Inside the highs and lows of the life of Dusty Martin’s father Shane

It’s fair to say Shane Martin would have been happy to have turned his back on New Zealand forever when he left for Sydney as a troubled 20-year-old. 

After all, the man who would later sire the best Australian footballer of his generation, Dustin Martin, had grown up in poverty with three brothers in the isolated town of Huntly,  south of Auckland, surrounded by alcohol and violence. 

Perhaps the chaos of his childhood – his parents split when he was young and he became a father figure to his three younger brothers – explained his fastidious neatness and the drive to make something of his life. 

He did that on both sides of the law, not only building a successful trucking company, but rising to the rank of president in the feared Sydney chapter of the infamous outlaw Rebels motorcycle club.

By 2016, Shane had a new past time; following his middle son Dustin, across Australia as he shot to the top of the Australian Football League.  

Shane would have known his son was on the cusp of dominating the AFL. Indeed, the midfielder and forward took the Richmond Tigers on an extraordinary run that would see them collect three flags in four years, the first being in 2017, which saw him collect the Norm Smith medal. He would go on to win another two. 

But that wasn’t to be. Instead, Shane was unceremoniously booted out from Australia due to his ties to the Rebels and a number of criminal convictions, including a two-month prison sentence, suspended for 12 months, for aiding and abetting in drug trafficking in 2004.   

In December 2021, six years after his right to live in Australia was removed, he was found dead at his home in New Zealand of natural causes. He was 54.

Here Daily Mail Australia takes you inside the life of Shane Martin, who was imaginatively nicknamed ‘Kiwi’, using his book, ‘A Rebel In Exile’, which was co-written with Jarrod Gilbert and released in 2019. 

Shane’s close relationship with Dusty

Richmond superstar Dustin ‘Dusty’ Martin is the middle child of three boys and in his father’s eyes, the one who connected with him the most.

Even from a young age he was footy mad, with his father recalling the many nights Dusty would tuck himself into to bed with his football. 

‘I used to go to sleep with all of my kids, but when I did with Dusty, he’d be asleep clinging to me and in between us would be a football,’ Martin said.

‘I’d think ”Man, I hope that kid loves me as much as he loves that football”.’

Dusty had been desperate to start playing AFL, so much so that his father fudged his registration when he was four-years-old to say he was a year older so he could join a team.

But his plan was undone when another parent questioned why their four-year-old couldn’t play as well. 

Eventually Dusty was old enough to play and it wasn’t long before his talent started to shine through.

Martin had dug in some goal posts into the backyard and Dusty was out there at all hours of the day.

After Martin and Dusty’s mother Kathy split, Martin was living in Sydney operating his trucking business, while his mother lived in Yapeen, near Castlemaine, in regional Victoria.

But his father says that upon becoming a teenager, Dusty ‘started to go off the rails’ and by the age of 14 he’d dropped out of school.

Dusty moved to Sydney and his father put him to work, using a forklift to load freight onto the trucks.

Over the years Dusty got better and better at footy and it was clear he was heading for stardom, so he eventually moved back to Melbourne and started to pursue his dream.

In 2009, he was the third pick in the AFL draft, and the following year made his debut for Richmond.

Some of Dusty’s tattoos are in honour of his father including the ‘Live Free, Die Free’ on his waist, which Martin has on his arm, and two more linking to his dad’s Maori heritage.

Martin never missed one of his son’s games, travelling across Australia to watch him dazzle the devotees of the indigenous game. 

The pair would chat on the phone before every match.

‘It’s just a thing we do. I don’t give advice and often we hardly talk about the game, we just chat for a bit,’ Martin said.

In 2017 Dusty took home the coveted Brownlow Medal – a moment his father will remember forever.

‘I damn near burst apart with pride,’ he said.

‘I thought about that little Dusty Buster in bed with his ball and I saw that man walking up to the stage and there wouldn’t have been another human being on earth happier than me.’

Unfortunately the award came after Martin had been deported and instead he had to watch his son receive the game’s highest honour from another country.

He burst into tears after Dusty, known for being reserved in media appearances, gave a special thanks to him.

‘To Dad, I know it is tough for you not being here this week, but I know how much you love me and I love you very much. He means the world to me. He obviously supported me and we have a special relationship,’ Dusty said. 

Following Dusty’s award and Richmond’s Grand Final win, the streets of Auckland where Martin was living had been decorated by big billboards of Dusty holding the Premiership Cup – courtesy of the club to honour Martin.

