Ross Dallow

Dallow in 2013

Ross Philip Dallow MNZM QPM JP is a former senior member of the New Zealand Police who had an important influence on improved race relations in Auckland. He is an Auckland local government politician.

Early life

Dallow spent his childhood in Auckland and was educated at St Peter's College, Auckland.[1] He is the younger brother of Graeme Dallow[2] and the father of Simon and Matthew Dallow.[3]

Police career

Dallow was a significant personality in the management of race relations in the Auckland Police District in the 1970s. As Inspector, he was originally in charge of the Task Force which Graeme Dallow had set up as a temporary expedient to deal with street disorder among the large Māori and Pacific cummunities that had migrated to South Auckland.[2] Later Ross Dallow headed the Community Relations Co-ordinators for five years. As leader of both units, Dallow worked on improving communications with Māori and Pasifika leaders. For example, he took Assistant Race Relations Conciliator Pita Sharples out with the Task Force one night to show him the problems on the street, and won the influential support of the Conciliator's office. In 1976 Dallow promoted the expansion of Police education programmes in secondary schools. Hitherto such programmes were aimed at acquainting pupils with the role of the Police in society and creating a sense that the Police were trustworthy and approachable. Dallow believed that the Police had to introduce more sophisticated programmes because pupils were acquiring knowledge of law-related issues from "radical and civil liberties types who enter the schools under the guise of 'liberal studies' ".[4] After he became a Superintendent, Ross Dallow, in the face of the reluctance of many of his colleagues, spent much of his time addressing opinion-formers and cultivating a positive relationship with the media in relation to race relations and other Police issues in Auckland.[5] Dallow was District Commander in West Auckland and the length of his Police career was 36 years.[6]

Local government

Dallow was a member of the Waitakere City Council.[6] In 2010 he was elected as an independent councillor on the Henderson-Massey Local Board of Auckland city[7] after an election campaign in which he was criticised for his use of Police colours on his election placards and his comments on the "browning" of New Zealand at a West Auckland citizenship ceremony.[6] Dallow did not stand again for the Auckland Council after his term expired in 2013. Dallow is a long-standing board member, since 1992, of the Waitakere Licensing Trust which owns and operates a chain of wholesale liquor outlets and public bars in West Auckland. He was chair of that board for eight years (1997–2005). He was re-elected as a member for a three-year term in the 2013 New Zealand local elections.[8]

Honours

Dallow was awarded the Queen's Police Medal in the 1980 Queen's Birthday Honours.[9] In the 2013 Queen's Birthday Honours, he was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to the community.[10]

Sources

  1. ↑ St Peter's College Magazine 1960, p. 83.
  2. 1 2 Susan Butterworth, p. 247.
  3. ↑ "Wendt awarded top New Zealand honour", Stuff News, 5 September 2013. (Retrieved 5 September 2013)
  4. ↑ Dallow quoted in Susan Butterworth, p. 240.
  5. ↑ Susan Butterworth, pp. 247–248.
  6. 1 2 3 Rachel Tiffin, "Check this – it's the sign of an ex-cop's election bid", The New Zealand Herald, 8 September 2010 (Retrieved 14 December 2012)
  7. ↑ Auckland Council, Henderson Massey Local Board, Members (retrieved 14 December 2012)
  8. ↑ Wayne Thompson, "Name change no help to success in elections", NZ Herald, 14 October 2013 (Retrieved 21 October 2013)
  9. ↑ "No. 48214". The London Gazette (Supplement). 14 June 1980. p. 42.
  10. ↑ "Queen's Birthday honours list 2013". Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. 3 June 2013. Retrieved 18 June 2018.

Main reference

  • Susan Butterworth, More than Law and Order: Policing in a Changing Society 1945–92, University of Otago Press, Dunedin, 2005 (Volume 5 of The History of Policing in New Zealand).
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.