When Don Dunstan was its Premier in the 1970s, South Australia got a reputation for protecting the rights of individuals against the state in a way that won it plaudits around the nation. But those days are long gone. Today, South Australia is presided over by a couple of crazed law and order junkies, Premier Mike Rann and Attorney-General Michael Atkinson who are about to land South Australians with a law lifted straight from the statute books of any number of authoritarian regimes dotted around the globe.
In fact, the Serious and Organised Crime (Control) Bill, as it is known, is without peer in Australia in terms of the powers it gives to law enforcement agencies and government. Even the Howard/Rudd anti-terror laws contain the occasional check and balance on the executive government.
Rann and Atkinson are obsessed with bikie gangs in their State, even though the SA Police estimate there are only 250 members of such gangs roaming around South Australia. Rann calls them “terrorists”, and he and Atkinson have introduced the Serious and Organised Crime (Control) Bill – currently in the Legislative Council – to smash these gangs.
But the Bill doesn’t limit itself to bikie gangs. It could be used to harass any organisation and individual that the South Australian Police and the Attorney-General don’t like.
The Serious and Organised Crime (Control) Bill gives the Attorney-General the right to call an organisation, which by the way could be anything from an informal group of people who meet at the local pub for a weekly drink through to a football club or a business, a declared organisation. The A-G just has to be satisfied that he thinks that members of the organisation associate for the purpose of planning, organising, facilitating or engaging in serious criminal activity – which is basically anything except traffic offences – and that the organisation represents a risk to public safety and order. The A-G can act on secret and untested evidence in making that declaration, and his decision can’t be challenged in the courts!
The Commissioner of Police can ask a court to make a Control Order against a person if that person is a member of a declared organisation or regularly associates with members of the declared organisation. A Control Order may be issued by a court without giving any notice to the person affected and the Order can stop people from even speaking with members of a declared organisation or going anywhere near where members might happen to be. Once again, these Orders can be made on secret evidence that the person affected cannot see.
And by the way if a friend of yours is subject to a Control Order or is a member of a Declared Organisation and you meet with them six times or more in one year you can go to jail for up to five years.
And finally, the icing on the cake. Giving the SA Police the power to make a Public Safety Order if the Police are satisfied that a person or a group of people pose a serious risk to public safety or security. Even if a person or a group is gathered somewhere for a protest rally or a strike action, the Police can still make a Public Safety Order and have them removed from the area. These Orders can even be made on the spot, verbally, by the Police.
If this Bill becomes law South Australia will become Australia’s latest international human rights disgrace.
Greg Barns is right. These are bad laws and should be rejected. The tragedy is – they won’t. Only the Greens and Democrats have come out opposing the Bill. That’s 2 out of 69 MPs.The nature of the law and order debate in South Australia is that you are either “tough on crime” or “soft on crime”. There is no middle ground, no attention to the causes of crime, and certainly no room for human rights.
When this Bill is debated late tomorrow (Wednesday) night or Thursday in the Legislative Council, I will be moving 44 amendments designed to fix the worst excesses of this Bill. For example, I will be moving to fix the provision in the Bill that provides for up to five years jail for persons who have more than six contacts with members of outlawed organisations. Rann and Atkinson think that making people social outcasts and preventing them from having normal human relationships is the key to their redemption. I don’t think so!
Mark Parnell MLC
Greens member of SA Parliament
It is a shame that the Premier and Attorney General don’t put their minds to establishing a Comission against Crime and Corruption in SA instead.
It appears to be easier to target the civil rights of ordinary citizens, who should be able to take the freedom of association in a democracy for granted, than to tackle the issue of corruption in high places. The present government has already gor laws against bikies on the books which it hasn’t bothered to use.
I’m not suprised – Rann is a congenital populist!