Australia - Queensland to run bikies out of other industries

OFF THE WIRE
The Newman government has been accused of whipping up hysteria with laws it says will let Queenslanders "sleep safer in their beds".

Parliament passed a suite of new anti-bikie laws early on Wednesday, with the premier vowing to destroy gangs that are creating "fear and intimidation" across Queensland.

"We are going to hunt you relentlessly," Campbell Newman told parliament.

Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie said more anti-bikie laws were likely to come before parliament before the end of the year.
He said a ban on bikies working in the tattoo industry could well be expanded to the security, gym and used-car industries.
Police Minister Jack Dempsey said the laws were about fostering a sense of safety in the community.

"... when people go to bed at night and the darkness of the evening descends, they need to know that they can sleep safely in their bed," he told parliament.

"Tonight the community of Queensland will be able to sleep a lot safer in their bed."
The laws passed with the support of Labor and crossbench MPs but without going through the usual process of scrutiny by a parliamentary committee.
The government has insisted the matter is urgent and warrants skipping that process but critics have savaged the laws, and the way they were rushed through.
Australian Council for Civil Liberties president Terry O'Gorman has called the attorney-general a joke.
He said Mr Bleijie "doesn't give a rats" about his role as the first law officer of Queensland.
"All this attorney-general wants to be is the law-and-order, tub-thumping politician," Mr O'Gorman told the ABC.
"He is, as a first law officer, an absolute disgrace."

Legal minds from other jurisdictions have also weighed in.

The former NSW director of public prosecutions, Nicholas Cowdery, says the Newman government's idea of a bikies-only jail is "nonsense" and a hysteria has developed around the bikies issue.

He says he also has serious concerns about laws that ban bikie members from gathering.

"... the mere fact of membership of an organisation of that kind should not have criminal consequences," he told a forum on Tuesday night.

Finks lawyer Bill Potts says the new laws could expose lawyers who represent bikies to criminal charges.
He says legal representatives could be deemed violent lawless associates simply by walking into court to represent their clients, an offence that carries up to three years' jail.

"I'm not suggesting for a moment that's what was intended, but that's the legislation. That's the way it reads."
The Labor opposition, which backed the laws, says they should have gone through the committee system.

It said the government failed to consult with the bar association and the law society, which would have picked up problems like the one Mr Potts has raised.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/2013/10/16/07/09/bikies-laws-pass-more-on-the-way-in-qld