Roar of disapproval thunders against anti-bikie laws

CANBERRA: Adelaide outlaw motorcycle club the Finks delight in the catchcry of Bung, the jester in the Wizard of Id comic strip: "The king is a fink."

But this week the South Australian Police launched legal regicide by obtaining two control orders against club members Donald Hudson and Michael Fraser, the first in Australia to feel the weight of the state's draconian new anti-bikie laws.

The club was declared a criminal organisation under the legislation two weeks ago, allowing the imposition of orders that prevent Hudson and Fraser from associating and communicating with other members and associates, and from entering any premises associated with the Finks.

The laws also allow police to seek orders banning declared clubs from specified areas, barring members from displaying colours and insignia, and preventing the purchases or ownership of chemicals and equipment that could be used in the manufacture of illicit drugs. Police may also confiscate wealth and assets gang members cannot explain.

New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory have either followed suit, or are in the process of doing so, and the federal Government is cracking down on the use of front companies.

The bikies are fighting back. Hudson and Fraser will appeal the orders and the legislation may be challenged in the High Court.

On the ground, rival clubs have banded together in united organisations and have formed the Free Australia Party to contest elections with a platform focusing on democracy and civil rights.

The Outlaws are not alone. In South Australia amendments will be proposed - almost certainly in vain - by parliament's sole Democrat, David Winderlich, who regards the laws as a threat to the innocent.

Doubts have been expressed by the federal Attorney-General's Department, the Australian Crime Commission, the Law Council of Australia and academics and civil libertarians.

The state of Victoria, while not softening its own hard line against bikie crime, maintained its existing laws contained sufficient powers.

Outlaw clubs are taking legal and public relations advice and stamping on the inter-gang violence that provided other states with the trigger for their own, similar legislation.

The Outlaws do not deny that some members are involved in crime, but reject assertions that their clubs are organised crime associations involved in drugs, murder, violence, standovers, and prostitution.

What they are portraying is a lifestyle of the unconventional, dispossessed, abused and misunderstood, saved from the streets by a tight brotherhood and disciplined by a tough code.

"There have been some horrific crimes committed by a very small minority," Outcast Motorcycle Club spokesman Robbie Fowler told an inquiry into the ACC. "[But] no club has ever proven to be an organised crime body."

Fowler had a tough life: deserted by his mother at age 2, bounced between grandparents and aunties, various spells at Catholic and Salvation Army homes, and on the streets at 8.

"I grew up fighting for food, stealing to survive, and found myself in and out of other Catholic homes ... I spent most of my teens in lockup, where I was beaten and abused. I learned to fight, and fight well."

After a long spell in jail, Fowler found the Outlaws, married and had five children with a wife who taught him to read and write.

If not as personally, the Law Council opposes the new anti-bikie laws as passionately.

Council president William Ray QC told the federal inquiry that there was no evidence that existing laws were inadequate, nor any evidence to suggest that law enforcement would be enhanced by new measures.

Ray said he opposed "abhorrent" Big Brother laws that would outlaw conduct that was clearly not criminal.

The ACC, which also believes existing measures are adequate, worries that harsh new laws could in time be frustrated as gangs found ways around them, and could make make life harder for law agencies by dispersing members.

Acting chief executive officer Kevin Kitson also suggested that while some individuals - and at times some chapters - were involved in crime networks, not all were criminal organisations.

"It is true to say that in an analysis of nationally significant crime figures you will find people who have associations with outlaw motorcycle gangs, but I do not know that that would necessarily mean you would characterise the gangs themselves as being the primary criminal threat in this country."

Monash University Professor Arthur Veno, an expert on outlaw clubs, also disputes the level of criminal behaviour among bikies.

Condemning what he describes as "moral panic" engineered by politicians and police, he said the best statistical estimates put crime by gangs of any sort at 0.6 per cent of the total.

As for the bikies, they would not roll over, Longriders Christian Motorcycle Club member Edward Hayes said.

"They will not leave [SA] en-masse as has been suggested.

"They will dig their heels in and stand their ground."