‘Wellington’s darkest hour of the tour’: 40 years since violence erupted on Molesworth St
Wednesday, 28 July 2021
Forty years ago today, New Zealanders were preparing to spend the evening watching, live from London, the marriage of Prince Charles to Lady Diana Spencer. Earlier in the day, the visiting Springboks rugby team had defeated Taranaki in New Plymouth. But it is what happened in Wellington outside Parliament on Molesworth St for which the day is most remembered.
In 1976, with the All Blacks in South Africa, it had been state violence in South Africa’s townships which had dominated the news. In 1981, the state violence was on our own streets. Time blurs memory, dilutes passions, but for this baby boomer, what happened on Molesworth St on July 29, 1981 continues to shine with clarity. On this day, a march of more than a thousand Wellingtonians protesting against the presence of the Springboks in our country was attacked by baton-wielding police. People were left bloodied, requiring hospital care.
It was early evening. I was one of the crowd who had assembled in Parliament grounds. Many public servants were there. The plan was for a peaceful march from Molesworth St to the home of the South African Consul-General, three kilometres away in Wadestown.
Four days earlier, protests had forced the cancellation of the Springboks game in Hamilton. We were concerned about how the police would respond to this cancellation and any sense of failure on their part. The tour had introduced New Zealand to a new, menacing style of policing, unknown to most Pākehā New Zealanders. Never seen before were the elite police squads, equipped with helmets, visors and long batons, resembling the personal protection squads used by foreign dictators.
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March organisers met with senior police officials on July 28 and were assured that batons would only be used in situations involving civil disorder characterised by a danger to property or citizens; there would be no dogs.
The march left Parliament grounds via Lambton Quay then swung into Molesworth St. It got no further than the Court of Appeal. There we came face to face with a line of police, arms linked and batons drawn. Without warning, or any request for the march to stop, police began indiscriminately batoning the front few rows of march, many of them students. A second line of police quickly moved in and began to baton protesters over the shoulders of the first police line.
Batons were being aimed directly at heads. The assault continued for at least 40 seconds - a long time for such violence to rain down. Screams pierced the evening air. Some marchers spoke of policemen smiling, pleased with their handiwork. The batoning was clearly premeditated. Perceived humiliation in Hamilton was being avenged.
I was not batoned, but I knew people who were. A good friend, Rona Bailey, 66, was struck and collapsed to the ground. Close to becoming unconscious, she was hospitalised. The sensible decision was made to turn the march around and proceed along Lambton Quay, but police, batons drawn and with their dogs barking close by, blocked the route. We started chanting “The Whole World is Watching”. And it was. Facing us were television crews from the world’s media. It was an ugly evening. “Wellington’s darkest hour of the tour” said the Evening Post. I got home in time for the tail end of the wedding. A bizarre counterpoint to Molesworth St.
By the time the Springboks left New Zealand, the prediction of former Prime Minister, Norman Kirk, that a South African rugby tour would result in the ‘greatest eruption of violence this country has ever known’, had been realised. Kirk had cancelled the 1973 Springbok tour because the tour did not fit in with his view of how New Zealand should behave in the world. The then-Prime Minister Robert Muldoon, on the other hand, was happy to exploit the darker side of New Zealand’s soul for perceived short-term political advantage.
Thirteen years later, and South African rugby no longer persona non grata, I attended a function at Parliament to welcome the Springboks here. One of the most interesting conversations that evening was with Robin Cook, who in 1981 was a judge on the Court of Appeal. On July 29, 1981 he was in his chambers on Molesworth St, where he had a front row seat to the evening’s events. He sought me out to tell me that the actions of the police that evening had appalled him.
In 1996 in Cape Town, Prime Minister Jim Bolger apologised to the people of South Africa for the 1981 tour. Later that year, Parliament recognised the contribution made by New Zealand organisations and individuals to the campaign against apartheid. It remains for New Zealand rugby authorities to apologise, not only for 1981, but for the sport’s long and shameful complicity in South African racism and apartheid.
- Trevor Richards was one of the founding members of the anti-tour group Halt All Racist Tours