KEY POINTS:
This week, those who understand the world of outlaw motorcycle gangs described Christopher Hudson as a dead man walking. Hudson, a Hells Angel now in custody for killing one man and injuring two other people in a Melbourne shooting, still may be just that.
Bad enough that Hudson had slain and injured innocent bystanders in a very public murder. To have done so in an election year, when enough heat was already being turned on bikies, was unforgivable. He had nowhere to turn but the law and a negotiated surrender.
His surrender will be no circuit-breaker for the gangs.
Enraged by a growing turf war across Australia, an alarming growth in the number of outlaw clubs and chapters, and mounting evidence of their deep involvement in organised crime, politicians and law agencies are sharpening their weapons for a new campaign.
The campaign will cross the Tasman, where similar fury against bike and street gangs has again been ignited by the slaying of 2-year-old Jhia Te Tua, allegedly shot during a Mongrel Mob raid on the Wanganui home of a Black Power member.
On Thursday, Police Minister Annette King will sit down with Australian federal and state counterparts in Wellington at a meeting of the Australasian Council for Police and Emergency Management, at which calls for tough, co-ordinated new action against the gangs will meet a sympathetic hearing.
The problems are the same in both countries, and are tied through links between the chapters of major gangs.
Close co-operation and intelligence-swapping is well-established between transtasman police forces and with other international agencies, tracking the movements and activities of highly sophisticated and globally-networked outlaw clubs.
Shortly after 8am on Monday, Hudson became the catalyst for the renewed focus. The 29-year-old Hells Angel allegedly knocked 24-year-old fashion designer Autumn Daly-Holt unconscious outside the Barcode nightclub in downtown King St, and shot and seriously wounded Kara Douglas, a 24-year-old model. Douglas reportedly had a kidney removed as a result. Hudson then allegedly turned his gun on two men who came to her aid, killing 43-year-old solicitor and father-of-three Brendan Keilar, and seriously wounding Dutch tourist Paul de Waard, 25.
According to witnesses, Hudson walked off down Flinders Lane, dumped his gun, and went into hiding.
As the manhunt mounted over the following days, the Hells Angels made it clear that the murder was not a club affair, and that no protection would be afforded Hudson.
On Wednesday, Northcote lawyer Patrick Dwyer telephoned the officer leading the manhunt, Detective Inspector Kim West of the Victorian Police's major crime investigation unit, and negotiated terms for Hudson's surrender.
At 4.40pm he walked into the police station at Wallan, a small town north of Melbourne, and turned himself in.
Hudson was to have appeared in court on Thursday, but was instead in hospital for surgery on his arm.
He is charged with one count of murder, two of attempted murder, another of intentionally causing serious injury, and one of unlawful imprisonment.
Even by bikie standards, Hudson is a wild man.
Two years ago he was a nominee member of the Gold Coast chapter of The Finks Motorcycle Club which, according to anonymous members of the gang who spoke to local reporters, quickly learned to regret his membership.
He was described as a "dog" who used his association with the club to intimidate and threaten anyone he wanted to impress.
Known as a speed freak whose amphetamine use made him unpredictably dangerous even at school, Hudson abandoned the Finks and joined the Hells Angels, who had a Brisbane chapter and ambitions to move into the Finks' Gold Coast drug market.
Last year Hudson was the cause of a violent clash between Hells Angels and Finks at a kick-boxing match at the Gold Coast's Royal Pines Resort, during which five people were injured by gunfire and knives. Hudson was himself shot in the back and chin.
He was also involved in the growing turf war between the Angels and another rival gang, the Nomads, reportedly shooting and wounding a Nomad in Sydney last year.
A number of Nomads have inflamed tensions by defecting to the Bandidos, notorious for their role in the 1984 Milperra Massacre, the Father's Day shootout with the Comancheros that left seven dead.
While bikie gangs protect their own, Hudson appears to have crossed the line by bringing massive police and public heat on the Angels. Police were told that the gang wanted no part of him.
Professor Art Veno, director of Monash University's centre for police and justice studies and an expert on outlaw clubs, told ABC Radio that Hudson had damaged the Angels' campaign to clean up its image: "This guy has brought such unbelievable heat on the club. He's blown any chance of the club preserving its image in a way that distances itself from any country where they have branded that club as a criminal entity."
