SERIOUS AND ORGANISED CRIME (CONTROL) BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading (resumed on motion).

(Continued from page 1984.)

Mrs REDMOND (Heysen) (16:17): I am the lead speaker for the opposition in relation to this bill—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: And knows where Andamooka is.

Mrs REDMOND: —and knows where Andamooka is, and has been there. Just as I restart my comments, which, of course, I had only very briefly started before we went to the lunch break, it occurred to me that, in a way, it is appropriate for us to be considering something called serious and organised crime today on this National Sorry Day, because what happened to the indigenous people in our state and elsewhere in the country was, in my view, serious and organised crime, and it was sanctioned by the state and federal parliaments.

Just before proceeding with the bill itself, I want to place on the record my sincere thanks to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd for his apology today and for the wise words which he spoke on behalf of all Australian people. Today I was proud to be an Australian.

In coming at this particular bill, one has to look, I think, at what is the evil we are trying to overcome. To that end, I thank, as I said in my earlier remarks, the Assistant Commissioner, Tony Harrison, and other senior members from SAPOL, who briefed us last Wednesday not just about this bill but about outlaw motorcycle gangs and organised crime generally and their approach to dealing with it in this state.

I have also been reading a book entitled Angels of Death, which is a book in our parliamentary library which I recommend to members of this house in terms of understanding just how difficult a problem organised outlaw motorcycle gangs and other organised crime groups is to tackle in any proper sense. I also managed last year to have what I describe as a 'secret squirrel' meeting with a former member of an outlaw motorcycle gang, who was able to give me a fair bit of information about the nature of the outlaw motorcycle gangs and their structure in South Australia.

One of the things that the Assistant Commissioner told us the other day, for example, was that, whereas in 2001 in South Australia there were six clubs comprising nine chapters, or separate little entities (within each club there are chapters) in 2001, and, in the life of this government, rather than going down that has actually increased to eight clubs with 13 chapters in 2007. For example, there are two Hell's Angels groups, including the North Crew, with 250 full-patch members. Nationally, of course, we are but a drop in the ocean. There were 173 chapters in 2001, and that has increased to 227 chapters in 2007, with an estimated 3,500 gang members.

My reading of Angels of Death indicated just how difficult it is. Once upon a time, on the basis of what we have learnt in movies and so on, one might have thought that you could infiltrate organisations relatively easily. But a quick reading of even the beginning of that book will indicate that these organisations are well-financed and they are extremely difficult to penetrate. It is no good simply setting yourself up in a flat, for example, and pretending that you are available to become a member.

You will spend probably at least a year even getting near becoming a prospect, and in that time they will know not just who you are but everything about you—every tax return you have ever filed, everything you have ever been involved in, everywhere you have ever lived—but they will also know, concerningly, every member of your family, where they live, what they do, what your connections are, and everything else. It is quite frightening when you then go on to read just how they mete out their own justice and operate completely according to their own view of the world. One of the interesting things that was told to me by the person with whom I had a meeting, was that, in fact, a lot of the old-time bikers really felt that there was, I suppose what you might call, honour among thieves in the way that they dealt with their internal issues or gang to gang issues, and that that no longer exists because nowadays, as we have seen in the streets of Adelaide, people in these gangs will take their fights and their guns into the streets and heaven help the innocent bystander who happens to get in their way.

So, they are pervasive problems and I think that they do require a different method of addressing to what we have had in the past because, as I said just before lunch, until now our legal system has concentrated on dealing with criminals as individuals and dealing with the events after a criminal act has occurred by proving the act has occurred and proving that the person committed that act on a criminal burden of proof; that is, beyond reasonable doubt. Of course that approach has, to some extent, allowed people who are well resourced and well able to afford excellent representation in our courts to utilise every possible stratagem to avoid conviction for a lot of things.

Further than that, it does nothing to address the problem that what we are trying to deal with is collective behaviour, not just the behaviour of an individual or the particular criminal act of an individual. We are also, hopefully, trying to deal with how we prevent certain things from happening rather than simply addressing the issue of punishment after things have happened. To that end, I have been doing some reading in relation to what approaches have been taken in other countries.

I guess the foremost area where one looks for these things is in what is called the RICO legislation in America, RICO standing for Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisations. They have had this legislation in place nationally in the US since 1970. Basically it came about because racketeering—what we would normally think of as extortion and standover tactics—was considered to be proliferating and weakening the economy by undermining legitimate businesses. They wrote into their legislation, 'that it shall be liberally construed to effectuate its remedial purposes'.

Over the 38 years it has been in place, it has been used against most of the major New York organised crime families, and some in other cities such as Detroit. It has been seen to force entire organisational structures into court via civil powers and put management of racketeering-influenced organisations into public trusteeships. So, for instance, where you have a gangster-run union and so on, instead of allowing that to proliferate, the powers under the RICO legislation—and I will just refer to it as that—allowed the organisation to be put into public trusteeship and broke the economic power of the gangster-run unions.

Typically, RICO and other such legislation use an array of techniques which are not normally used in the criminal law. They commonly use telephone taps and other bugging devices. They use plea bargains, and I will talk separately about these various issues in due course. They use structured sentence guidelines and they generally go hand in hand with considerable witness protection operations. So, the aim of the legislation is to penalise persons who engage in a pattern of racketeering, or racketeering activity, or what is sometimes referred to as the collection of unlawful debt.

There are four offences referred to in the RICO legislation, and I will just turn those up. The first one criminalises 'the investment of the proceeds of a pattern of racketeering or collection of an unlawful debt in an enterprise affecting interstate commerce'. Members should remember that, like us, this is federal legislation and so usually there has to be some federal element for them to be able to use it. The second one criminalises 'acquiring or maintaining an interest in an enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity or collection of an unlawful debt'. So, an organised crime figure violates that if he uses extortion or arson to pressure the owners into selling out of their business, for instance.

The third one criminalises 'conducting affairs of an enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity or collection of an unlawful debt'. This would, for instance, catch a car dealer who uses his legitimate car business to assist a ring of people who deal in stolen cars. The fourth makes it a crime to conspire to commit any of the earlier three. So, they are the basic offences that are created. What it requires is a pattern of two or more offences and it requires the people to be conducting those as part of an enterprise. An enterprise itself can be quite broadly determined but it does lead to some little problems, which I will come to later.

The fine imposed—and I thought it was interesting in reading about this legislation—is generally $250,000 or twice the amount of the loss or the gain. That struck me as an interesting way to approach a fining system because, for instance, in environmental legislation, we are often put in a difficult situation and our answer is simply to divide into personal liability and corporate liability, which seems to be a very blunt instrument. I remember that in our environmental legislation we put in place certain fines. So, if you are found guilty of an offence, for a personal liability the limit of the fine might only be $5,000 and for a company it might be $500,000.

That seems to me to be a fairly blunt instrument because there could be a very small firm for whom the penalty is just insurmountable, but, equally, there could be an individual who has more than sufficient funds and for whom the smaller level of debt is really an inadequate punishment and almost an incentive to carry on committing offences.

The approach taken in the RICO legislation has the advantage that it ties the level of fine to the level of the offence committed. I suggest that there is some merit in that approach. I would think that that may be one of the areas where, as the leader said, we may want to go further in due course. It seems to me that there is some benefit to be had in saying, 'Well, we're going to tie our financial penalties to the level of the offence.'

The imprisonment for 20 years per violation, in typical American style, as I understand the American system, allows for consecutive service of sentences, rather than being basically served at the same time. Often in our courts, you do find that people serve sentences concurrently. In our court someone might be found guilty of three charges and if they had three lots of 20 years they might only serve whatever their non-parole period is, but the sentence would be just a total of 20 years in spite of them having been found guilty and sentenced on three different items.

In the RICO legislation, because they are consecutive, people can have sentences which are so long as to be ridiculous, in one sense, but which certainly send a clear message to the community. Bearing in mind that this legislation has been in place since 1970, there was a case in 1986 called the United States v Salerno, which is referred to as the 'Commission' case. The offenders in that case ultimately received sentences of 100 years each for taking kickbacks from concrete contractors.

So, they are really sending a very strong message; but bear in mind, in prosecuting that case, there were some 200 FBI agents involved over a period of six years, something like 170-odd bugs had to be authorised by courts—the resources that were put into bringing that case alone to court were really quite extensive.

There are advantages and disadvantages to the system engaged in under the RICO legislation. What I am referring to at the moment is a document prepared in the UK which basically compared what legislation in other jurisdictions did to address organised crime with what happens in the UK. It has the advantage, of course, of giving us an overview of what approaches various jurisdictions have taken.

It is interesting to read this assessment of the advantages and disadvantages of the RICO legislation by its UK authors, Michael Levi and Alaster Smith. Under the advantages, for instance, they say that it facilitates the obtaining of electronic surveillance and wiretapping, although you still need a court order for that. In fact, the researchers from the UK felt that it was substantially more difficult to get an intercept warrant in the US than would currently be the case in England and Wales.

Another advantage is that it allows for the charging and prosecution of sufficient members of an organisation to incapacitate the organisation, although we need to look at what they class as disadvantages in that light as well. It sidesteps some restrictive statutes of limitations, provided the offences remain within the overall 10-year period. In that regard, the RICO legislation says that the requisite number of offences must have occurred within the last 10 years.

The issues of joinder and severance of trials are eased. Just as we discussed yesterday when dealing with the rape and serious sexual offences legislation, there can often be something of an impediment in the prosecution of rapes, particularly against separate victims, if the defendant is able to sever each trial and have a separate jury and judge for each trial, thereby avoiding anyone getting to see the full picture.

The RICO legislation also generates a higher sentencing tariff than many of the individual offences alone would attract. It enables prosecutors to show the nature of the enterprise and put forward the context into which the offending occurred. So, it enables the introduction of the general weight of evidence so that people can understand the whole context. Indeed, in a range of jurisdictions that I have been looking at, it is clear that that evidence—it might be wire-taps, phone-taps and so on—from individuals has to be seen in context for a jury to fully understand just what is going on.

Some people of course habitually speak in code and never say anything even on phones that might be clearly interpreted as relating to criminal activity. Some of them are even smart enough not to use consistent code words in their discussions. Ultimately, for joint enterprises and organised crime to occur, there must be communication, and if the people who are trying to combat it are allowed to intercept, then they can overcome the problems of lack of evidence by showing that the communications taken as a whole and looked at in context do indicate an involvement by any particular person.

The authors of this article also refer to the disadvantages, the first and most obvious one of which is that it takes a lot of work to build up a case, and I mentioned that one case of the US versus Salerno, where the defendants got 100 years in sentencing, 200 FBI agents were involved over a period of six years, there were 171 court-authorised bugs and taps and long periods of time involving infiltrating and surveillance of the organisation—so, a lot of work. Then, of course, once you have all that information, you obviously need amazingly complex computer systems and so on to deal with the amount of data and information you have collected.

The second disadvantage about which they talk (and I thought it was rather a ludicrous one) was that there were performance indicator implications, that is, because they are doing these big cases there will be a smaller number and therefore the police should not be expected to meet the same key performance indicators. However, given that I am not a lover of KPIs in the first place, I think that should not even be a consideration. If we are going to put the resources into this area to make an actual difference we should not be worrying about the number of prosecutions in terms of the police having to work up their appropriate information before they can take a case to court.

The third disadvantage they mention is that it lengthens trials—and I think this is important—and the jury sometimes loses track of particular defendants and their roles, and this in turn sometimes leads to the severance of cases. So, it is all very well to charge 61 (or however many they charged the other day when they had a big sweep on some organised criminals in the US), but the fact is that the trials become so extensive and so complex that juries actually lose track of who is who, what is what and what the big picture is at the same time as remembering that each individual will have to be found guilty.

Of course, that then leads to the severance of cases which then impacts upon whether the organisation in fact is being dismantled. They also point out that it may be hard for jurors to appreciate what constitutes an 'enterprise' under the legislation, because some of the diagrams become somewhat like a bowl of spaghetti, or labyrinthine, showing the pattern of crimes—the organisation is actually operating through a pattern of criminal activity. Unsurprisingly, there are regional variations in the way the law is applied. In New York, of course, as I have said, they have attacked most of the major family crime organisations, but in some of the regional areas where judges are less used to the RICO legislation, its administration and the way it is operated, they may come to completely different conclusions.

