A STATE government MP has approached the Police Minister to ask why the anti-bikie taskforce seized guns from a country motorcycle club.
Nationals MP Tim McCurdy told The Age he wrote to Peter Ryan last week to ask on what grounds the Echo taskforce raided members of the Wangaratta-based Tramps motorcycle club and took rifles and shotguns.
Local police and taskforce members raided properties across Victoria in August, seizing hundreds of registered firearms, after Chief Commissioner Ken Lay declared the owners were not ''fit and proper'' to hold firearms licences.
Senior police described it as a blow against outlaw motorcycle gangs, saying the public would be horrified to discover that members of the clubs had access to registered firearms.
However, the Tramps and other motorcycle clubs have denied that they are outlaw motorcycle gangs, and have asked the Chief Commissioner to reverse his decision. They say they are simply motorcycle enthusiasts.
Mr McCurdy, whose electorate includes the northern Victorian town, said he had met with Tramps president Ronny Harding and lawyer John Suta after members of the community expressed concerns about the seizures.
He stressed that he was not disputing the Chief Commissioner's decision, but that it was his duty to make representations on behalf of his constituents.
''We have to do things formally, so I've written to Peter Ryan, asking that we look into it, to see what justification there was,'' he said. ''I'm not about to doubt the police if there is genuine justification, because our law-and-order platform is all about trying to make things safer. If we discover this club, as I hope and expect, is not a gang as such, then we'll look at what options are available to us.
''The reality is, when you're the local MP, you do need to act for everybody that comes forward.''
Mr Harding told The Age recently that police confiscated his registered .22 calibre rifle, which he said was used for shooting sheep and vermin on his farm. Another club member who had firearms seized works as a mobile butcher, and has had to hire a man to shoot cattle because he was losing business.
Mr Suta has demanded, on behalf of one Tramps member, that the Chief Commissioner respond to the request for him to overturn his decision by Wednesday - two months after the firearms were seized - and a month after the submission was lodged.