Dear Editor: your report (Bikie laws blow to club freedom) by Natasha Boddy. I support the veteran motorcycle club of WA joining a campaign against the proposed anti-bikie laws currently being debated in State Parliament. The laws go against the spirit of the Australian Constitution, which gives us all right of association.
It’s all very well for the Attorney General to say “No conceivable way”, the law would affect groups which did not engage in criminal activity. No legislation in western democracies have been successful in successfully targeting organisations who are allegedly involved in crime. The State Government in the 1970s brought in an assembly law which was called 54b of the Police Act, which stated that three or more people cannot assemble in a public place without the permission of a policeman. Of course it wasn’t practical. Section 54b of the Police Act was aimed at that time, by the Charlie Court Government, against the trade union movement and there were many arrests. Right-wing groups even joined the civil liberties organisation I was a member and took it over simply for union bashing purposes. It’s important the Government tries to understand that it won’t achieve its objective of introducing legislation to target motorcycle clubs suspected of unlawful activity.
The Police Act, and I have no reason to believe it has been changed, has always had consorting laws – if you were caught consorting with active criminals on more than several occasions, you could be charged with consorting. So far as I know that still is the law. I call on all motorcycle clubs to band together against what I believe is unnecessary legislation which is unenforceable. In fact it will force a lot of the people it is aimed at to go underground.
– Brian G. Tennant, member of Civil Liberties Australia, Subiaco WA, 27 April 2012