So, regional variations can be a problem. They point out that, as one of the disadvantages, there is a risk of abuse which must be monitored. It is that issue which, I suppose, concerns me more than any other with the present proposal from the government and which we are discussing today. There is no doubt in my mind that we will need to keep a very careful eye on the potential for abuse, just as we saw in the operation of the terrorism legislation. I was concerned about the terrorism legislation when it was introduced. Indeed, the Hon. John Von Doussa was gracious enough to give me of his time to discuss the legislation because I had considerable misgivings about it. Happily my misgivings were more with the federal legislation than with what passed in this state.

When one looks at how the federal legislation was abused in the case of Dr Haneef in Queensland one cannot help but be reminded that there is a need to monitor closely the operation of any legislation which gives such unfettered powers, and particularly where, in this case, there is a prohibitive clause which seeks to exempt people such as the Attorney-General—although I know him to be an honourable man—from the review processes which would normally apply—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: Spoken like Mark Antony!

Mrs REDMOND: That is how I was intending it, like Mark Antony, Attorney. The review processes being gone, there is a potential for abuse, and it is of key concern in considering this legislation. Indeed, the last disadvantage to the RICO legislation about which these authors talk is human rights concerns over the potential for the legislation to be used over-zealously. I have a great faith in our police service in this state. Indeed, I remember in the last week or so some information to the effect that our police force is the most highly regarded by the public in terms of its behaviour, its lack of corruption, and so on.

However, I moved here 30 years ago from New South Wales where the police corruption was so rife that, as a teenager, I was able to observe it occurring quite openly in a number of contexts. It would be ludicrous of us to think that we would never get a bad apple in what is otherwise a very good police force in this state. Of course, one of the other problems with the legislation over there is that the RICO legislation, requiring as it does such an extensive amount of resources, rarely do they even look at chasing anything less than $250,000 in terms of the level at which they will become involved or engaged. To some extent I think that is probably a sensible approach with whatever resources there are—they are always limited. On the other hand, if we can stamp things out before they reach that level, maybe that would be better.

In the RICO legislation as well, all property that affords 'a source of influence over the enterprise' is forfeitable. That can lead to massive forfeitures of property. When you take the entire wealth of an organisation away, that can have huge inroads into its operation. A number of aspects of the RICO legislation might be applicable to our problem. In terms of South Australia, we are concentrating predominantly on outlaw motorcycle gangs, but potentially other types of organised crime exists in this state. I think that most people are not affected by organised crime or by outlaw motorcycle gangs in their day-to-day life and, indeed, for the most part, according to my discussion with the former bikie, the gangs in Adelaide actually manage what would otherwise be controlled by Mafia-type organisations, Triad-type organisations and so on.

Some organisations—and I will not delineate which ones are where—deal predominantly in drugs and prostitution and some of them deal predominantly in standovers, collection and protection. They deal with different areas of criminal activity and, furthermore, they have fairly well delineated geographical areas in which they operate. Again, I will not detail those areas, but certainly the information I have indicates exactly which different outlaw motorcycle gangs operate in which area. Indeed, I was told that, whilst you can travel through an area when you are a member of a different gang, you certainly do not ever think about setting up a business within another gang's area.

It is quite evident that we do have a problem in this state. It may be a limited problem, but when you look at what has happened around the world at various other places, it is obvious that the spread of organised crime has to be prevented to the extent that we are able and dismantled to the extent that we are able. In 1986 in New York, having had the RICO legislation which predominantly was used in New York, they passed their own Organised Crime Control Act. They did that to reflect some of the human rights concerns about the potential overreach of the federal legislation. They restricted it to persons employed by or associated with criminal enterprises—and criminal enterprises (as in the legislation before us) was defined fairly broadly. In their case, it comprised any group with a shared criminal purpose.

It still targeted both legitimate and illegitimate groups. There might be a social club that is a front for a criminal gang, a pawn shop that is a front for a fencing operation, or a car dealer that is a front for a stolen car racket. Instead of the two acts—that is, two individual criminal acts as required in the RICO legislation—this required three acts. Two out of those three had to be in the last five years and all three had to be in the last 10 years. However, when they talk about committing an act, it might be committed by the person, it might be solicited, or it might be requested. A range of activities would come within that legislation, but they must still (as in our normal criminal law) have both the act and the intention. However, according to these assessors, the tighter provisions do make it more likely that it will be targeted at an organised crime group.

In particular, the prosecutor must submit a statement—and it has got to be a personal statement; he cannot delegate that to someone else—to the court that 'he has reviewed the substance of the evidence presented to the grand jury and concurs in the judgment that the charge is consistent with the legislative findings'. It is a different approach slightly in terms of how they try to build in some protections but, as I said, the New York group introduced their legislation because of some concerns about the RICO legislation perhaps going too far in terms of the potential for human rights abuses.

They use this legislation particularly against people who are in facilitating roles, and it is often a part of the criminal organisation network that they get individuals to do certain separate minor things which (of themselves) are either not criminal or are criminal at the very minor end. That allows for any individual who is caught and charged to get off, because it is not seen as part of the bigger enterprise. I do not mean 'get off' in the sense of not necessarily being prosecuted and found guilty, but the consequences of an individual who has a peripheral or facilitating role can be quite limited compared with being caught under this Organised Crime Control Act. As I said, they targeted especially where there are facilitative roles such as providing false identification to assist documentary fraud, being a lookout for a gang activity, or mechanics who change the identification numbers on vehicles that assist a gang.

The other thing they have done, which is similar to what appears in the legislation before this house, is to quite specifically include within the ambit of the acts that can be necessary to bring a charge under this legislation acts committed outside New York. So, although it is New York legislation, they take into account criminal acts which are committed outside New York. In a similar way our legislation refers to chapters of organisations both in this state and interstate and, indeed, overseas, and to membership of organisations here and elsewhere and to criminal convictions here and elsewhere. They point out in the New York commentary that plea bargaining is an important part of the armoury which is being used against organised crime, to encourage criminals to come forward on the basis that they can get a benefit to themselves by telling the police or prosecuting authorities details of the operations of the organised criminal activity. They see it as a major positive.

Moving on to Canada, the Canadian criminal code was amended in 1997 with the idea of producing a simplified statutory conspiracy definition, and that was designed to allow the admission of evidence on a broader basis because, like us, they had quite a narrow definition—and, of course, in any court hearing criminal matters on any day you will see objections to evidence being tendered by the prosecution if the defence is able to argue that the evidence goes beyond anything relevant to the commission of the actual offence which is before the court. They made that change but, overall, they were still focused on things such as aiding and abetting crime rather than actual membership of a criminal organisation.

In 2001 they introduced forfeiture provisions, and then they came to the view (and this was still in 2001) that they needed to attempt to deal with collective behaviour, and I think that lies at the very heart of what the legislation before us is trying to do and where our thinking needs to go. It is addressing this need to deal with collective behaviour. So, by 2001 they granted specific supplementary powers such as enabling the use of wire taps in evidence and they also, at the end of 2001, introduced a new intensive federal prosecution strategy. That was their new legislation to deal with organised crime. To that end, they introduced a new definition of 'criminal organisation', and I will read from a document, which states:

The new definition of 'criminal organisation' responds to concerns expressed by police and prosecutors that the previous definition was too complex and narrow in scope. The amended definition will:

1. reduce the number of people required to constitute a criminal organisation from five to three (this brings the Canadian legislation into line with legislation in other countries);

2. no longer require prosecutors to show that members of the criminal organisation were involved in committing a series of crimes for the criminal organisation in the last five years. Instead, prosecutors will be able to focus on evidence relevant to the crimes that are on trial; and

3. broaden the scope of the offences which define a criminal organisation, currently limited to indictable offences punishable by five or more years, to all serious crimes, including prostitution and gambling.

So they introduced that amendment to the definition of 'criminal organisation'. They created three new offences with very tough sentences to target various degrees of involvement with criminal organisations. They improved the protection of people who play a role in the justice system and their families and made an offence against that section liable to 14 years' imprisonment—which, to me, does not seem enough.

After reading the book Angels of Death and discussing the way in which biker gangs operate with a former member, I would have to say that it crossed my mind more than once whether I was brave enough to take this on because, certainly, I know that if someone threatened a member of my family I would back off from anything in a hurry. Clearly, the people involved in these organisations have no hesitation taking that sort of action, and our whole approach to this area of how we protect our police officers, prosecutors, judges and indeed even our juries from threats of violence is a major concern. Obviously, we try to address that in this legislation, but sometimes addressing things in legislation is ineffectual. It is like restraining orders: they are only as good as the behaviour of the person who is being restrained and, ultimately, a piece of paper offers very little protection if someone has a gun and they are after you.

The Canadians also simplified the definition of 'criminal organisation', as I said. They broadened 'forfeiture' to 'take profits from criminal organisations and to seize property that was used in a crime'. They established an accountable process to protect law enforcement officers from criminal liability—that is, criminal liability when they commit what would otherwise be illegal actions when they are infiltrating organisations, and that is unspeakably dangerous for any law enforcement officer.

So, the Canadians have said that they need to set up a mechanism to protect them from prosecution. There are some limits on it but they are trying to protect those officers from prosecution. Whilst infiltrating an organisation, they may be forced into a circumstance where they have to participate in criminal activity and, from my reading, it would be almost impossible to infiltrate an organisation such as the ones we are targeting if you were not able to demonstrate your willingness to undertake criminal activity.

The Canadians also introduced mechanisms that allow them to target anyone, not just members, who knowingly becomes involved in activities that further the organisation's objectives; so, people who recruit or even people who are acting as leaders of an organisation are included here. That, I think, needs to be looked at. I know that the powers within the legislation before us allow the police, hopefully, to have some impact in addressing the recruiting that is going on, for instance, between outlaw motorcycle gangs and their 'apprenticeships' by the young gang members in street gangs and so on. But maybe we need to look at this Canadian model of making it an offence to knowingly become involved in activities that further the organisation's objectives.

They also tried to develop a system for increased coordination between investigators and prosecutors, and that seems to me to be fundamental and necessary in any system whether it is done legislatively or simply by the organisations getting their heads together. But one of the real problems is that prosecutors often will be confronted with situations where they feel that they do not have the evidence in the way that they need it. It may have been obtained in a way that might be objectionable. They may not have admissible evidence and so on. So, they made a number of interesting changes to their law to try to deal with this problem.

Just over 10 years ago, New Zealand also attempted to address the issue and they introduced the Harassment and Criminal Associations Act.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: 'Harassment'.

Mrs REDMOND: I prefer to say harassment, Attorney. I married an American. I am surrounded by Americans in my household. The New Zealanders debated this in 1996 and the act came into force in 1997. Basically, it was adapted from the Californian equivalent of the RICO legislation, which was called the Street Terrorism Enforcement and Prevention Act 1988, so it is clear that the Americans have been trying to address this problem for considerably longer than we have.

The then government publicly stated the following about this legislation when it was introduced:

It would go beyond the doctrines of accessory liability and permit the prosecution of gang bosses as well as deterring others from joining for fear of incurring collective liability.

So, it does not require proof that the gang has crime as its primary or even secondary purpose, merely that crime is included in its activities. It seeks to incriminate crime facilitators, whether those be professional persons or those who offer assistance with things like accommodation and transport.

It is still uncertain in New Zealand whether the prosecution has to prove that a person intended the crime or merely knew material facts or did not care about the possible outcome and, again, I hark back to our discussion yesterday on rape and serious sexual offences with reckless indifference. Again, I suggest that in due course we need to look at some of the elements from that legislation in terms of being broad enough to capture anything that promotes or furthers organisational criminal activity and, therefore, having a lower standard of proof.

The Italians, of course, had a different set of problems to deal with. The Mafia was the problem there. In about 1982 they adapted legislation which was essentially equivalent to the United Kingdom's conspiracy legislation. So, they prohibited association between so-called delinquents for criminal purposes and that was directed at the Mafia. In particular, the Italian criminal code stated:

1. Whoever is part of a Mafia-type conspiracy consisting of three or more people is punishable with three to six years' imprisonment. Punishment may be increased by up to one-third if the defendant has previously been subjected to Mafia preventative measures.

