Ross Dallow

Early life

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

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. 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 sophisiticated 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' ". 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. Dallow was District Commander in West Auckland and the length of his Police career was 36 years.

Local government

Dallow was a member of the Waitakere City Council. In 2010 he was elected as an independent councillor on the Henderson-Massey Local Board of Auckland city 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. 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.