the community in areas of Indigenous affairs’. In 1993, he recalled that day for his newspaper, The Canberra Times.
I was wearing a very ill-fitting pair of trousers, held up with a piece of rope. And no underpants. After the police dragged me down to the fence and stuffed me through the barbed wire, another two policemen grabbed me by the arms and frog-marched me towards a burly NSW policeman wearing gauntlets and protective clothing (to catch smoke bombs), who began to search me, in the process grabbing the rope that held my trousers up. My trousers fell down to my ankles. I struggled to pull them up. The cops holding my arms fought to keep my arms up. It was a clear case of resisting. Sometimes I got to the trousers and sometimes they slipped from my fingers. The hobble to the police paddy wagons on the other side of the field around the touch lines was about 80 metres. It was as close as I got to the Springboks, but I was more preoccupied with my humiliation.
Waterford took readers into the heart of the action. He described how he was searched six times before he entered the ground, and how with more than 100 police stationed around the ground, a field invasion was all but impossible, so the protesters satisfied themselves with making as much noise as possible.
The police reaction to the lack of action was to create some of their own. Flying wedges of police sailed into the crowds to pick out and arrest people known to be in the [anti-apartheid] organisation. The NCOs had been issued with books of faces and could be seen pointing them out. I was standing holding arms between Lorna Burgmann, mother of Meredith, and Ken Fry, then a member of the ACT Advisory Council, when I was picked and grabbed. For good measure, the squad came back and arrested Ken, who was charged with hindering my arrest, though how was never clear. In the event, he was convicted … the charges against me were dropped.
Waterford also wrote of the fun he had painting ‘Smash Apartheid’ on the walls of the South African Embassy. One group of spray painters would spray one section of the wall, which would bring police stationed at another section to clear them away, and then demonstrators with spray cans would decorate the part of the wall just vacated by the police.
In his report to the ACT Advisory Council, Ken Fry accused police of ‘arbitrary, phoney arrests, mistreatment of bystanders and violent behaviour’. He had seen innocent spectators and demonstrators alike knocked down by police flying wedges, and arrested for remonstrating with the officers. He said that a fellow cellmate told him that he ‘would be in for a rough time’, and so it proved. The vehicle transporting him to the police station ‘was driven very violently, with excessive braking and acceleration, hard cornering and sudden, jerking stops. Any stock driver who drove a cattle truck in such a manner would have been charged by the RSPCA. Apparently, this is the way NSW police operate.’ From what Fry had seen, 75 per cent of the arrests could not be justified.
The report of Canberra’s Civil Liberties Council noted that the Canberra anti-apartheid convenor, Chris Swinbank, met with police who assured him that there would be no police action if demonstrators confined their activities to making noise and holding up signs. Nevertheless, although only a handful of protesters did any more than this at the match, there were many arrests. Police had also prevented observers from taking photographs, and ripped notebooks from reporters’ hands. Noted the report: ‘The most disturbing element of police action at the match was the apparent rationale of arrests. Frequently people were arrested after being spotted and pointed out by police officers standing on the field even though the people were, according to witnesses, standing quietly or merely doing what the police had allowed was permissible, ie, chanting or blowing whistles … [A number of arrests] seemed to be aimed at the so-called “ring leaders” — Meredith Burgmann who was apprehended while standing peacefully, arms linked with her mother’s, can attest to this — in an effort to bring the crowd to docility. Other arrests were apparently the result of personal animus on the part of individual officers.’
As in Melbourne, when rugby fans assaulted demonstrators, as some did, police took no action. Former policeman G.D. Lavington w
rote to newspapers to say that he had been sickened ‘to see and hear people expressing a sadistic delight in seeing people arresting people and, not satisfied with watching, they attempted to incite violence by calling to police such things as “Put the boot into the long-haired bastard.”’ And Mrs Castellari was compelled to put pen to paper to report that she and her son had seen a policeman do nothing to protect a young female demonstrator who was being attacked by a large rugby fan. ‘On leaving the match, a group of police was overheard discussing and laughing about the number of times they had stood by while rugby supporters had abused and assaulted demonstrators. The same rugby supporters were allowed to use foul language with impunity.’
