Angelique Donnellan
Legislation to tackle bikie gangs in South Australia is being amended before it is even debated in State Parliament.
The Government said it would remove two locations specified in the legislation because bikies no longer met there.The bill would declare 27 gangs in South Australia and interstate to be criminal organisations.
SA Attorney-General John Rau said he remained confident the legislation was constitutionally valid despite the need to make changes before Parliament had dealt with it.
"I would have thought the fact that SAPOL [SA Police] has advised us that they have done a further check and those two exceptions are there, and they're happy for them to be deleted, should give some confidence to people that we are actually doing the best that we can," he said.
Mr Rau said the bill was being fine-tuned to ensure the addresses listed matched details held by the land titles office.
Under the proposed laws, it would be illegal for bikie groups to recruit members or for members to be out in public with two or more others from their group.
They would be banned from entering licensed premises wearing club colours or logos and precluded from meeting at the listed locations.
Opposition considering position on bill
Police commissioner Gary Burns said police provided an initial list of more than a dozen addresses last March."They were meeting places for members of the OMCGs (outlaw motorcycle gangs), those meeting places we regularly assess and one of them was a residential address and, because there's no longer those meetings there, we've taken that residential address off," he said.
"The other one was leased by an OMCG for meeting purposes, they no longer lease it so they no longer meet there, so we've take that address off the list."
The legislation also has been reworded to avoid any implication hoteliers would need to personally evict bikies from their premises.
The bill would affect 10 gangs currently known to be in South Australia, among them the Rebels, Mongols, Hells Angels and Gypsy Jokers.
Another 17 which are interstate would be declared criminal organisations to prevent them moving into South Australia, the Government said.
SA Opposition Leader Steven Marshall said the Liberals were still considering what stance to take on the legislation when it got to the Upper House.
"We've got to make sure the requisite safeguards are in place before we vote on it in the Legislative Council," he said.
"This Government has had plenty of false starts in this area in the past.
The SA Government's original anti-bikie laws were successfully challenged by motorcycle groups in the High Court in 2010.