Fucken Hell, it only takes one bad Egg suspected of illegal activity and the whole Club's banned.
The Victorian Attorney General has hit back at claims from the Law Institute of Victoria that the Government's toughened stance on bikies amounts to an abuse of human rights.
The Baillieu Government acted on its pre-election promise to crackdown on outlaw motorcycle gangs, introducing legislation into Parliament today that will enable the Supreme Court to ban certain gangs and strip them of assets if they're suspected of engaging in illegal activities.
The President of the Law Institute of Victoria, Michael Holcroft says similar laws in South Australia and New South Wales were the subject of a successful High Court challenge.
"We just say that (the laws are) unfair from a human rights point of view," Mr Holcroft said.
"This legislation, if it goes through unchallenged, could have the effect of making people criminals and liable to a penalty of up to 5 years imprisonment simply because they do choose to be associated with a particular club and wear particular colours."
Attorney General Robert Clark responded late this afternoon.
"It's very disappointing that the LIV leadership has chosen to engage in the sort of baseless conjecture that Mr Holcroft has been engaging in," Mr Clark said.
He says the Victoria's legislation doesn't include the aspect of the South Australian laws that that was successfully challenged in the High Court.
The Attorney General says motorcycle clubs will only be banned if the "Supreme Court is satisfied that there is serious criminal activity involved or the group or individual pose a serious threat to public safety".
"The point that I'm making is that these laws are proactive in stopping these gangs in future," Mr Clark said.
Paul Kuhn set up the FREE Australia Party in response to the South Australian anti-bikie legislation in 2008.
He is adamant Victoria's toughened bikie laws will be challenged successfully in the High Court.
"These laws that they've put in Victoria aren't permitting the cross examination of that evidence that is likely to put someone in jail," Mr Kuhn said.
"Maybe the funding would be better served to give to the police to bolster their criminal intelligence and deal with those things on a one-off basis."
http://www.abc.net.au/local/audio/2012/11/14/3632909.htm?site=gippsland
