Bikie gangs: outlawing the 'outlaws'

What about the servo proprietor who sells fuel to biker gang members? Is this associating with a criminal organisation? Or a landlord who rents a property to a gang member? Where does this end?

There’s a real concern anyone riding a motorbike could be unfairly penalised. The principles of criminal liability are at question here and once you start tinkering with the legislation, it becomes a dangerous, vote-catching process.

There’s another issue at play as well: it is about the whole “essence” of trying to declare groups/gangs illegal organisations. Rather than charge people with committing a crime, the states want to, instead, charge people with merely associating with people who might have committed crimes.

The whole basis of our justice system is proving to a court that a crime has been committed, otherwise a person is entitled to the presumption of innocence. Anti-association orders effectively argue you can be charged with interacting with a person who might have committed a crime, and this interaction in itself becomes a criminal act.

This is a very worrying trend. Shades of Germany in the 1930s.

Let’s get some reality into the matter too. Inevitably outlawing a gang will only drive the organisations deeper underground and therefore have a reverse effect on policing and law enforcement.

As a Queensland criminal defence lawyer I am urging our state to make sure it does not inadvertently sweep up innocent members of the community in some witch hunt against anyone who rides a motorbike.