Martin’s life with the Rebels

Martin describes life in the Rebels bikie gang as feeling at ‘home’.

His journey with the gang, where he would later work his way up to sergeant-at-arms and the President of the Picton chapter, south of Sydney, began through his work in security.

Martin had been working as a bouncer at nightclubs where members of the club frequented.

His passion for motorcycles also meant he’d met a few members when he went out for rides.

He’d have a couple of drinks with some of them, go on a few rides and soon enough Martin was asked if he wanted to go on a run with the group down to Tasmania.

A member had pulled out and all fees had been covered, all Martin had to do was show up with his bike.

Eventually Martin was one of about 1,000 motorcyclists tearing across the highway with Rebels members from all over the country who’d gathered for the ride.

‘There was a real spirit of camaraderie. Patched members from either side of the country would hug each other like family, and they all called each other ”brother”,’ Martin said.

‘I didn’t feel out of place – I felt at home.’

For Martin, having left his own family at 20 in search for a better life, his soon to be Rebels brothers gave him the sense of belonging he’d never had.

His association with the Rebels came around the same time he set up his own security business, hiring bouncers for pubs and clubs. He also worked for Armaguard.

His strong work ethic paid off and in return he’d treat himself to a new BMW, an M3 Coupe and some flashy clothes.

But his brief life of luxury came to an end when police banged on his door early one morning.

Martin said officers accused him of dealing drugs, and told him they were going to search the place.

He was confident they weren’t going to find anything as in his words he ‘wasn’t a bloody drug dealer’.

But they found two ecstasy tablets in his work coat he’d picked up from the floor of a nightclub while working.

Martin said one of his former workers had been busted and started rattling off names to get in favour with the police, including Martin’s.

He also said being a big Maori guy driving around in a BMW and Harley Davidson didn’t help.

‘I don’t think being Maori has ever held me back and I don’t want to play a race card, but if I were white and had a flash car, people wouldn’t have immediately assumed I was dealing bloody drugs,’ he said.

Little did Martin know undercover cops had earlier come to the club he was bouncing at asking where they could ‘find some fun’, and he pointed to the dancefloor not knowing a punter actually had drugs on them.

He said that and the two pills in his jacket was enough to convince them he was a ‘drug lord’ and he was charged with possession and aiding and abetting the trafficking of ecstasy.

He was encouraged by a lawyer to take a plea deal and plead guilty to conspiracy to supply, but this gave him a criminal record and meant he could no longer operate his security business.

‘I felt like a failure, as low as I ever had and wanted to get away with everything,’ he said.

He’d planned to return to Sydney and as fate would have it a Rebels member told him he knew a member with a room to rent out in the Harbour City, so off Martin went.

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Martin admitted the draw to officially join the Rebels became ‘stronger and stronger’, describing the clubhouse as a ‘home away from home’.

In 2004 he and a few others decided to become nominees – a term used for prospective members that have to go through a trial process before they’re accepted into the club.

That process alone can take up to two years.

‘You are at the beck and call of members, if they want something done then you have to do it,’ Martin said.

‘Simple things like making sure the bar is stocked, looking after members’ bikes while they’re at the pub, giving someone a lift home when they’re drunk, fixing something that’s broken at the clubhouse.

‘You become a dogsbody. You’re everybody’s b***h for as long as it takes.’ 

As a ‘nom’, Martin was also on cleaning duty for clubhouse parties and had to make sure everyone’s drinks were full.

Soon enough he was eventually accepted into the gang.

‘For the first time in my life I knew what belonging was,’ he said.

‘Joining the club changed me. And it changed me for the better.’

Martin said people would be surprised to learn there were many rules for Rebels members – including fines of up to $500 if they miss a meeting or disrespect a brother.

Intravenous drug use was also not allowed. 

He said the image of bikie gangs often seen in the media was focused on crime but stressed that wasn’t what the clubs were about and most were open to letting outsiders come in for a drink or two.

In 2009 Martin became president of the Picton chapter of the Rebels and ended up renovating the clubhouse with the money coming from fundraisers and weekly members fees usually around $20 per week.

‘The other chapters sometimes used to call us the Versace chapter because we were so clean-cut and put together,’ he said. 

Far from home – Martin is deported

Martin’s deportation from Australia in 2016 couldn’t have come at a worse time for the father-of-three.

He’d recently married his partner Adriana, his three boys Tyson, Dusty and Bronson were living successful lives and his business was booming.

But the joy ended with a 6am bang on the door from a police riot squad demanding to search his home with a warrant for his passport.

