New South Wales Premier Nathan Rees is today contemplating adopting his South Australian counterpart Mike Rann’s absurd anti-bikie laws. As I noted in Crikey on 1 April last year, these laws are largely unenforceable, cement in law the concept of guilt by association and would do nothing to lessen the problem of bikie gangs’ violence because they completely miss the point — which is that bikie gangs thrive on our refusal to decriminalise drugs.
The Serious and Organised Crime (Control) Act passed through the South Australian Parliament in May last year make the anti-terrorism laws look like a freedom charter.
Under these laws the Attorney-General has right to call an organisation, which 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 Attorney-General can use 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.
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!
The SA police also have the power to make a Public Safety Order if they 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.
Not surprisingly, South Australian Police are none to keen on enforcing these laws in a hurry because they put their members at risk. And because the laws are so broad in their scope and so offend the principle of natural justice, they will inevitably be pared back by the courts to ensure that innocent people are not criminalized.
Of course, if Australian politicians, from Mr Rudd down, were seriously interested about eroding the power of bikie gangs they would remove the source of much of their wealth and industry — the drugs trade. In 2004 for example, police in New South Wales, South Australia and Queensland, broke the back of a $22 million amphetamine trade coordinated by five bikie gangs.
While we continue to criminalise drug use, and therefore ensure that criminal gangs can make a serious buck out of flogging illegal product, with the super profits that inevitably go with it, then you can expect bikie gangs to be well funded and for events like that which occurred last Sunday in Sydney to keep happening.
I digest what you’ve written..couldn’t you have added to your argument by giving some idea of either prosecutions or non prosecutions in SA…Are these people being hounded or not?
No-one with two interacting neurones believes that drug prohibition prevents drug use.
Yet every blow hard polemicist rants on & on ad nauseam about Laura Norder, eradication and a drug free society/nation/world.
It cannot be pure stupidity therefore one must assume there is another reason for their overwheening ignorance.
If only they would seek treatment for their delusion.
The debate over prohibition is over. Nearly every major media outlet in the western world has recently published an article questioning the logic of a drug war that has failed for the last 40 years. As they point out, one of the main effects of prohibition is organised crime utilising an artificial black market where money effectively grows on trees or can be manufactured in a caravan. Their clients are dedicated to the product with some to the point of addiction. A more lucrative market could not have been created if they actually sat down and planned it. And who are the main supporters of prohibition … organised crime like bikers.
Do we want to end up like the US where gangs fight it out in the streets and the police are armed with machine guns? Do we want non violent users and small time user/dealers considered as dangerous as murderers or rapists? Are we going to write off innocent victims as “collateral damage” as they do in a war?
The big question is, why does someone taking drugs render them as dangerous criminals? Why do we go to so much trouble to catch drug users when it results in bikers murdering each other in public? The underlying answer is that it’s a moral issue for so many who influence drug policy and it’s misunderstood by the public after years of propaganda. In other words, common sense and logical laws are overlooked because of moral grandstanding regardless of the carnage inflicted on society.
So, why are our so called leaders not scrutinised more for their absurd decisions regarding illicit drugs? It appears that being “tough” on something equates to popularity and any suggestion to be rational and sensible endears you with the tag, “Soft on Drugs”. We need to get past silly rhetoric like “sends the wrong message” and “tough on drugs”, and confront the real issues.
The SA government seems to want to create new profit streams for SA bikies. They have banned bongs and are moving to ban hydroponics equipment, so if anyone wants either, guess who they will have to talk to? And do you think someone getting hydro gear from a bikie gang will end up growing for them?
Their freedom of association laws are just having the effect of bringing SA bikies together in solidarity, although this recent incident might go some way of reversing that.
@Glenn, @AR
You both ask, why not legalise?
As far as I can tell, this is a ‘totemic belief’ for a lot of people.
By totemic belief, I mean that for some community, everyone knows that everyone knows it is true. So to criticise the belief is to criticise the judgement of everyone in the community. It becomes impossible to have an argument on the facts, because the decision is not being made on the facts.