OFF THE WIRE
by Mark Hinchliffe
Queensland riders are still living in a police state where they could
be harassed, detained, charged and imprisoned for looking like a bikie
and/or associating with them.
When elected in January 2015, the new Labor Government promised a
Queensland Crime and Corruption Commission review of the controversial
so-called VLAD (Vicious Lawless Association Disestablishment) Laws by
November.
Now it appears the CCC taskforce has extended its reporting deadline to March.
Meanwhile, the police argument to the taskforce to keep the current
laws is based on the assumption that “outlaw bikies” (a term that is not
clearly defined), are 25% more likely to commit crime.
If the same could be statistically proven for a particular race of
people, should we then have punitive enforcement and penalties for all
people of that race?
Of course not.
That would simply be wrong, wrong, wrong.
Apart from the enormous insult to basic human rights that this
argument represents, the VLAD approach to pigeon-hole policing has not
been a success, anyway.
So far, 100 people have been charged under the VLAD Laws and only one
has been convicted – and he was a drug smuggler with no association to
any motorcycle club. He even used a plane to smuggle drugs, not a
motorcycle.
Over-eager policing straight after the introduction of the VLAD Laws
led to innocent riders being harassed and inconvenienced, including one
man wearing a Sons of Anarchy t-shirt. Granted, that inept policing has
waned in recent months.
However, riders should still be concerned about the existence of the
ineffective VLAD Laws as they are spreading to other states.
The only state that has refused to go down this track is Victoria, under the new Labor Government.
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