Under the ACT’s new draconian Public Order Act, unlawful trespassers on public property could be jailed for three months and/or fined $250, and a smoke-bomb thrower was liable for six months in jail and a $500 fine. If a smoke bomb injured a person, the thrower might be behind bars for five years. The arrested at this match were spared such punishment.
Oh, and the second-string Springboks won 34–3 in front of 10,811 spectators.
Canberra had its moments, but proved to be anything but the South Africans’ Waterloo. Once more, the match was completed as scheduled, and, again, the South Africans out-classed the opposition. Perhaps, hoped those who wished them gone, the South Africans’ Waterloo would come in Queensland, their next stop. On 22 July, the Springboks boarded their planes and flew to Brisbane, where already anti-apartheid protesters were taking to the streets.
Meredith Burgmann had considered following the Springboks north, to link with Queensland anti-apartheid activists, but was so exhausted by the Sydney, Orange, and Canberra campaigns that she literally collapsed. ‘We drove ourselves into the ground. It was intense and frantic every day plotting our demonstrations and raising money to keep campaigning and travelling to matches. In motivating our troops, I was always mindful of the need to pace ourselves, and mix up the hard work with fun, but when the Springboks were in Sydney there wasn’t time for fun. After they left for Queensland, I went to bed for two weeks, trying to regain my energy for the final test match in Sydney, in a couple of weeks’ time. I probably had a small breakdown. At the time, I was working as a teacher three days a week as well, and most of my organising was done at night. Peter, who was a full-time organiser, and Denis and Helen and Di and the others in the house were all buggered, too. I remember thinking, “I don’t think I can ever get out of bed to organise anything ever again.”’
CHAPTER 20
POLICE STATE
To many Australians, especially those who lived outside Queensland, Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen, a former peanut farmer with a bumbling demeanour and folksily quaint turn of phrase, was verging on being a figure of fun. But, as he showed in July and August 1971, there was little funny about the man known as the ‘Hillbilly Dictator’. Underestimate Joh at your risk. Even today, more than a decade after his death, Sekai Holland remembers him as ‘a frightening figure’.
Bjelke-Petersen, who led Queensland’s Country (later National) Party Government, was a shrewd and ruthless reactionary. An authoritarian populist who combined Lutheran piety with cold-blooded and questionable political and business ethics, he won and held office through a gerrymander that gave him power with just 23 per cent of the vote. He used the police to further his own ends, and sooled them onto trade unionists, student demonstrators, and anyone else he disliked, invariably branding his enemies as socialists, communists, and dole bludgers. He banned street demonstrations, claiming, ‘We’ll put a stop to all this business of going soft on all these demonstrations. If we don’t, we’ll have complete anarchy!’ Proudly anti-intellectual, he was suspiciously hostile to free-thinkers, creative people, and academics. He was pro-development, no matter the cost to the environment, and precious heritage buildings fell under the wrecker’s ball with regularity.
He also promoted inept and corrupt cronies to positions of high power. Although Queensland prospered in many areas under Bjelke-Petersen’s premiership from 1968 to 1987, and he was revered by his followers, he and his Government, at the end, were discredited. Two ministers whom he’d had knighted went to jail, and in 1991 he himself was charged with perjury over evidence he gave to the Royal Commission into police corruption. (The jury was unable to reach a verdict and Bjelke-Petersen was deemed too old at age 80 to face a retrial.)
When, in 2005, the 94-year-old Bjelke-Petersen was on his death bed, Indigenous activist Sam Watson wept no tears. He wrote in the radical urban magazine Neighbourhood News: ‘Pure and simple, Joh is a political thug who ruled this state for almost two decades as though it was his own private kingdom. His hillbilly administration was characterised by rampant corruption that infected every level of public administration and tainted the private sector. Leading business people fell into the habit of courting Joh’s administration with paper bags that were filled with unmarked bills … Aboriginal people in particular have great cause to curse Joh and his Government. For instance, many of my older relatives from the Cherbourg reserve were forced to work on Joh’s peanut crops for $1 a day.’
Bjelke-Petersen, who, it was often said, ‘made J.B. Vorster look like a hand-wringing liberal’, was the most divisive politician in Australia’s history. And never was he more divisive than when his declaration of a State of Emergency gave him unlimited powers to enforce his version of law and order.