Martin was taken to Sydney’s Silverwater jail and told he was being deported.

‘I couldn’t believe it. When I asked them what I was charged with they just said, ”There are no charges”,’ he said.

He was told he was of ‘bad character’ due to his association with the Rebels and was then thrown into a tiny cell where he would spend 22 hours a day locked inside. Prison, he said, was ‘putrid’. 

‘You wouldn’t have a dog live in that prison. There was dried-up vomit on the floor, and snot smeared on the walls. It was absolutely filth,’ he said.

Inmates had to wear overalls padlocked whenever visitors came in attempts to stop things from being smuggled in – making visits from Martin’s family that much harder.

His sons, who were adults by that stage, and Adriana’s young daughters came to visit as Martin tried to put on a brave face.

‘People think I’m a scumbag, but I’m just a bloke who loves his kids,’ he said. ‘Bikies are people too.’

Martin was eventually told by a lawyer he could fight his deportation case from New Zealand and any offer to leave prison behind was one he couldn’t refuse.

He describes feeling personally targeted by then-immigration minister Peter Dutton who cancelled his visa.

Two months locked up in a cell, Martin was finally told he could go back to New Zealand.

Handcuffed, Martin was escorted onto the plane by three police officers but when they landed in NZ his cuffs were removed and he was free to go.

‘They said ”off you go mate”, like they were releasing an animal back into the wild,’ he said.

He decided to stay in Mount Maunganui, a laid back beach town on the north island, but securing a place to rent was near impossible.

Landlords would search his name on the internet and find ‘a big bloody bikie too dangerous for Australia’.

But the real nightmare was trying to win his deportation case and return to his family, business and the life he built for himself.

His last conviction before he was deported had been in 2004 over trafficking related to the ecstasy pills found. 

In the 90s he’d also been done for possessing restricted substances and in 1990 he was convicted of burglary and unlawful assault. 

Martin said he couldn’t understand why being a part of the Rebels was considered a crime. 

‘I was being worn down and turning into something that wasn’t me,’ he said.

‘Depressed, angry, lashing out at those close to me, drinking too much.’

While loved ones would visit, Martin lived a lonely life in his last few years. He admitted he probably would’ve been a free man in Australia if he had stayed in jail but the thought of nearly three years in a cell without charge was too much to bear.

He was thankful for his wife, three sons and stepchildren but he wasn’t living in his home.

‘I feel like a prisoner, and yet I haven’t committed any crime,’ he said.

‘I have a family but I can’t enjoy them like a free man. I’m not fighting for justice. I’m just fighting for my family. That’s all I want.’

Martin never made it back to Australia despite Mr Dutton conceding in the Federal Court that he was deported on a legal error.

He’d been deported with 20 other people over bikie links after his visa was cancelled under a section of the Australian Immigration Act, which allows people to be deported if they have a ‘substantial’ criminal record.

Last December the former bikie boss was found dead in the kitchen of his Mount Maunganui home, 200km south east of Auckland.

It has since been revealed that at the time of his death Martin was facing charges for allegedly attacking a woman in her bedroom.

Martin was facing active criminal charges of male assaults female, strangulation, burglary and illegal possession of steroids after allegedly attacking a woman known to him in October, the New Zealand Herald reports.

Shortly before his death, Martin appeared in the Tauranga District Court in November, where he pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Martin and the woman had been in an ‘intermittent relationship’ dating back to 2020, court documents show.

The assault allegedly occurred on an early Saturday morning in October last year.

The alleged victim was out socialising with friends, but she ignored several phone calls from Martin.

She later returned home to find Martin in her bed after he snuck into the house.

After requesting Martin leave, he allegedly called her a ‘s**t’ and accused her of ‘w***ing around’ before allegedly punching her in the face.

Police allege he also threw her around the bedroom, grabbed her by the neck and squeezed, and bit her finger.

The woman called 111 after Martin left, with the responding officer noticing she had a swollen, bloodied lip and slight redness on her neck.

The woman declined to make a formal complaint over the incident.

However, police decided to prosecute Martin anyway ‘because of the transcript of the 111 call, and the injuries to the alleged victim,’ according to a police spokesperson.

When police charged Martin, they found empty vials of steroids at his address, with court documents saying he admitted to using steroids to increase muscle mass.

Martin told detectives he left the house after a heated argument with the woman, but ‘he would never hurt her’.

 A Rebel In Exile by Shane Martin and Jarrod Gilbert is available for $29.99