ANTI-BIKIE LAWS 4

STATE & TERRITORY ATTORNEYS GENERAL held a national forum on August 3, 2012. They agreed to enforce each other's anti-bikie laws.

The Herald Sun Melbourne. August 4. "CRIMINAL bikies will no longer be able to cross interstate borders to continue illegal activities."

1,300,000 plus Australians are licenced to ride road motorcycles & scooters. Police estimate some 5,000 are members of what police call outlaw motorcycle gangs. Apparently police decide what an OMG is. So all these "bikie-busting measures" are aimed at .004% of a community made up pretty much of law-abiding , tax-paying, voting citizens (if I got the sums right).

The anti-association laws have failed interstate because they are just consorting laws with spin. Consorting laws failed because they are bad laws. To get around their failure to rebirth consorting laws, our attorneys general are making agreements restricting movement in our free country. And it will all be based on police evidence that may or may not be made public.

If the Melbourne Herald Sun got it right, these anti-bikie measures are a threat to our right to assemble and travel.

The motorcycle & scooter community is larger than many ethnic or religeous communities in this country. If our law-makers targeted ethnic organisations this way the discrimination would be recognised by the media and the public and there would be an outcry but the establishment has done such a good job of vilifying riders over the last 10 years that few cry injustice. 

Damien Codognotto OAM

Independent Riders' Group