On 21 July, the eve of the Springboks’ arrival in Brisbane, trade unions struck for 24 hours against the State of Emergency. Some 36 demonstrators from a group of 1,000 workers and students marching through Brisbane CBD to Parliament House were arrested. Hundreds were roughed-up. Photographers’ cameras were smashed. Indigenous activist Lilla Watson observed that students who had painted their faces black to show their solidarity with the blacks of South Africa were set upon.
This — as in Melbourne when Sir Henry Bolte had authorised police to pull no punches dealing with anti-apartheid demonstrators — was government-sanctioned police brutality. Police were immune from civil prosecution because of the terms of the very State of Emergency their victims were protesting against.
It seemed that Bjelke-Petersen was looking for an opportunity to bust heads. Police Minister Max Hodges claimed to have it on excellent authority that the demonstrators planned to fire potentially lethal long-range, explosive-tipped skyrockets at the players from outside the Exhibition Ground. (Such weapons were a figment of his, or somebody’s, imagination.) Consequently, said Hodges, this was war. Hodges further fanned the flames when he called students who opposed apartheid ‘unkempt urchins and pseudo-intellectuals … At the university, they must be improving their intellect because I distinctly heard some of them count up to four … but apparently some of these students think they are above the law. They should remember that many are at university because of the benevolence of governments, commerce, industry and the public. It is the taxpayer generally who has to pay to educate these disreputable-looking people, who are supposed to be the future leaders of our community.’
The inflammatory rhetoric was not confined to the government and police. Queensland Trades and Labour Council president Jack Egerton went just as far over the top when he called the South African players ‘racist thugs’.
By the time the Springboks had deplaned from their five light aircraft at Archerfield Airport on the morning of 22 July and checked into the Tower Mill Motel in Brisbane’s Wickham Terrace, several hundred demonstrators had gathered in the street opposite. It was immediately plain that their protesting was more restrained than that of their counterparts in the other states. Most of the protesters seemed to be intimidated by Bjelke-Petersen and Hodges’ warning that they would be fair game if they stepped out of line. Some mild chanting and singing went on, and there was a witty sign to the Springboks saying not the usual ‘Go Home Racists!’ but ‘Welcome Home Racists’.
Facing them in Wickham Terrace were 500 policemen, inc
luding 100 or so callow constables from North Queensland in their distinctive khaki-brown uniforms, imported by Bjelke-Petersen and Hodges. The local police wore white crash helmets. All carried batons. The Police Emergency Squad was on hand to defuse fireworks and flares.
A group of ten Springboks left the hotel without incident to attend a luncheon in their honour at the home of Brisbane stockbroker and rugby fan Robin Corrie. At that function, hooker Robbie Barnard made it known that he and his teammates were enjoying being in Brisbane. They simply wanted to play good football. ‘We are not responsible for our Government’s policies, and most of us reckon that if the demonstrators were genuine they would go to South Africa and protest direct to Dr Vorster.’
Police Commissioner Ray Whitrod hoped that an early display of police might in Wickham Terrace would deter the protesters from harassing the Springboks at their hotel. ‘With a weak show of force,’ he explained, ‘all you do is tempt the more radical people to have a go.’ Unfortunately, the move did not work out as Whitrod planned, and that night, as the Springboks watched from their rooms high above the street, it was the police who ‘had a go’.
As dusk fell, police who had been practising their crowd-control manoeuvres against dummy protesters at their Enoggera base for the past week were champing for some real action. Their edginess was increased when a small number of protesters in the generally docile crowd oinked at them and called them racists and fascist pigs.
Reporter Norm Tasker was staying at the Tower Mill Motel. ‘By Brisbane, after they’d been under siege in Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, and Sydney, the Springboks expected demonstrator trouble as a matter of course, and some of them were becoming inured to it. Three of the Springboks decided to have some fun. One said to me, “Let’s go down with the demonstrators.” They were in street clothes, so they wouldn’t be identified. We all ventured into the park and stood with the mob and yelled, “Go home, Springboks!” It was hilarious. At least it was until the shit hit the fan.’