Page 1695 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 1 April 2009
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government revenue, high costs of law enforcement and the costs in social harm. Imagine what the Australian economy could do with a $10 billion boost, if it were not diverted by organised crime. How many roads, hospitals, schools, how many tax breaks and better services could be provided if the insatiable greed of organised crime was stopped in its tracks?
Of course, the cost of organised crime is not limited to money. There are serious people costs. Organised crime typically involves murder and other acts of serious violence that can leave families and communities devastated for life from the mental and physical effects. For instance, even today, more than 30 years later, the family of Donald Mackay and the Griffith community in general are still mourning his violent death in 1977, after his campaign against drug trafficking.
Importantly, the Australian Crime Commission report notes that organised crime has the ability to keep ahead of the game. It is able to adapt quickly to new conditions, developments at law and new technologies, which means that we as legislators must be doing all we can to keep ahead of the game and not sit on our hands. This poses serious challenges for governments and the legal system in Australia to maintain the momentum needed to keep ahead of the game. It is a fluid, volatile and competitive environment and it is incumbent on governments of all persuasions to meet those challenges head on.
The events in Sydney have highlighted the awareness of organised crime but perhaps it is somewhat a narrow view. The awareness has centred on motorcycle groups, the so-called outlaw motorcycle gangs, or OMCGs. There is no doubt that there are some bad elements in the motorcycle fraternity. For example, the Australian Federal Police Association, in a letter to Mr Hanson, which he has quoted from, has noted that police have seized from OMCGs all manner of illegal weapons. And who can forget the motorcycle gang shootout between the Bandidos and the Comancheros at Milperra on Father’s Day in 1984, where seven people died, including a 15-year-old female bystander.
It is important for us to keep our eye on the issue as a whole. It is not just about motorcycle gangs. This is an issue about organised crime, of which motorcycle gangs are just one manifestation.
Indeed, there are elements of the motorcycling fraternity that go to great lengths to show that they have nothing to do with crime and I think that we need to be very aware of that. It is not about bikes, it is about what you do. We have to be careful in a debate that is really about organised crime in general not to take too narrow a view and certainly not to stereotype particular interest groups.
Nevertheless, the elements of the bikie gangs lurk not far below the surface and Canberra is not immune from these elements. I can recall a number of serious incidents in recent years that have been associated with organised crime activity and biker gang activity in the ACT, where biker gangs have flexed their muscle. And we have seen it, not so much in the criminal sphere, only this week with the biker funeral and the manifestations that we saw at that.
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