2. Whoever promotes or manages or directs such an association is punishable with four to nine years' imprisonment.

3. Conspiracy is of a Mafia type when whoever belongs to it uses the power of intimidation which arises from association membership and uses the system of subordination and the omerta (the code of silence) that arises from this in order to commit crimes or to obtain directly or indirectly control over economic activities, over activities contracted out to the private sector by the state or to obtain unfair profit for himself or for other people.

Furthermore, if the association uses weapons, or threatens to use them, the punishment is also increased—something akin to the aggravated offences legislation that we have here. That was what they introduced in 1982 and then, in 1992—and I can remember it; it was about 15 years ago—two judges were murdered. It was fairly stunning stuff. The murder of those two judges led to some further changes in the law about the admissibility of evidence, rights about cross-examination and identification of sources of evidence; so, it enabled the prosecutors, for instance, to introduce evidence that might not otherwise be admissible in a normal criminal prosecution and also to consider, again, crimes committed elsewhere.

They also sought to put controls in place to prevent people who were known as the powerful, political and economic elites from interfering. So, they tried to distance their investigation and prosecution from not only parliamentary control but from the control of people who were very well-placed in their society. So, they could overcome the problem of interference and obstruction of investigators with that.

Interestingly—and I think this is another interesting thing that we might want to consider somewhere down the track—they specifically gave a new evidential value to statements made prior to a court hearing because of the problem of people disappearing, whether out of their own fear or, as they say, 'being disappeared', being targeted. So, what they did to partly address that was to say, 'We've got the statement now; that's going to be admissible in evidence.' I think there is some merit in perhaps looking at what they did there.

Under the Italian system, the targets must be informed that they are under investigation. They are allowed to have electronic eavesdropping and phone-tapping, and that can be carried out even if there is no reason to suppose that criminal activities are being pursued at the place that is being tapped or bugged. Again, as in an earlier discussion of other jurisdictions, they have a system known as 'pentiti' or the supergrass system. That offers favourable prison conditions to those who cooperate with the authorities. One of the other things they did in terms of evidence was to say that corroboration could simply be by two pentiti. So, they could actually prosecute on the basis of the evidence of two people coming forward who corroborated each other's evidence.

In all of these various jurisdictions—and I will come to another one in a minute—it is clear that we will never know how successful the operations are and how successful the changes are, simply because we do not know what the crime level would have been had these measures not been in place. So, it is almost impossible to measure what the outcome of any of this legislation will be. I will read again from this report. In terms of corroboration, they say:

Corroboration rules have gradually relaxed, enabling two pentiti to corroborate each other provided there is sufficient specificity in allegations, even if there is no other substantial evidence. This could be viewed as a shift from pure due process to a crime control model to cope with what is agreed to be a serious social problem: the political, social and economic power of Italian organised crime.

So, it is certainly far reaching to introduce that sort of level of evidence admissibility. No doubt, criminal lawyers would be aghast at the idea that we might introduce that. Almost certainly, in our culture we do not have the same level of infiltration of organised crime lords into the upper echelons of our public service organisations and our society generally.

In the Netherlands, a commission of inquiry was introduced in 1995-96, and eventually some new legislation was introduced in the year 2000. The new Dutch penal code (since 2000) states:

1. Participation in an organisation whose object is the commission of crimes shall be punished by a term of imprisonment not exceeding six years or a fine category of 100,000 guilders.

2. Participation in the continuation of the activity of a legal entity that has been declared illegal by a final and conclusive decision of the courts, and thus dissolved, shall be punished by a term of imprisonment not exceeding one year or a third category fine of 5,000 guilders.

3. In respect of founders or managers, the terms of imprisonment may be increased by a third.

Although it no longer adds to the maximum as it did under the previous one. So, that increased the maximum sentences. Special investigative powers were given, such as phone-tapping, and so on, but it is necessary only to prove that an organisation has a purpose of crime commission. That means that an offence can occur merely in the preparatory acts. You do not actually have to prove that the crime has been committed. They are targeting just the preparatory acts, and participation in the organisation itself is punishable.

The difficulty with the legislation, of course, is that what they have to prove is a lasting and structured form of association which acts as a unit and whose immediate purpose is to commit crimes. They also introduced an interesting concept called 'constructive participation', which has been criminalised. I am used to the term 'constructive dismissal', for instance, where in reality there has been a dismissal although there might not be an actual act of dismissal in employment law. So, if, for instance, you are engaged as a casual and your employer chooses to no longer engage your services at all, that is a constructive dismissal. If you are engaged as the managing director of a company and they call you in and tell you, 'We'll still call you the managing director but from now on you're going to clean the toilets, we'll still pay you the same money but your duties will now be to clean the toilets,' that is a constructive dismissal.

Similarly, this legislation creates this concept of constructive participation. That targets the person in charge. So, if a person who is in charge and has authority fails to take measures to stop others from committing a crime, that is of itself a criminal act. These things are worth looking at—and I am sorry if I am boring everyone in the house—

An honourable member interjecting:

Mrs REDMOND: Just because they have gone to sleep. I think it is important to look at what other jurisdictions do. The judges in the Netherlands also take into account all previous convictions, although they do not necessarily take into account previous charges. No doubt, all the criminal lawyers would say, 'Well, that's a good thing,' but their view of it is that such measures clearly extend the criminal law and generate the possibility of abuse. Again, that is true: there is within any of these systems the possibility of abuse.

I will not go into the detail of the case studies cited in the remainder of this report; suffice to say that they are based on real situations, and they give a good overview of just how complex these types of organisations are in terms of tracking what is going on, proving that criminal activity is occurring, and actually managing to prosecute. I will quickly talk about the facts in the second case to which they refer, bearing in mind that the names have changed and they are written from a UK document. They note the following particular case:

Glyn has a small business which probably fronts his criminal activity. In the past two years, he moved out of rented council accommodation into an £85,000 house he purchased for himself, and bought a £30,000 Range Rover. Intelligence reports paint a picture of violence, intimidation and blackmail, along with drug connections through local pubs and clubs.

In this case, it might be possible to demonstrate that there was a Rico conspiracy among the lower level offenders for the offences themselves were committed as part of a pattern of racketeering. However, there would need to be some linkage between the individual and the members of the criminal enterprises either through informant or electronic testimony in order to make the case.

Otherwise, one would be left with possibly a tax case, as we ended up with Eliot Ness—the real Eliot Ness.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: That's Al Capone.

Mrs REDMOND: Yes; Al Capone the criminal and Eliot Ness the good guy. Another criminal investigation referred to is as follows:

Wayne is unemployed and lives in a modest house in Midtown. He drives a new Range Rover, wears a £65,000 Rolex watch, regularly holidays abroad in winter and flies friends out to join him. He has previous convictions for drug dealing but has not been arrested for some years. He exercises regularly and though he seldom drinks, he appears well acquainted with door staff, a common source of drugs, profits and extortion (though friendship with door staff is not evidence of criminality of any parties). Investigations have failed to link Wayne to any forms of criminal conduct, let alone any concrete criminal event, though observations exist showing that he received a bag full of cash from someone and immediately made a call on his mobile phone, but what was said and for what reason is not known.

These are the sorts of cases we will to try to target with this legislation. Lastly, I want to refer briefly to the Hong Kong experience. Hong Kong, of course, has a very large ICAC. They introduced their ICAC because of massive problems with their Triads. I take this following information from a chap by the name of Timothy Tong Hin-Ming, who spoke at the ICAC conference, which I attended in the latter part of last year. He informed the conference that Triad members in the 1970s were 5 per cent of the population and outnumbered the police 5:1.

Corruption throughout the public organisations was rife; for example, firemen wanted water money before they turned on the water to fight a fire. This led to public protests, and that is what led to the establishment of the ICAC in 1974. Indeed, one of its first acts was to extradite the chief inspector of police. Timothy Tong Hin-Ming said that for 13 years Hong Kong has been the world's freest economy in terms of corruption and, indeed, 96.4 per cent of respondents in a recent survey had not come across a single incidence of corruption in the past 12 months. So, their tactics in Hong Kong have obviously had a vast impact. Again, we can never know what the ultimate impact is or would have been if it had been approached differently, because we simply have no constant against which to measure these things.

In each of the areas that I have talked about it is clear that everyone has recognised the need to address the issue of people acting for a common purpose, and the need to address the problem before rather than after. I think that they are the two key elements of the way we need to approach this. For that reason, I think we need to move away from the legislative model and the criminal law model that we have used until now.

That said, however, I still have some concerns about this legislation in terms of whether it is targeted as neatly as it should be to ensure the protection of innocent people. The balance to be achieved will need to be tested. I know that the member for Mitchell, like myself, has some concerns about the sunset clause which appears in this legislation and which, of course, brings the legislation to an end 10 years after its commencement. I think that his amendment reduces that to two years. Our party room has not yet considered that particular amendment but, certainly, we would be minded to reduce it from the 10 years, which is currently the sunset clause provision.

The two elements that I think we need to concentrate on are this collective activity and trying to prevent problems before they arise. I note that in the other bill, particularly the riot and affray bill, which is not before the house this week, certainly there are provisions in that legislation, and some provisions in the serious and organised crime control legislation, which will allow the police sufficient flexibility to try to prevent problems before they actually occur. We do need to bear in mind that need to take a different approach.

One of the other things that the biker gentleman who I spoke to indicated was that, if they wanted to get rid of someone in our society, they would simply get in a hit man from overseas who would come in without a weapon, would be supplied with a weapon, would undertake the task and then go home after his two-week holiday in Australia, and that would be a very well-organised and quite straightforward process for them to achieve. That is very worrying.

Moving away from the protections that are afforded in our current legal system is something that I would always do with great hesitation. I was not a criminal practitioner in my days in practice. I did a very limited amount of criminal work, but I talked to enough criminal practitioners, and I dealt with enough criminals, to know that there is a great value in the protection that our system offers: that we have to prove someone guilty rather than their having to prove their innocence; that we have to do so beyond reasonable doubt; that the judge has to be impartial; that, if a jury is empanelled, that it be a reasonable representation of our community at large and so on; and that everything has to be based on evidence and not on hearsay.

A large number of protections built into the system have served us well for hundreds of years. So, to suggest that it is appropriate simply to throw those out, I think, would be a dangerous way to go. As with the bill introduced by the Attorney just before we resumed our debate on this bill (the bill dealing with double jeopardy), it is my view that we do need to recognise that times have changed and that maybe the answers that we had for problems of old are no longer the right answers because we no longer have the same problems.

In his brief second reading explanation of the double jeopardy legislation, the Attorney indicated that basically what he has taken on is the policy that the Liberals put out some 12 or 18 months ago. That legislation recognises that what the community seeks is a just outcome and that we do not want to allow someone who is clearly guilty of murder to get away with it because of what the community would perceive as a technicality. Similarly, my view is that the community would look at this legislation in the same way and say, 'Well, we don't want crime gangs, outlaw motorcycle gangs or any other gangs, to be controlling our communities.'

In our briefing last Wednesday, it was pointed out that one of the issues that we are trying to address in this legislation is the increasing involvement of young street gangs in criminal activity, almost as apprentices to members of outlaw motorcycle gangs. Clearly, we need to think about how we are going to address the issue of these young people and their behaviour. Some of the legislation will have the effect of addressing some of that, in my view.

I will move onto the actual details of the legislation itself. What the legislation aims to do is to disrupt the activities of outlaw motorcycle gangs and other criminal associations by authorising the Attorney-General to issue a declaration about an organisation where he is satisfied that the members of the organisation associate for the purpose of organising, planning, supporting, facilitating or engaging in serious criminal activity, and the organisation represents a risk to public safety and order. That is as I read it. I wonder why there is an 'and' there because it seems to me that either of those things, if you are going to go down this path, would be a sufficient basis for declaring an organisation.

It authorises the Magistrates Court to make orders against members of a declared organisation and others who engage in serious criminal activity. They can be prohibited from associating with other members of declared organisations or other people suspected of being engaged in serious criminal activity, and can be prevented from attending at specified premises, possessing dangerous articles or prohibited weapons.

