New laws to dismantle criminal bikie gangs in S.A. 5 July 2007...

New laws to dismantle criminal bikie gangs in S.A.

5 July 2007

Premier Mike Rann today unveiled Australia’s most comprehensive package of laws to tackle head on the menace of criminal bikie gangs.

Mr Rann says the proposed laws are designed to disrupt the criminal activity of the bikie gangs, attempt to dismantle their organised crime networks and discourage others from trying to set up in South Australia.

“The new laws are aimed at trapping these thugs at every turn. We don’t just want to try to run them out of town and turn them into someone else’s problem. We want to lock them up – but we also want to break them up,” Mr Rann says.

The proposed legislative changes being developed are drawn from national and international experience including from countries such as Canada.

Those new laws include:

Giving courts the power to control with whom gang members can associate including consorting with each other, and where they can go;
More effective laws to stop bikies from intimidating and threatening violence;
Issuing Public Safety Orders to ban gangs from specified places (including banning colours and insignia from being displayed where public safety is at risk);
Amending the Controlled Substances Act to deal with possession of precursor chemicals and specialist equipment used in bikie drug laboratories;
Prohibiting the possession of certain kinds of hydroponic equipment such as high intensity lights and carbon filters;
Confiscating the unexplained wealth of gang members;
Introducing special coercive investigative powers;
Expanding aiding and abetting offences based on Commonwealth terror laws;
A new offence of intimidating a criminal justice official or an official’s family member;
Aggravated penalties for offences committed by criminal bikie gang members; and
Introduce a presumption against bail for gang members charged with serious or violent offences and breaches of control orders.


The Premier announced the Government’s anti-bikie legislative program with Police Minister Paul Holloway, Attorney-General Michael Atkinson and South Australia’s Police Commissioner Mal Hyde.



“We will make these new laws work by having senior members of the Government and their departments working closely with the people that will enforce the laws – the police,” Mr Rann says.

“We have always said that this Government will make sure the police have the powers they say they need and the resources they need to pursue these outlaw bikie gangs.

“Work on these new laws has already begun. The first new legislation will be introduced into Parliament soon and we will continue phase in the laws over the next 18 months.

“We want to ensure that as far as possible, the laws are bullet-proof against the type of legal challenge that held up our fortification laws.

“Each new law will see the noose tighten around the criminal activity of these gangs.”



The Premier thanked SAPOL for its research into legislative options from Australian, Canadian and other international jurisdictions.



“The package outlined today is drawn from the best of those laws, adapted to our own needs in South Australia,” Mr Rann said.



There are currently eight known criminal bikie gangs with bases in South Australia. Police intelligence suggests that these gangs can call on about 250 hardcore members.



“We know that they are involved in numerous and continuous criminal activities from the organised theft and re-identification of motor vehicles and motor-cycles through to drug manufacture, importation and distribution, murder, vice, fraud, blackmail, assaults, public disorder and intimidation, firearms offences and money laundering.”



Last month, the Premier called for a national approach to the bikie gang problem.



The Commonwealth responded by placing it on the national Police Minister’s meeting attended by Police Minister Paul Holloway and Police Commissioner Mal Hyde in New Zealand last week.



At that meeting, Commissioner Hyde was appointed to head a national working group examining how

Australian jurisdictions are responding to the threat of serious and organised crime carried out by the bikie gangs.



“The fact that South Australia is pursuing its own laws does not take away from that call for a national approach. There is however, national recognition that South Australia is leading the fight against the criminal bikie gangs,” Mr Rann says.

Already we have:


Introduced anti-fortification legislation.
Tightened up licensing for the security and crowd controller industry.
Announced plans to give police more power to ban bikies from bars.
Announced we will fast-track firearms reforms
Seen successful results from SAPOL’s ‘Operation Avatar’ taskforce set up to specifically tackle outlaw bikie gangs.


“This is an extensive legislative programme I have announced today. We will follow these legislative changes through with support for the police and the criminal justice system to deliver the result South Australians want – an end to criminal bikie gang operations.”