There is no doubt the political blowtorch has been turned on.
Federal and state agencies have been targeting outlaw gangs for years in a number of special operations spurred by growing bikie involvement in drugs and other organised crime, including a 2001 pact between Canberra, Western Australia and South Australia.
Among other measures, the federal Government imposed penalties of up to five years' jail or a fine of up to A$20,000 ($22,205) for gang members obeying the notorious code of silence. The right to refuse to answer questions on the grounds of self-incrimination was also removed.
In South Australia, the trial of three bikies allegedly involved in the murder of three members of the Rebels was frustrated by the refusal of all witnesses to give evidence.
Hudson has spurred new action. Federal Justice Minister Senator David Johnston has placed outlaw motorcycle gangs on the agenda of the police ministers' meeting in Wellington, following earlier moves to study legislative moves against outlaw gangs in the United States, Canada and Europe.
"These gangs are only concerned with the commercialisation of crime through drug trafficking, money laundering and violence," Johnston said. "I'm not interested in symbolic gestures. I'm interested in taking organised crime gangs off the streets."
Similar fury is spurring clampdowns elsewhere. South Australia has long targeted outlaw clubs in special operations, and Premier Mike Rann - who as a former Labour staffer in New Zealand had close experience with the rise of Kiwi gangs - has called for a national approach and harmonised laws across Australia.
Among measures under consideration in South Australia are new laws targeting Chinese Triads in Hong Kong. These require clubs and gangs to apply for inclusion in a national register subject to rules of association and membership. If gangs do not meet the requirements they are banned and membership becomes a crime.
In New South Wales, police have set up a special strike force to take on the gangs, with operations ranging from safety and registration checks on their bikes to licences covering legitimate businesses run by outlaw clubs. Police have also urged new laws similar to anti-racketeering legislation in the US, including bans on club insignia and colours.
"Enough is enough," said Commissioner Ken Moroney.
Federal concern spurred the Australian Crime Commission to set up a special outlaw bike gang operation in 2005, aimed at developing a nationwide intelligence and information collection and clearing house.
Alarm grew with the commission's assessment of the rise of the gangs: 35 clubs embracing 3500 patched members across Australia, with 10 opening 26 new chapters in 2005-06. Real numbers are much greater, taking into account nominees, prospective members and associates.
"[Gangs] exist in a dynamic environment," the commission's latest report says. "Members are involved in a large number of serious and organised criminal activities designed to generate income and protect gang interests.
"Such offences include murder, firearms, illicit drugs supply and production, extortion, prostitution, serious assault, sexual assault, arson, robbery, theft, vehicle rebirthing, receiving stolen property, fraud, money laundering, corruption, and bribing officials and perverting the course of justice.
"They are becoming more sophisticated and dynamic, using key facilitators to operate across multi-jurisdictional illicit commodity markets ... Many are involved in outwardly legitimate businesses including finance, transport, private security, entertainment, natural resources and construction."
Outlaw clubs have been identified as prominent players in the illicit trade in amphetamines, ecstasy, cocaine, and cannabis, leading to vicious turf wars and a scramble for nationwide dominance. They have also been implicated in ventures as obscure - but profitable - as tattoo parlours and the black market in abalone.
South Australian police reported heavy bikie involvement in hydroponic cultivation of cannabis: rival growers have been killed and beaten and an intelligence probe of shops supplying hydroponic equipment showed more than half were run by people with criminal convictions or associations with outlaw clubs or other criminals.
In Victoria the spokesman for the Australia Hydroponics Supplier and Manufacturers Association is Hells Angel Terrence Tognolini, who police allege to be linked to three murders and a series of arsons.
In recent developments, raids on gang houses in Victoria have yielded weapons including machine guns and pistols; four Rebels were shot at an Adelaide nightclub; and Tasmanian police have set up a task force to block the smuggling of drugs across Bass Strait by bikies, following the seizure of more than A$3 million of amphetamines aboard the ferry Spirit of Tasmania.
Turf wars, spurred by a new infusion of members from ethnic minorities and organised crime families, have been growing in number and ferocity.
In Sydney a war between the Comancheros and Nomads has led to tit-for-tat shootings and firebombings. Similar tensions between the Bandidos and the Rebels have sparked gunfire and arson in Sydney, Newcastle, Melbourne and Adelaide.
Now Australia has had enough.