The bill also authorises senior police officers—and that is defined as anyone of or above the rank of inspector—to issue time-limited orders against individuals or members of a group prohibiting attendance at a public event or place or being within a specified area on public safety grounds. At the briefing we had a fair bit of discussion about this provision, and particularly about the possibility, for instance, of a Cronulla riots situation or, indeed, with the Clipsal coming up, the possibility of something similar to the Cronulla riots happening at an outdoor public event like the Clipsal.

It is probably, I would expect, the view of the community at large that it is appropriate for the police—if they know about such an event—to be able to prohibit the participants in a riot from attending, rather than having to wait until something happens at the event and then trying to actually prevent it from happening.

I am reminded that some years ago the daughter of one of my friends in my Rotary club had a party at his house. It was a well-organised party in a private home. The home has a large fence around it. He was a chap of more than six feet in stature. There were invitations issued to the party. The father and a couple of other very tall Rotarians were on the gate. Notwithstanding all that, the party was gatecrashed by a gang of youths who proceeded to behave in an unbelievably bad way and even bashed his wife and threw furniture into the swimming pool and went around the district doing some further terrible things that night.

I remember being very annoyed at the time because they called the police as soon as they saw that there was going to be any strife to try to turn away these uninvited gatecrashers, and the police basically did nothing. My view was that the police should have come along and at least arrested one or two and taken them back to the Stirling police station and then come back for the next one or two and taken them back but, instead, because it was a large gang, they did nothing.

In many ways I welcome the idea that it might be possible if you know about something—in the way that people found out beforehand about the text messaging about the Cronulla riots—to avoid some of the awful things that might happen. They are time-limited orders and my recollection is that they are limited to a maximum of 72 hours in duration, although they can be extended on application, and I believe that they are probably going to be worthwhile.

The bill also reintroduces, in a modernised form, the old offence of consorting and amends the existing offences of 'threatening a public officer' and 'threatening a participant in the justice system'. That, of course, is the area I was talking about earlier where in Italy two judges were simply shot. I think they were in the street, leaving their homes, but even threatening someone who is in the justice system, I believe, does need to be a very serious offence, and I am very pleased to see that in the legislation.

The bill also amends the anti-fortification provisions of the Summary Offences Act to make it easier to obtain an order against premises used by a declared organisation. I had to laugh a little when I saw that that was in here. I remember the government bleating about how they were going to tear down the bikie fortresses, but of course there is not one fewer bikie fortress. Indeed, as I pointed out at the beginning of my comments this afternoon, there are more chapters of more outlaw motorcycle gangs now than there were when this government came into office. The Bail Act is further amended so that there is a presumption against bail being granted if a person is charged with a breach of any of those things that I have already mentioned.

The Attorney's second reading explanation stated that the legislation grants unprecedented powers to the police and the Attorney-General. He went on to attempt to offer reassurances that the legislation will not be used to 'diminish the freedom of people in the state to participate in advocacy, protest, dissent or industrial action'.

There are some protections built into this legislation. One of the questions before us, however, will be whether those protections are sufficient if we are going to go down this path, which is fraught with the risk of over-zealous or improper or abusive use of the powers which are granted.

One of the protections built into the legislation is that the Attorney-General must appoint a retired judicial officer, who might be from here, from our District or Supreme Court, or elsewhere. That retired judicial officer must conduct an annual review—which must be tabled in both houses of this parliament—into whether the powers have been used appropriately having regard to the objects of the act.

I will refer quickly to the objects of the act because they are crucial in determining the interpretation of a range of sections of this act. The bill provides:

(1) The objects of this act are:

(a) to disrupt and restrict the activities of—

(i) organisations involved in serious crime; and

(ii) the members and associates of such organisations; and

(b) to protect members of the public from violence associated with such criminal organisations.

(2) Without derogating from subsection (1), it is not the intention of the Parliament that the powers in this Act be used in a manner that would diminish the freedom of persons in this State to participate in advocacy, protest, dissent or industrial action.

That all sounds very well and perhaps goes some way to answering the objections voiced by Craig Caldicott and no doubt other criminal barristers who assert that any meeting of the BLF, sporting associations and so on might be classified as an organisation within the operation of this act and might thereby become subject to all sorts of forfeiture and control provisions which are then set out in the act. One would hope that any commonsense view would indicate that we are going to be targeting organised crime. However, I refer again to the situation of poor old Dr Haneef in Queensland—a perfectly innocent man who had an innocent phone conversation with a cousin from the UK and suddenly found his life turned upside down, inside out and his reason for being even questioned in a most inappropriate way.

There can be no guarantees with this legislation any more than there could be with the terrorism legislation that in due course it will not be subject to abuse. In saying that I do not suggest that anyone in our police force, in our prosecution, our courts or, indeed, our parliament has anything other than the best of intentions in trying to deal with this issue. However, the reality is that when you decide to pass legislation which gives such unfettered powers to certain individuals there will always be the risk of abuse. For that reason I am inclined to think that the suggestion by the member for Mitchell (which he will put in due course in committee) that we reduce the period in which this legislation operates from the 10 years sunset clause which currently appears would be a good idea.

I want to go into some detail about what this legislation then seeks to do. First, it allows for organisations to be declared. There must be a request from the Commissioner of Police. That request goes to the Attorney-General, and the Attorney-General publishes a notice in the GovernmentGazette inviting submissions, which all seems a little nice when we are dealing with outlaw motorcycle gangs. Nevertheless, the Attorney publishes a notice in both the GovernmentGazette and a generally circulating newspaper inviting submissions. The Attorney-General may have regard to (although I notice that it is a 'may') a series of things. First, he may have regard to evidence suggesting that a link exists between the organisation and serious criminal activity.

He can have regard to the criminal records of members—and this is where it gets very broad. He can have regard to evidence that members or past members have been involved directly or indirectly in serious criminal activity. I will come back to that, but I will just get through these things he can consider first. He can have regard to evidence about offending by members of overseas chapters or branches of the organisation and also submissions and other matters that the Attorney-General considers relevant. They are the things that are stated in the bill as being those matters to which the Attorney-General can have regard.

Clearly, they are extremely broad, especially when one reads then the definition of 'evidence', which can include information certified as criminal intelligence by the Commissioner of Police. There could be a situation where the Commissioner of Police has information gained via telephone and wire taps and surveillance, and there could simply be patterns of behaviour, known associations and all sorts of things which comprise actual or suspected criminal activity in this state or elsewhere, the disclosure of which could be prejudicial to criminal investigations or could be prejudicial to someone's life or safety or to keeping someone's identity confidential.

In other words, if you did happen to have someone within a criminal organisation such as an outlaw motorcycle gang, understandably it might be necessary to keep certain information from disclosure simply because the disclosure of the information would of itself tend to identify that person and place them at considerable risk. The Commissioner can therefore give the Attorney-General information (known as criminal intelligence) which the Attorney can receive but which he is under no obligation to disclose and, indeed, for obvious reasons would not be wanting to disclose. The Attorney has regard to that but that means that we are very much moving away from the idea of any sort of due process in terms of our legal system.

Going back to one of these dot points: 'evidence that members are involved directly in serious criminal activity'. I have no problem with that, but what if we are going to evidence of a past member—and it could be a past member from 30 years ago—involved indirectly in serious criminal activity? Now, presumably if it is indirect involvement—30 years ago—the person does not have a conviction for it so it is all based on the sorts of criminal intelligence about which I have just been talking. So, at its narrowest, it is no problem: evidence that members of this organisation are involved in serious criminal activity—not a problem.

However, evidence that a past member—30 years ago-—might have indirectly been involved in serious criminal activity is the other end of the same spectrum, and it does raise concerns. Also, we have evidence about offending by members of overseas chapters or branches of the organisation. So, even if it were true that the Hell's Angels here are merely a group of gentlemen who like to ride motorcycles and do the toy run and that was their only activity, theoretically they could become a declared organisation simply because members of overseas chapters of the Hell's Angels have offended in some way.

There is a real risk of abuse in the way this is all worded, particularly given that, at the end of the bill, a privative clause will try to protect the Attorney-General's decision from what is described as 'the full rigor of judicial review'. Indeed, I note that the member for Mitchell has also filed an amendment by which he seeks to ensure that there is the possibility of judicial review in each of the cases. Indeed, in his second reading contribution the Attorney-General said:

I do not hold out much hope of this preventing all judges substituting their own decisions on declared organisations for those of the elected government.

The Attorney is looking at me as though he does not remember having said that, but that was what was in his second reading.

We have this system where the Police Commissioner makes an application to the Attorney. The Attorney considers all these things, which may be extremely broad, which will not be disclosed and which will not be subject to any review by judicial process and, on the basis of that, the Attorney can make a declaration about an organisation. 'Organisation' has been defined extremely broadly. It is defined to include 'any incorporated or unincorporated group however structured'.

My recollection is that, at the briefing the other day, we asked about whether, for instance, the so-called Gang of 49 could be targeted by this legislation, but the feeling was that it was not sufficiently structured to attract this particular provision simply because the gang (so-called) is really a very fluid group. They do not have any organisational structure of people who conspire and act in concert much of the time. However, that said, the definition of organisation is broadly defined and it captures virtually any organisation that we want it to capture and try it on. The effect of an organisation being declared by the Attorney-General under this legislation is minimal, but it opens the doors for a series of other orders that can be made against members of declared organisations. The heaviest of those is control orders.

What happens is that the Police Commissioner, if satisfied that a person is a member of a declared organisation, has to seek an order by application to the Magistrates Court and the application has to be supported on the Commissioner's affidavit as to why he is satisfied that the defendant is a member of the declared organisation. That control order made by the magistrate can be issued without notice, but it has to be served on the person. It must set out the terms of the constraint—and presumably it can be as broad or as narrow as the magistrate might want. At that point we need to remind ourselves of the protections that, hopefully, will be built in for magistrates or other judicial officers dealing with this legislation.

The control order may prohibit the defendant from associating with specified persons, or with a specified class of persons; it may prohibit the defendant from possessing specified articles or a specified class of articles; and it may prohibit the defendant from entering specified premises, or a specified class of premises. It may do all those things. What it must do is prohibit the defendant from associating with persons who are members of declared organisations, and it must prohibit the defendant from possessing dangerous articles or weapons, as defined in the Summary Offences Act.

Again, it was discussed during the briefing the other day that this may push things underground, but it may also fracture these organisations in their hierarchical structure sufficiently to make them a series of smaller organisations rather than these massive, tightly controlled organisations where the person at the very top issues the directions, but does not necessarily do any of the illegal activities. Once that control order is issued there is a right of objection, which is also heard in the Magistrates Court and, in some circumstances, there can be an appeal to the Supreme Court. An appeal like that will occur as of right on a question of law, but only with the court's permission on a question of fact; and when the court hears it, the court may vary or revoke a control order.

As I said, the declaration of an organisation of itself does not have an effect, but failure to comply with a control order is an offence with a maximum penalty of five years' imprisonment. A control order could be as simple as prohibiting the defendant from associating with persons who are members of the particular organisation that has been declared. As soon as you can show that there has been a breach of that control order, then there is the offence and the maximum penalty of five years' imprisonment. It is interesting to me that all the penalties set out in this legislation refer to terms of imprisonment and not to any financial aspect of penalty.

As I understand what we were told the other day, that does not mean that a financial penalty would not be imposed, but certainly the way I read it and the way at least one criminal barrister I spoke to read it, it indicated that fines were not going to be an alternative available to any person hearing the trial of an offence against this legislation; that is, the penalty would be restricted to that of an imprisonment sentence.

The next orders that are enabled are public safety orders, and these can be made by a senior police officer who, as I said earlier, is defined as someone of or above the rank of inspector. That person must be satisfied that the presence of the person or persons at any premises, event or area poses a serious risk to public safety and that the making of the order is appropriate in the circumstances. This is where we get into this area for consideration: what if there is going to be a 'rumble' at the Clipsal 500? This is the section that would enable someone of or above the rank of inspector to issue an order saying, 'No, you cannot come within these boundaries' and, hopefully, in order to prevent that sort of mischief from occurring. The person making the order has to have regard to the following five considerations:

(a) whether the person or members of the class of persons have previously behaved in a way that posed a serious risk to public safety or security or has (or has had) a history of engaging in serious criminal activity;

(b) whether the persons are (or have been) members of declared organisations or have been subject to control orders or have associated with such organisations or with people who have been subject to control orders;

(c) the public interest in maintaining freedom to participate in protests;

(d) whether the degree of risk involved justifies the making of the order; and

(e) the extent to which an order will mitigate risk to the public safety.

