Devil on horseback, anyone? Photo: SBSIn 2005, when I started researching Australia’s outlaw motorcycle clubs for the dearly departed Sunday programme and The Bulletin magazine, bikies did not give interviews.
The average bikie hated media more than the cops.They regarded journalists as ignorant and cowardly, dedicated only to perpetuating stereotypes.
Many have not changed their view. They see the media in a sleazy partnership with government and police aimed at destroying the bikie brotherhood, what they see as the last bastion of freedom in a society over-burdened with rules and regulations.
To interview bikers back in 2005, I had to spend the best part of a week hanging out in an Adelaide brothel the lads were known to frequent. A letter was circulated and eventually one club, the Finks, agreed to talk. It began a journey into club land that led me to the view that these people were not the foot soldiers of organised crime but a collection of the good, the bad and the ugly.
There were serious and violent criminals in their ranks but there were also men with no criminal history at all, workers, taxpayers and business owners. For some, being in a club had been the making of them as individuals.
My research into their lifestyle and analysis of crime statistics showed that, if anything, this was disorganised crime. The clubs existed not simply for the commission of organised crime but were founded on a principle of fraternity. And, just like the wider society, they were struggling with an influx of new members for whom a club patch represented a carte blanche for crime and mayhem.
Seven years on, there are many bikies speaking in the media. They’re writing books and making documentaries, holding rallies and inviting all kinds of people to look inside their world. If they are to be part of a law and order auction by state governments, they are determined to have their say.
SBS managed to get members of more than a dozen outlaw and Christian clubs to sit down with senior police in charge of bikie taskforces in Victoria and NSW. The “Uneasy Riders” program almost didn’t happen.
A fortnight ago, the bikers pulled out in protest at a TEN news special hosted by reporter Hamish Macdonald “Bikie Wars: Here and Now”, which ran before the debut of Brothers in Arms, the mini-series depicting the Milperra Massacre between the Bandidos and Comancheros in 1984.
The most charitable thing to say about Macdonald’s effort is that it was an egregious beat-up. In the opening shots, McDonald was seen in a helicopter flying over Sydney promising to take viewers behind the frontline of the bikie war. “Almost every night gun fire breaks out on those darkened streets,” he warned, as if flying over Afghanistan, not an Australian city.
What he didn’t say was that there had been no gunplay for nearly a month before TEN screened the special. NSW Police had arrested and charged four young men alleged to have been involved in a spate of drive-by shootings. Why let the facts get in the way of promoting fear and conflict?
Eventually, SBS producer Jodie Noyce got the program back on track after many phone calls and meetings. The result was a wide-ranging and balanced debate, well moderated by host Jenny Brockie.
There was no attempt to wish away the bikie violence, but there was also a recognition by police that not all bikies were involved in crime. Former NSW Director of Public Prosecutions Nicholas Cowdery QC, who helped lock up many bikies, made the point that the present laws were working well. There was no need for the anti-association laws that state governments have promoted as a means of breaking up the clubs, largely in response to fearful media reporting such as Macdonald’s.
Most people came away satisfied that they had their say. Police learnt a thing or two, namely that bikies hate the clubs being described as gangs. The bikies discovered that police didn’t agree with everything written in the media. The only disappointment was that NSW Attorney General Greg Smith pulled out on the day, leaving the police to explain why such draconian legislation was required.
If the final one hour package reflects the tone of the two hour discussion, Insight will have made a useful contribution to an important but much-manipulated debate.
Don’t miss Uneasy Riders, tonight on Insight on SBS one, 8.30pm
To interview bikers back in 2005, I had to spend the best part of a week hanging out in an Adelaide brothel the lads were known to frequent. A letter was circulated and eventually one club, the Finks, agreed to talk. It began a journey into club land that led me to the view that these people were not the foot soldiers of organised crime but a collection of the good, the bad and the ugly.
There were serious and violent criminals in their ranks but there were also men with no criminal history at all, workers, taxpayers and business owners. For some, being in a club had been the making of them as individuals.
My research into their lifestyle and analysis of crime statistics showed that, if anything, this was disorganised crime. The clubs existed not simply for the commission of organised crime but were founded on a principle of fraternity. And, just like the wider society, they were struggling with an influx of new members for whom a club patch represented a carte blanche for crime and mayhem.
Seven years on, there are many bikies speaking in the media. They’re writing books and making documentaries, holding rallies and inviting all kinds of people to look inside their world. If they are to be part of a law and order auction by state governments, they are determined to have their say.
SBS managed to get members of more than a dozen outlaw and Christian clubs to sit down with senior police in charge of bikie taskforces in Victoria and NSW. The “Uneasy Riders” program almost didn’t happen.
A fortnight ago, the bikers pulled out in protest at a TEN news special hosted by reporter Hamish Macdonald “Bikie Wars: Here and Now”, which ran before the debut of Brothers in Arms, the mini-series depicting the Milperra Massacre between the Bandidos and Comancheros in 1984.
The most charitable thing to say about Macdonald’s effort is that it was an egregious beat-up. In the opening shots, McDonald was seen in a helicopter flying over Sydney promising to take viewers behind the frontline of the bikie war. “Almost every night gun fire breaks out on those darkened streets,” he warned, as if flying over Afghanistan, not an Australian city.
What he didn’t say was that there had been no gunplay for nearly a month before TEN screened the special. NSW Police had arrested and charged four young men alleged to have been involved in a spate of drive-by shootings. Why let the facts get in the way of promoting fear and conflict?
Eventually, SBS producer Jodie Noyce got the program back on track after many phone calls and meetings. The result was a wide-ranging and balanced debate, well moderated by host Jenny Brockie.
There was no attempt to wish away the bikie violence, but there was also a recognition by police that not all bikies were involved in crime. Former NSW Director of Public Prosecutions Nicholas Cowdery QC, who helped lock up many bikies, made the point that the present laws were working well. There was no need for the anti-association laws that state governments have promoted as a means of breaking up the clubs, largely in response to fearful media reporting such as Macdonald’s.
Most people came away satisfied that they had their say. Police learnt a thing or two, namely that bikies hate the clubs being described as gangs. The bikies discovered that police didn’t agree with everything written in the media. The only disappointment was that NSW Attorney General Greg Smith pulled out on the day, leaving the police to explain why such draconian legislation was required.
If the final one hour package reflects the tone of the two hour discussion, Insight will have made a useful contribution to an important but much-manipulated debate.
Don’t miss Uneasy Riders, tonight on Insight on SBS one, 8.30pm