I do not have much difficulty with (a) and (b) but I think the interpretation of (c) perhaps needs further examination, as do (d) and (e).

Referring specifically to the public interest in maintaining freedom to participate in protests, I am of the Vietnam moratorium generation and I seem to remember the police becoming fairly rigorous in their attempts to disrupt what we would see currently as reasonable public protest. Indeed, since being in this place, I have seen and participated in a number of public protests. I think this is one of the clauses that Craig Caldicott was concerned about when he spoke about the nature of this legislation because this police officer (this officer above the rank of inspector) has the ability to say, 'No, in our view, there is a risk to public safety' and, presumably, public safety could mean a risk to any individual member of the public, even a member of the group participating in the protest. So, I have a real hesitation about that assessment of the public interest in maintaining freedom to participate in protests.

Referring to (d) which states 'whether the degree of risk involved justifies the making of the order', at its easiest, the degree of risk involved in a whole lot of young people going to Cronulla Beach with batons and baseball bats to confront another group of young people at that beach, clearly involves a degree of risk and that there is a genuine risk of harm. But at what point do you intervene and at what point do you say that it is only two people, for example? Perhaps one person is going to confront another person. In my view, they are very difficult assessments to make and I am sure they will be contested in due course.

These public safety orders that can be made by anyone of or above the rank of inspector may be varied or revoked by the court, and the legislation has some provisions for objection to the making of the order and appeal to the Supreme Court and, of course, failure to comply is an offence in itself and subject to a maximum penalty of five years.

The orders themselves are able to be made for up to 72 hours, and I wonder whether that is the appropriate amount of time—that is three days. I think, on balance, it is probably not a bad amount of time. My concern was whether it gives sufficient lead time to issue and serve an order, although I would assume that what could happen is that an inspector (or an officer above that rank) could make the order and, whether or not it was served on the person, could notify the police officers who are doing security patrol at a particular event of the identity of the person or persons against whom an order has been made and deal with it that way.

The next offence has been of considerable concern to a number of people. It is that of criminal association. In essence, this provides that a person commits an offence when they knowingly associate on at least six occasions in 12 months with a member of a declared organisation or a person subject to a control order. Obviously, if I live next door to a member of an outlaw motorcycle gang, it is probably in my best interests to be personable and neighbourly towards that person, as I always am to all of my neighbours in any event. But we have reassurances from the police, and I think from the Attorney during his second reading speech, that this will be properly used. But the reality is that, if a police officer was minded to get at someone, it would not be difficult to imagine circumstances in which someone could be targeted for a breach of this criminal association provision, and subject to having to at least put themselves to court to defend themselves, simply because on at least six occasions in 12 months they happen to speak to someone who is a member of a declared organisation. It could be speaking in person, on the phone, by text message or fax or email. It does not take long if you are in any sort of communication with another person to build up a profile of contact.

[Sitting suspended from 18:00 to 19:30]

Mrs REDMOND: When we broke for dinner, I had just about got to the end of the discussion about the provisions of the bill itself and, in particular, the provisions concerned with criminal association. Just by way of a reminder, the criminal association provisions allow for an offence by a person who knowingly associates on at least six occasions in 12 months with a member of a declared organisation or a person subject to a control order. That is an offence subject to a penalty of up to five years.

The second part of the criminal association provisions creates an offence if a person who has a criminal conviction of a prescribed kind knowingly associates with another person who also has a criminal conviction of a prescribed kind on at least six occasions in 12 months. Again, it is subject to a maximum five-year penalty. In either case, the police do not need to prove that the association between those people occurred for any particular purpose or that the association would have led to the commission of an offence. As I pointed out previously, association can occur either in person, by letter, telephone, fax, email or other electronic means. So, that is quite broad when one applies those definitions to the interpretation of the provision that allows a person who has a criminal conviction of a prescribed kind knowingly associating or having six contacts of any kind over 12 months, and it does not need to be in relation to the commission of an offence and it does not even need to be for any particular purpose.

To take the example where someone spoke to me about a member of the Hell's Angels, who happens to be a member of a horse riding—

Mr Pederick: A pony club—his daughter.

Mrs REDMOND: A pony club. So, there is a risk that someone could be in association for a particular purpose well away from the idea of committing a criminal offence but could nevertheless come within this legislation.

Under this provision, a police officer can also require a person to give personal details in certain circumstances. If he suspects he has been given false information, he can require evidence to be produced. A failure to comply with that provision is also an offence, subject to a maximum penalty of five years.

A criminal barrister to whom I spoke suggested that the legislation was a sledgehammer to crack a walnut and suggested that a better approach might be to beef up the intelligence-gathering powers of the police and to target the manufacturers of drugs. The view of that particular barrister was, of course, that we should not be pursuing anyone if they have not committed a criminal offence. But from my reading in this area and in examining the sorts of things which, in my very brief overview, I can see occur in other jurisdictions, I do not think it is sufficient simply to await the commission of a criminal offence.

I want to go back for a moment to some more of the information that was provided to us during the briefing, in particular this fairly rapid and dramatic escalation in the size and number of chapters of outlaw motorcycle gangs in this state, and, of course, outlaw motorcycle gangs are the main target of the legislation, although the wording does not ever actually identify that that is who we are after.

We were told that the Finks, for instance, have expanded rapidly over the last five years. Whereas it used to take two or three years to become a prospective member, it now only takes a matter of months. The Hell's Angels are also expanding. Some, like the Rebels, are tightly controlled, but others, like the Finks, do not have such a strict structure, although they might still have a nominated spokesperson when they are making public statements, and so on.

The nature of the criminal activity in which motorcycle gangs are becoming involved is also becoming more sophisticated as time goes by. They are increasingly not just penetrating but actually taking over as owners of legitimate businesses primarily to launder money which may have been obtained illegitimately.

As was indicated in my secret squirrel discussions with the biker, there are still strong links to ethnicity. There are increasing links to the young in our street gangs, and they are increasingly recruiting from the ranks of the street gangs. Up until now they have been difficult to prosecute and, in fact, we were told about various features that protect and insulate these gangs: the code of silence; their use of intimidation and violence; the way in which they insulate the principals; the way they infiltrate government agencies, which, of course, could include the police; but also just their reputation tends to facilitate some of their behaviour.

I mentioned at the briefing my constant annoyance, even before I became a member of this place, when, every year, there would be a motorcycle run up through a particular area of the Riverland, and every year the bikers would camp on an open ground opposite the main street leading down to the river. And, every year, the police would not take action and, every year, my instinct, being the contrary thing that I am, was to go up there and camp by the river myself the next day to see if I would be arrested. It seemed to me that, as a law-abiding citizen, I should have at least the rights of every other person in the state, including those who quite obviously and blatantly flout the law.

Up until now, of course, our police have been doing the very best that they can to address the issue of our outlaw motorcycle gangs and, indeed, set up Avatar in 2001, and that continued until last year. That targeted serious crime, violence and antisocial behaviour. Then, in October 2007, the Crime Gangs Task Force was put in place, and that has 23 members and has been reasonably successful in removing firearms, some 400 of which have been taken, as well as fairly high loads of cannabis, ecstasy, and so on—about $3 million worth.

My view is that the police in this state are genuine in their attempts to address the increasing problems of outlaw motorcycle gangs and other illegal activity-based organisations. We were advised that they had conducted international research in trying to develop this bill. They were also seeking some New Zealand coordination, and, indeed, the whole issue had been put on the COAG agenda so that they could get some national and New Zealand coordination. It is clear from what I said earlier about some of the other jurisdictions that coordination will become increasingly necessary because, clearly, the activities of these gangs do not restrict themselves to the state in which we are legislating.

The view of SAPOL is that outlawing motorcycle gangs will not achieve the desired results, and that we are best served by focusing on the association's activities as the best means of disrupting their activities. The new bill seeks to address the senior associations and the inner sanctums, and it has not been modelled, as I understand it, on any of the other jurisdictions that I have talked about or, indeed, anything else internationally. They have tried to look at what escape clause is currently used and to adapt and block them in anticipation. But, as I previously mentioned, up until now, legislation generally has been reactive in that it tries to address the problem after a crime has been committed rather than trying to deal with it in anticipation.

I will not go through the various bits of the models any more, but there are just a couple of things I want to talk about at some length. A letter arrived at my desk addressed, amongst other people, to the Premier and to Michael Atkinson, as well as the Prime Minister. I got this only when I went back to my office at the dinner break. It states:

Due to the chronic incompetence of the State Attorney-General, the Mayor of the Charles Sturt Council and the State Premier, the lives of the children at our Islamic school are being put in severe danger every day. The Finks bikie gang and their associates and motorcycle drug runners are terrorising us by their drug dealing activities and their hoon driving opposite the park where our children play.

Interestingly, I have also heard another comment to the effect that, in some ways, people are sometimes better off with a motorcycle gang headquarters in their area because no-one dares to go there as a hoon driver; they are not going to go there and upset the motorcycle people. The letter continues:

They hang around opposite our school dealing drugs, sending their motorbike drug couriers all over Adelaide and planning their activities, then racing up the street at top speed. Some day soon a child will be killed and all those who have done nothing will have blood on their hands.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: What a disgrace, reading a racist, anonymous letter into the record of Hansard!

Mrs REDMOND: The Attorney says that it is a racist, anonymous letter. I certainly will agree with him that it is anonymous, but I do not know where he gets the idea that it is racist. It seems to be—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mrs Geraghty interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Torrens.

Mrs REDMOND: The letter goes on to state:

We have written repeatedly to the AG, Mayor and Premier telling them in the clearest terms of the dangers posed by the Finks bikie gang and their associates to the lives of our children.

It is certainly an anonymous letter.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: As are all the others, and Charles Sturt Council has no record of this request.

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mrs REDMOND: In the case of people who are in fear of reprisals from a bikie gang, I can well understand that someone might choose to raise the issues with authorities anonymously.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: Anonymously.

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mrs REDMOND: Whilst as a general rule, like other members, I am very reluctant to rely on anonymous information, it is nevertheless appropriate to raise in this chamber the sort of information that is being put to us as a concern in our community.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: You just wanted to read it because of the first line.

Mrs REDMOND: Absolutely. They go on later in the letter to say:

We cannot risk coming forward, but the police simply use this as an excuse to do nothing saying they can't do anything unless the community comes forward and gives evidence.

Therein is the crux of the issue that I have been trying to talk about, that there is this difficulty with the code of silence, with the nature of bikie gangs and intimidation. Whether this particular—

Mrs Geraghty interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mrs REDMOND: —circumstance is true or whether this is simply illustrative of—

Mrs Geraghty interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Torrens!

Mrs REDMOND: —the nature of the intimidation that can occur, it is an important issue in our community to ensure that—

Mrs Geraghty interjecting:

The SPEAKER: I warn the member for Torrens.

Mrs REDMOND: —people who are feeling threatened have the ability to come forward, secure in the knowledge that they will be safe. The point of this legislation, surely, is to guarantee that people can come forward with a degree of confidence, knowing that they will not be threatened, intimidated or, indeed, attacked by anyone. Whether this particular incident is true or not is not relevant to the point that I am making about this letter. I am sure that there are lots of letters, particularly anonymous letters, that are not—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr Pederick: Chuck him out.

The SPEAKER: I do not need the assistance of the member for Hammond, thank you.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The Attorney-General will come to order. I do suggest though, that the member for Heysen return to the subject of the bill.

Mrs REDMOND: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I would put it to you, sir, that this is precisely on the subject of the bill, being concerned with the control of outlaw motorcycle gangs in this state.

Mrs GERAGHTY: I rise on a point of order. I would ask that you examine the opportunities for members to stand in this house and read anonymous letters that make certain allegations without any basis.

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Torrens will take her seat. There is no point of order. If any member takes issue with something that has been said by the member for Heysen they can do it either in the course of their speech on the bill, or the Attorney in the course of his reply, or by way of personal explanation, but I do suggest to the member for Heysen that in order to assist me in the good conduct of the debate she moves on and gets back to the subject of the bill.

Mrs REDMOND: Sir, I say again that this letter is precisely on the subject of the bill. The whole thrust of this bill is directed to—

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: I rise on a point of order.

The SPEAKER: Order! The Attorney can take his seat. I am not going to engage in a debate. The standing orders do provide for the chair to sit down a member if the chair is of the belief that the member speaking is engaging in tedious repetition or is not speaking to the subject of the bill. I have asked the member for Heysen to move on; she has made her point about this letter. I do not want to be overly restrictive on what the member for Heysen can say in the course of her debate, but she has made her point and I suggest very strongly that she moves on and does not engage in debate with the chair.

Mrs REDMOND: Thank you, sir. I will not engage in debate with the chair. I will simply say that 'methinks he doth protest too much' applies to the Attorney-General and the member for Torrens in their response to this information. I agree, it is an anonymous letter. I have no evidence whatsoever as to the truth of this.

Mrs GERAGHTY: I rise on a point of order, based on what the member opposite has said. It would be possible for a member to write an anonymous letter to themselves. I am certainly not suggesting the member did that.

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Torrens will take her seat. There is no point of order. Let us just move on, please.

Mrs REDMOND: I indicate that I do not agree that it is inappropriate for me to canvass the contents of this letter as part of the debate. It is neither being repetitious nor is it away from the subject matter of this bill.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mrs REDMOND: However, that said, in deference to yourself, sir, I will move on to another part of the debate. In addition, over the dinner break, as it happens, I had a phone call from a criminal barrister and also a message from a criminal barrister saying, 'What have they got to be afraid of with judicial review?' Of course, that is one of the areas that I feel some concern about. The Attorney-General keeps trying to beat up some sort of difference and he appears to have succeeded in terms of the news—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr PENGILLY: Mr Speaker, I draw your attention to the state of the house.

A quorum having been formed:

Mrs REDMOND: I was just about to say that the Attorney-General seems to be intent on trying to create an appearance of division within the Liberal Party when there is no such division at all. Indeed, I discussed his speech with the leader before he made it this afternoon, and I was perfectly comfortable with what he had to say.

There is a difference between extending the powers so that they might be more effective in fighting the organised bikie gangs or other organised criminal associations, and narrowing the scope so that it cannot in fact capture and harm innocent people.

Prior to the terrorism legislation, I had considerable misgivings about what potentially could happen if that legislation were misused. As far as I know, our state terrorism legislation has not been misused. I have certainly not been aware of it. Clearly we have an instance of the commonwealth legislation being misused on at least one quite public occasion.

The Liberal Party position is this: we have no difficulty in supporting the thrust of this bill. We have no difficulty in even contemplating a number of possible extensions of the bill. I detailed some of those earlier when I went through the legislative approaches that have been taken under the RICO legislation in America; under the New York crime control legislation; and under the New Zealand legislation; the Canadian legislation; the Italian legislation and the Netherlands legislation.

In each of those, if members look at my comments, they will see that various aspects were worthy of consideration as to possible use in our context. Clearly many of them will not be immediately transferable into our situation, but there are things like plea bargaining as a very open option and indeed the supergrass provisions that exist under some legislation. Things such as the evidentiary provisions, particularly the evidentiary provisions which allow for the taking into evidence of statements made prior to someone's disappearance, could well be applicable in our jurisdiction in due course.

I am not suggesting that we are going to move amendments to do that at the moment, because I think we will want to await the application of this legislation and how it works in practice before we make any decisions about taking matters further. But there is absolutely no inconsistency between saying that we may need to go further in targeting our activities against outlaw motorcycle gangs or other criminal organisations and saying that, at the same time, we may need to narrow the scope of the legislation to ensure that it does not do collateral damage to the freedoms in our community that we generally enjoy in this state.

I have said previously in public statements that, in my view, it is much more likely that we will be affected in this state by the activities of criminal organisations than by terrorism. Adelaide seems to me to be a relatively quiet backwater in terms of the potential for a terrorist attack.

The Hon. P.F. Conlon: Careful with that word; not a backwater.

Mrs REDMOND: Only in terms of the potential for a terrorist attack, and I am sure that everyone in Adelaide would be happy to be a backwater in terms of a terrorist attack. In no other respect do I consider Adelaide or South Australia a backwater.

We are much more likely in this state to be affected by gang fights, bikie gangs, their illegal drug activities, their shootings—and we seem to have had under the watch of this government a dramatic increase in the number of shootings which occur in the streets, with little response from the government. I am pleased that at last it is making some response to it.

There is no inconsistency. There is no dispute between the leader and me. There is no difficulty. There is no division within our party. We merely say it may need to go further in its targeting of organised crime but it may need to be narrowed to ensure that the very people we are after are the only people we get and that we do not have the collateral damage of inadvertently damaging other people who do not deserve the force of this law.

That said, I expect that we may indeed move amendments ourselves in due course and that may be in another place. They were going to be in this house, except for the fact that this bill has been brought on so unexpectedly this week because of a government that wants to grab every media opportunity that it can.

We do recognise the need to address these issues; to address them in terms of group behaviour; to address them in terms of trying to flatten the hierarchical structure whereby people at the head of these organisations remain immune from capture and prosecution; and perhaps to change the expectations in terms of evidence and the way in which evidence is gathered and what evidence might be acceptable in a court.

In terms of addressing the issue, it will be important to learn the lessons from the other jurisdictions to which I have referred; and to recognise that we cannot apply traditional criminal law to successfully combat organisations which are well resourced, which have an enormous capacity to use the existing legal system to their benefit and which have no disincentives for engaging with these organisations.

I dispute the statements of the Attorney-General about this issue in his interviews on the television tonight. Again, the Attorney completely misinterpreted, as he often deliberately does, the nature of what was being said by this side of the house. The Attorney has a propensity in this chamber to put on the record his interpretation regardless of its—

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Koutsantonis): Order! There is a point of order.

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: I rise on a point of order, Mr Acting Speaker. The member for Heysen said that I have a propensity to misinterpret deliberately. That implies male fides, and it is against the standing orders. I ask her to withdraw.

Mrs REDMOND: Sir, you had better get a ruling on it.

The ACTING SPEAKER: I will.

Members interjecting:

The ACTING SPEAKER: Order!

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The ACTING SPEAKER: Order! The member for Bragg is warned for speaking out of her seat. If she interjects one more time I will name her and throw her out.

Members interjecting:

The ACTING SPEAKER: Order! The house will not descend into chaos. I do not uphold the point of order. I ask the member for Heysen to continue her remarks.

Mrs REDMOND: Thank you, Mr Acting Speaker; good decision.

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The ACTING SPEAKER: Order! I have warned the member for Bragg once already.

Mrs REDMOND: It is nevertheless, in spite of his interruption, the case that the Attorney-General often chooses to put on the record statements which he tries to attribute to me or members on this side of the house, and particularly put interpretations on statements which are simply not correct, and he does so as a regular occurrence in this house. I mention that and his propensity to interject constantly whenever I am on my feet in this chamber, in spite of the fact that all it does is make the speech go on for that much longer every time. They are the two hallmarks—no, actually there are three hallmarks: his pedantry and—

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: I rise on a point of order, Mr Acting Speaker. This ad hominem criticism is nothing to do with the bill, sir.

The ACTING SPEAKER: Order! I do uphold the point of order. The honourable member will return to her remarks regarding the bill.

Mrs REDMOND: Thank you, Mr Acting Speaker. I do accept your very wise ruling, and I agree that it was not on the bill. You will be pleased to know, Mr Speaker, that I am reaching the conclusion of my remarks, but I did want to cover this issue of what appeared on the news coverage tonight. I did not see them all but I did receive some phone calls and I did see some of them. It is clear that there is a misinterpretation of the statements by me and by the Leader of the Opposition. The Leader of the Opposition was merely saying, 'We need to consider the possibility of having to go further in the approach that we take against these outlaw motorcycle gangs.' I was saying that, given that I accept that that may well be the case, we may need to narrow the scope so that we ensure that we do not target people who do not deserve the full force of this law, because it is breaking new ground.

As I said on the news, it is draconian (even in the words of the Attorney-General's own chief of staff), and it is making vast changes to what we have accepted for hundreds of years as the basis upon which we will conduct our legal processes by giving everyone due process, the benefit of the presumption of innocence and the benefit of the criminal burden of proof so that the charges against them must be proved beyond reasonable doubt. When we start infringing upon those guaranteed rights which we have had and which have served us so well for so long, we do need to take time to consider carefully the implications.

Whilst any legislation such as this is aimed at correcting a wrong, it is nevertheless the case that we as legislators have an obligation to look not only at where the legislation is intended to address the problem but also at where might its unintended consequences find us and what harm could result from unintended consequences of well-intentioned legislation. At this stage, I will conclude my remarks and allow some other speakers to have a brief say. I am sure that other members do have some concerns about the level of control over certain issues that will be given to certain individuals within this state. I therefore conclude my remarks.

The ACTING SPEAKER: The father of the house will be heard in silence. The member for Stuart.

Mr Pederick: I doubt it!

The ACTING SPEAKER: Order! I said that he will be heard in silence; he has earned it.

The Hon. G.M. GUNN (Stuart) (20:05): Thank you, Mr Acting Speaker. It does take me some effort to get into a position to make a few comments in this house. This particular legislation has many features about it which need some explanations from the Attorney. Now, I have no difficulty in dealing with criminal elements, bikie gangs and their associates. I understand that their tentacles are spread fairly widely, and I am aware that they are engaged in some very nasty business and carrying out some horrendous crimes. My concern is that ordinary law-abiding citizens can get caught up and are subjected to some of these provisions. Well, nice person that she is, I am surprised that the member for Torrens would frown at me, because it is our role in this parliament to question the government. Once a measure leaves this parliament we lose all control over it, and we have no further involvement. Members of parliament want to—

Mrs Geraghty interjecting:

The Hon. G.M. GUNN: Well, I will give an example in a minute. Members of parliament want to be very careful, and we need to put on the record some undertakings, explanations and changes because when we pass it and the average citizen is confronted by the government, its agencies, inspectors or the police they do not have the same ability to defend themselves or stand up for their rights as we have. It is concerning to me that the average law-abiding citizen can be confronted by an officer.

I will give you an example of when I got quite a surprise. It was on Australia Day. I was going about my lawful business as a law-abiding member of this community. I had been to the Australia Day breakfast at Peterborough. I was quietly driving between Peterborough and Wilmington. As I was coming along, all the police vehicle's lights began flashing as they came up behind me. The officer in one of those dual cab vehicles said to me—I am sure that the Acting Speaker will like this—'This is a random breath test.' I said, 'That's not a problem.' He did that. Then he inquired where I was going. I said to him, 'Well, we live in a free society. I'm happy to tell you what I'm doing and where I'm going, but it's really not your concern.'

Then he wanted to know my name. I offered him my driver's licence. He did not want that. He wanted to know my name and address. He questioned whether that was my address. That was okay. Then he wanted my age. I said to him, 'What is the purpose of this? You've recorded my name.' I do not think that, in a democracy, it is the role of the police to record people's names. We are a free society. I said, 'Look, I've seen draconian police forces where they point machine guns at you.' I have seen that and I had been to Checkpoint Charlie before the wall came down. I have been on the train going through; I have seen all that. I know what it is like and I do not think much of it. He said, 'What is your occupation?' I told him that I was a farmer and member of parliament—

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. G.M. GUNN: No, I had not finished with him yet. I do not think that he had any right to record my name and address. He said, 'It is my right to seek the name of a person driving a motor car.' I said, 'Yes, I'm aware of that, but not to record it.' When I spoke to his chief superintendent I said that I wanted to know who has access to that information, why was it recorded and how long do they keep it? He said to me, 'I've seen your car earlier today.' I said, 'If you were observant, you would have seen it parked outside the town hall at Peterborough where I made a speech and a presentation to the mayor.' I thought to myself, 'Well, what sort of'—

Mrs Redmond interjecting:

The Hon. G.M. GUNN: I think I have got some limited ability to defend myself, and I am a retiring character, but I think it is appalling. Now we have this legislation which says you have to give your personal details. We have the objects of the bill and people have the right to go to court to object.

I put to the Attorney-General that it does not say in this legislation what steps a person has to take. Do they have to get a lawyer, or can they write to the Chief Justice themselves to have an objection heard? We are entitled to know and I want to know because, if there is no explanation, then I am happy to count members, remembering that a constituent may suddenly have one of these orders imposed upon them. Most people have no idea what their rights are, or what their entitlements are, so they have to go and get a member of the esteemed and honourable legal profession, and, as well-meaning and charitable as they are, most of them charge a fair sort of stipend. They are not—

Mrs Redmond: Charities.

The Hon. G.M. GUNN: No, some good people like Marie Shaw have done a fair bit of that in the past, and I will say something more about the attack made on her on another occasion. I want to know what sort of steps a person has to take to exercise that right to object. I would say to members that if John Smith, the ordinary citizen, who may live anywhere, is suddenly confronted by a senior police officer and has one of these orders served on him, is there an obligation on the police officer to tell him what his rights are? Is there an obligation to say, 'Well, if you want to object to this, this is the declaration form you have,' because in many cases it would be a quite frightening experience.

If they are the scoundrels, the villains and the ones who are money laundering, they will have access to lawyers, make no mistake about that. It is going to be those people who have a very limited association, who are really not crooks or criminals, who may be barred from associating with people or have all sorts of other draconian measures inflicted upon them. It is not the role of this parliament to make life as difficult for average citizens as it possibly can. It is all very well to get the headline, to get all the media hype, but we must understand the difficulties in the real world. It is like this nonsense where you have a minister talking about wanting people to permanently carry their driver's licences. What an imposition. What a lot of nonsense. What a breach of people's democratic rights that is. Let me say to the Government Whip, if she thinks that is a good thing, it will be an issue in the rural areas next week, make no mistake. I can assure her of that, because it is absolute nonsense.

Mrs Geraghty interjecting:

The ACTING SPEAKER: Order! I have a lot of respect and affection for the Government Whip, but I suggest that we get back to the bill.

The Hon. G.M. GUNN: I would be happy to get back, but I would be happy to debate that issue with the honourable member anywhere, anytime. I can give her examples, but the same thing applies in this situation, because the average person is not going to be aware of the sort of requirements that are going to be placed upon them. Because if they get served with these orders, it sets out a list of things they cannot do. It does not set out the things they can do, but things they cannot do.

I say to the Attorney-General, as Her Majesty's chief law officer, that I want to know. Clause 17 needs full explanation. It says:

A person on whom a control order has been served may, within 14 days of service of the order or such longer period as the court may allow, lodge a notice of objection with the court.

A person has to know that they can go to court, and the person has to know how to do it.

Mrs Redmond: And which court.

The Hon. G.M. GUNN: That is right, in which court. Then it says that the grounds must be stated fully and in detail in the notice of objection. Some of these people would not have any idea how to do that. Then it says that a copy of the notice must be served by the objector on the commissioner by registered post at least seven days before the appointed time for the hearing of the notice. That is great but, if you get the notice because it was stuck on your door, that does not have to be registered. The Attorney-General can read his book, but I really want some answers to these questions. Then it goes on to say the court can vary or revoke. There is the right to appeal to the Supreme Court, but I do not know whether you can go to the Supreme Court without taking along a member of the legal profession.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: Of course you can.

The Hon. G.M. GUNN: And how well do you think that person would get on when they are being confronted by the Crown and its agencies who have all the legal expertise at their disposal? How do you think they are going to get on? Lots of people unfortunately do not have the ability to defend themselves. It would be quite a confronting issue. Those of us who have had a bit of practice in public do not find that such a difficult course of action to take.

The bill then states that a senior police officer may make public safety orders, and it talks about declared organisations and other particular things. It says that a public safety order may prohibit a specified person or specified classes of persons from entering specified premises, attending a specified event, entering or being within a specified area; and, if a public safety order prohibits attendance at a specified event, the order may, in specifying the event, include associated events or activities, provided that the associated activities occur on the same day as the principal event. So obviously they are going to keep people away from large sporting events, motor car rallies and those sorts of things.

I suppose that is fine, but some of the associated people would not be aware of the sorts of restrictions. What I want to know from the Attorney-General is this: when a person is served with one of these orders, will it specify in detail where they are restricted from going, for how long, and who the associates are? We are entitled to know, because if this parliament passes this law, it is going to put draconian powers in the hands of the police, the Attorney, and others, and we have an absolute responsibility to vigorously cross-examine and check this particular matter.

I note that the member for Mitchell has a number of suggestions which I think are certainly worthy of further consideration. I think it is absolutely essential that the courts—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson interjecting:

The Hon. G.M. GUNN: Look, I have read this very carefully, and can I say there are other things I would rather be doing tonight than being here, but I—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson interjecting:

The Hon. G.M. GUNN: Look, if the honourable member wanted me to filibuster, I could, and I could keep you here on these clauses for hours. That is not my intention. But it is my intention—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: That is the game.

The Hon. G.M. GUNN: Well, I think it is rather unfortunate that those of us who have seen some pretty terrible things done to people in our time as members of this place—people who have not had the ability to defend themselves and who have been the victims of quite disgraceful bureaucratic decision making—have had to take all sorts of actions to try to help those people.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: Gunny, if you had read the bill you would be able to answer the questions.

The ACTING SPEAKER: Order! The father of the house will be heard in silence.

The Hon. G.M. GUNN: It is not my job—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson interjecting:

The ACTING SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. G.M. GUNN: It is not my job to be counselled by the Attorney-General. It is his job, as the responsible minister, to respond to this debate. I have read it, and I have just finished reading the book on Roma Mitchell and I do not think she would like some of these provisions, I can tell you. I would think that if the Attorney-General had to present this bill to her when she was governor, she would have put him through the third degree. I say to you, Mr Acting Speaker, that if the Speaker of this parliament had to take a bill of this nature today to Roma Mitchell, she would have wanted answers to quite a range of questions. She had the ability to ask very difficult questions about legislation and she would have wanted to know which minister was responsible for it, I can tell you. So, the Attorney-General would have a cross-examination and it perhaps would have been interesting to be standing on the side listening. It would have been very interesting.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: You sound more like Trevor Griffin the older you get.

The ACTING SPEAKER: Order! The father of the house has every right to be heard in silence.

The Hon. G.M. GUNN: Let me just say in conclusion that there are a number of questions and we should not rubber stamp this legislation, because ordinary John Citizens can be affected, and most likely will be unintentionally affected, and therefore we are entitled to clear and precise answers so that if protections are available they can clearly be put on the public record. I say this because the Minister for Transport gave some clear undertakings during the passage of a bill in relation to the transport industry and I have said to some of my constituents who have had experiences, 'This is what the minister said. Take this back to the bureaucrat, because if they do not come to the party let me know and we will name them in the house as quick as a flash.' I can tell you that a couple are about to get named because they become a law unto themselves. So, I am looking forward to the Attorney's response because I think there are a lot of questions in relation to this bill. I urge the Attorney and other members to go through it and understand what the end result could be.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: You won't be here when I reply.

The ACTING SPEAKER: Order!

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (20:23): The vast majority of South Australian citizens are decent law-abiding people who observe the laws of the land and respect others as individuals with a right to freedom of action and opinion. That vast majority of South Australian citizens abhor the activities of lawless gangs who trample on the rights and freedom of others, seemingly without challenge.

We all expect our laws to be rigorous enough to demand reasonable standards of public behaviour in the community and law enforcement agencies to be able to maintain those standards. I applaud the government's intent to give police more power to deal with the criminal elements in our community, but these changes throw the weight of responsibility for identification and judgment of others onto the general public who will be in fear of losing their own freedom if they get it wrong.

In its attempt to beef up existing laws, it has the potential to further divide our communities and cause innocent, well-meaning people to be tarred with the misguided sweep of a very broad brush. There are many clubs, not necessarily motorcycle clubs, whose mission it is to reach out to others in the community who are considering changing their ways, people who perhaps fell into a life of crime and now wish to climb out of it. Are these people to be damned for their efforts and found guilty by association? Keep in mind that police will not need to prove that there was any illegal or dishonest intent in that association no matter what form it took. Half a dozen telephone accounts prove association and will suffice to issue an order.

We have condemned the old French system of justice for years—guilty until proven innocent—but at least it provided the opportunity to prove innocence. In this bill there is no recourse and no right of appeal; the mud will stick. Members of legitimate motorcycle clubs statewide have indicated to me their unhappiness and concern with this change. One senior motorcycle rider made the point that not all coloured bike riders—that is, members of identifiable bikie groups—are bad guys. Many of them, for their own reasons, seek to contribute to the honest endeavours of other groups and to assist the less fortunate in our community. Participation in events such as the annual toy run and the ANZAC Day ride offer opportunities for exchange of ideas and values.

There are members of clubs who already have a criminal record and who seek to assist others to reform their criminal ways. Are they to be denied membership and their honest endeavours lost to the community? Anonymous tip-offs, though well intended, can cause upset to the activities of law-abiding citizens. One motorcycle club member described to me the time a club run into the Adelaide Hills was challenged by the sudden appearance of the Crime Gangs Investigation Unit asking for a 'please explain'. This was in response to a call from a member of the public who had rung the police to report bikies in the streets. Police advised the ride captain to give them prior notice of a club run. As he said, it is not always possible for this to happen as many rides or destinations are spontaneous.

Motorcycle riders I have contacted express concern that these laws infringe their rights to freedom of movement and freedom of association. I believe that the judiciary is also unhappy with the apparent lack of normal legal processes to ensure fairness and accountability in the system. Yes, we need to do something about the lawlessness and harm caused to everyday life by the uncontrolled activities of gangs: no fair-minded person would disagree with that. But let us target the illegal activities and those who perform them. Let us identify the symptoms and infrastructure of their activities and look to break down their culture through sensible laws that protect the rights of the broader community, rather than deprive the community of the very liberties we seek to defend.

I wish to share the example of a friend of mine who owns a Harley-Davidson Soft Tail. He works on the oilfields in New Guinea and rides around on this Harley with a couple of friends when he comes back to Adelaide on leave. What is going to happen to him? He is a harmless person just going on a weekend ride when he is back here in Adelaide.

The legislation is on the right track but it will have to be carefully enacted to make sure that law-abiding citizens are not caught up in it, because many people could unknowingly associate with a member or members of a declared organisation.

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (20:29): The Attorney-General has advised the house that this is a bill to provide for the making of a declaration and orders for the purposes of disrupting and restricting the activities of criminal organisations, their members and associates. I think we can accept that objective in itself as meritorious. I suppose the bigger question is why we need it. What have we done, or failed to do, to date which has left us inadequate to manage the criminal activities of organisations which seem to sit above and beyond the law?

In the last six years that I have sat in this chamber, the government has presented to us many bills to increase the penalties and sanctions for illegal and inappropriate conduct that has attracted these higher penalties. Largely, the opposition has supported the government when it has said that this is important as an instrument of deterrence and a means of ensuring that the penalty is commensurate with the community expectation in respect of illegal and inappropriate conduct.

The power to tear down and remove fortresses has been presented to us as being necessary, particularly in terms of those who have the sanctuary afforded by such structures for residing, meeting, planning or carrying out illegal activity without surveillance. The government says that it has been necessary for us to support that measure so as to enable it to ensure there is a breakdown of the capacity for these organisations to carry out criminal activity. We have supported that argument.

The government has called upon us to increase the power to confiscate assets where it has been assessed that they are ill-gotten gains acquired through illegal conduct, and we have supported that. With the expansion of other police powers, we have attempted to support the government in every way to deal with what is a real and pressing danger in our community, involving the existence and expansion of organisations which have a web of protection around them. We have supported the government's attempts to stop such organisations from flourishing and, indeed, to restrict that.

I may be wrong but, bearing in mind a shooting that occurred the other day and the continuing problem of crime occurring in areas particularly involving drugs, it seems to me that, with all the extra legislative measures that we have given it, the government has not only failed to deal with this issue but failed even to arrest its expansion. Now the government has come to us saying, after taking into account certain threshold steps that an attorney-general needs to apply, 'Well, we need to have a set of laws which will enable us to introduce control orders and public safety orders over these organisations and even to introduce laws to prevent association with them.'

If the ultimate objective here is actually to have the effect of diminishing and undermining the activity of these groups, then the opposition will support that. As has been indicated by the member for Heysen, this is something that we take extremely seriously. We look forward to supporting the government where we see such measures having an effect. I am concerned that, with all the action taken by the government to date and with our support in this regard, we have reports from the government—particularly the Attorney-General in this house—of weapons confiscated; arrests made, offenders prosecuted and illegal drugs seized, yet I am still to hear about how many members of outlaw motorcycle gangs have been put behind bars. With all that armoury of legislation and with all the extension of powers that we have granted, I do not know whether it has made one scrap of difference in impeding these outlaw motorcycle gangs and organisations from going about their business.

I want to speak about what I find so offensive about their business. I, along with other members of the opposition, have been willing to support the government in trying to arrest the cultivation, distribution and selling of illicit drugs. It is totally unacceptable and offensive that, despite the web of legislation that we have to articulate our concern about this matter and to make it an offence to cultivate (albeit with some limitation), sell and make illegal drugs available, anyone would peddle illicit drugs and make money out of the considerable dysfunction, disease and death caused to young people. I find it particularly abhorrent. It concerns me that these motorcycle gangs and criminal organisations, which purport to have a significant share of this market activity—and I have no reason to doubt that—are able to continue to proliferate and carry out this activity. So, if there is a way of dealing with that, I am happy to support it.

I place on the record that, unless we deal with these organisations, which seem to have cornered the market in this respect, I think there will be a number of consequences. One is that the number of victims will increase, and these organisations will continue to penetrate and infiltrate activities in our community which are ostensibly acceptable and respectable.

We can restrict their activities in nightclubs, and we can do all these other things, but I think we need to understand that these people are living among us; their children are going to our children's schools; they are buying things at the local supermarket where we shop; and they are operating legitimate businesses. This is the insidious nature of the situation: they are not easily identified, but their work is penetrating and dangerous, and I accept that.

As for the victims, I was disturbed to hear that we have an increasing number of babies in South Australia who are born drug dependent. Last year's statistic is 90 babies born to drug addict mothers. One baby is born, then, every four days in South Australia with a drug addiction. If the mother of that baby has been using heroin, for example, the sentence imposed on that newborn baby is multiple, but one of them is that they usually have to undertake a six to eight week course of treatment involving methadone injections (this is to a newborn baby) in order to stabilise that situation and enable them to continue to function without all the traumas of withdrawal that go with a cessation of that drug being supplied in their blood system.

That is horrific enough. But consider for a moment what happens to that baby after its period of hospitalisation. Often these babies are born prematurely, so they tend to spend a little longer in hospital than most young babies. What happens to them after a period when they have been in the care of a nurse or foster carer to provide and administer the treatment? Those babies, of course, more than likely will not be placed back in the care of their natural mother—for good reason, if the mother is still an addict and is unable to manage that addiction. That baby is then sentenced to a life away from its natural mother.

Sadly, the capacity for heroin addicts to recover permanently from their addiction is not a very good statistic. But what about the other babies who are born to addicted mothers, who are unable to even understand the significance of having their baby in a safe circumstance when it is born? We see cases where babies are left abandoned in public places; we hear of cases of babies who are stillborn and abandoned; and, of course, there is the miscarriage statistic.

These are all direct consequences of what happens when we end up with drug dependent youth, which is usually the profile with which we are dealing. That is one of the tragic groups for whom we have to pick up the pieces. Many of our young people who are victims of illicit drug dependence become alienated from employment opportunities and from the positive relationships which help them have fruitful lives and livelihoods. I think that that is a shocking situation, particularly when we are living in a time of great opportunity for our young people to have secure and meaningful employment. Unfortunately for the people concerned, their lives are on the way to becoming wasted; they are deteriorating and facing an early and tragic death.

I do not think that there is any argument against taking action that helps prevent those sorts of outcomes. These are very real human, tragic statistics that come out of our failure to deal with the management and containment of addiction to illicit drugs. In that sense, I look forward to seeing any means by which that state of affairs can be reined in.

What concerns me is that, on the one hand, we have this legislation and, on the other hand, I recently heard of the government's decision to deal with the effective restriction of use of opiate-based drugs for pain relief. Here we have a situation where we are talking about the use of morphine-based drugs, which are legal but which are regulated—for good reason. We note that, if medications are potentially addictive, there must be very strict regulation of them.

Yet, here is an ironic twist, in that, while we are dealing with a bill which seeks to give the police and the Attorney-General greater power to deal with the hideous outcomes that exist for victims in our community, I cite the example of a young police officer who is dependent on a pain-relieving drug, access to which this government, through its action, has determined to reduce, thereby potentially—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson interjecting:

Ms CHAPMAN: I will come to that.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: And the relevance is?

Ms CHAPMAN: We are talking about police officers.

Mrs GERAGHTY: On a point of order, as interesting as the member's contribution is, I fail to see the link with the bill with which we are dealing.

The ACTING SPEAKER: I will uphold the point of order, but give a wide scope to the member for Bragg to continue her remarks. However, I would ask her to please return to the bill.

Ms CHAPMAN: I certainly will, Mr Acting Speaker. This is a bill which offers police officers and the Attorney-General greater power, and the government is acting to deal with the issue, in connection with which I will name just one police officer who is out there every day in a patrol car with another officer apprehending criminals. He has been a victim of a substantial injury back in 1984, for which he had multiple operations. He has, with the assistance of treatment and, in particular, a regulated but accrued medication of Kapanol to enable him to actually continue, having had it—

Mrs Geraghty interjecting:

Ms CHAPMAN: He is a police officer.

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: I rise on a point of order. Mr Acting Speaker, the member for Bragg is defying your ruling by continuing to talk on a topic which has no relationship whatsoever to the legislation.

The ACTING SPEAKER: I uphold the point of order, while not paying much attention to the member for Bragg's contributions, and I apologise for that, but if she could please return to the topic at hand.

An honourable member interjecting:

The ACTING SPEAKER: I am sorry, I do not mean to offend.

Ms CHAPMAN: I am happy to do that, and to identify that when we look at this sort of legislation, which is aimed at giving more police officers the power to deal with these, it is of concern to me that the government should act in a manner which will have the direct effect of actually reducing the number out there. So, they come up with this type of rush to try to appease the public for their failure to have dealt with these criminal organisations in the six years that we have been here and, in fact, they have exploded in their expansion, and they come limping in here to try to actually cover their backs as to their failure to deal with this. On the other hand, their conduct in their government management is having the effect of actually reducing the capacity of the police officers to even go out there and do their job.

I will come back to this another day, Mr Acting Speaker. I am happy to accept your ruling not to go into the detail of it today, of course, but I do say: don't be inconsistent. This is a government which continues to be inconsistent. We had the Treasurer announce, in May 2006, and I quote, 'Our health situation is in such disarray, financially, we have such a burden of a health budget, I am going to have to put that off for six months and you will get your budget down the track. In fact, I am going to get the advice from an expert from New South Wales to help us in this', and yet—

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: I rise on a point of order. The member for Bragg is now talking about the health budget on a serious and organised crime bill. I would ask you to bring her back to the topic.

The ACTING SPEAKER: I am attempting to do so. Deputy Leader of the Opposition, can you please return your remarks to the bill.

Ms CHAPMAN: If ever there was an effect of the government's failure to deal with organised crime and the rampant allowance, therefore, of drugs out in the community and if ever there was an effect on the health of South Australians it is that. It is incredible to me that the government should come in here, having failed to deal with organised crime, and complain about a burgeoning health budget.

Time expired.

Mr GOLDSWORTHY (Kavel) (20:49): I will make a brief contribution to the legislation before the parliament. I am pleased to speak in support of the state Liberal position in terms of supporting the bill. It is my understanding that the substance of this legislation is basically to outlaw groups of people within the community who are linked to criminal activity, and to give certain powers to the Attorney-General, whoever the Attorney-General of the day may be, the courts and the police to minimise the likelihood of these people, who are linked to organisations that are known to engage in criminal activity, from congregating. That is the substance of the legislation, and I would be interested to hear from the Attorney-General if he disagrees with my—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: Analysis?

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: —my analysis, albeit reasonably brief, in relation to the—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson interjecting:

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: Well, I can go on. I can use my whole 19 minutes if the Attorney-General likes, because I have reasonably detailed notes on the legislation, which cover declared organisations, control orders, public safety orders and other offences. So, I have got quite detailed notes, if the Attorney-General wants to try to diminish my contribution. Nevertheless, we have become used to the Attorney-General's antics in the house over the past six or so years.

Mrs Redmond interjecting:

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: Indeed. The member for Heysen describes the Attorney-General's behaviour quite accurately in being puerile. I could expand on that but I am not going to waste any more time on the Attorney. I do have a question on the actual practical application of this legislation in the community. As the Deputy Leader of the Opposition pointed out, these people are actually living amongst us. During and leading up to election campaign periods, I have done a substantial amount of doorknocking in my electorate and I am pretty certain that I knocked on a couple of doors where outlaw motorcycle gang members lived. They do look a little similar in their appearance. These gentlemen had that appearance of men who associate with these organisations. The majority of them ride Harley-Davidson motorcycles. Moving around my electorate, I see men who fit this physical description riding around on Harley-Davidson motorcycles in and around that precinct of that particular town.

So, the deputy leader is quite correct in saying these people live amongst us in our communities. The point is: how will this legislation really be practically applied, because it is saying that all these orders are given by the Attorney-General, the courts, the police. But four or five Hell's Angels—or Finks or Gypsy Jokers or Rebels or whoever—might go down to the pub or to some community event dressed in normal civvy clothes. They do not have their colours on. They do not have their T-shirts on that identify the organisation that they belong to. Unless somebody rings up and says that there are a lot of Hell's Angels down here, are the police going to comb through every community event that takes place? Every community—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: They like to wear their colours.

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: Yes, but the practical application of this legislation, Attorney-General, is that they will not wear their colours. They will still consort. They will still meet. They will still go out socially. They just will not wear their colours.

Compared to the 1970s when I was a young man and drove around and saw members of these biker gangs, quite fearsome characters—back in those days there were Iroquois and all of those sorts of groups, I remember—how many Hell's Angels do you actually see riding around on their motorcycles with the Hell's Angels patch? Not very many these days compared to previous times. They are acutely aware that they do not want to draw attention to themselves or their activity.

What will happen is that they will go to Ed Harry's or some menswear shop and they will buy normal casual clothes. Unless the police or the law enforcement agencies go out combing through every community event, such as the Carnevale, the Greek Festival, the Schutzenfest, the Clipsal 500 where these people, I understand, like to go, how are the police going to know that there is a group of Hell's Angels or Finks or Gypsy Jokers gathering together? They will not. I just question the actual practical application of this legislation.

We support the bill. We regard it as a step in the right direction. As the leader pointed out earlier this morning, we have seen under this government the proliferation of actual criminal activity conducted by the outlaw motorcycle gangs. For the first four years of this government we heard the mantra that they trotted out on a regular basis. There were three aspects to it: health, education, law and order.

The Attorney-General actually gave a pretty good example of the expansion of the criminal activity of these gangs when he answered a question in the house yesterday—so many hundreds of kilograms of cannabis seized, so many firearms seized, so much amount of cash seized. All these seizures by police are a real indication of how these outlaw motorcycle gang activities really got out of control.

In the first four years of this Labor government, its mantra was law and order, health and education. Well, it is clearly evident that the law and order side of things failed dismally. I ask the Attorney to tell me how many of these criminals, how many of these members of these outlaw motorcycle gangs, are actually in gaol? How many of them have been sentenced? How many have been sentenced to a gaol term? I would like to know because I do not think there have been very many at all. They are charged, they are arrested. The DPP's office has a look at it, but what happens? As was rightly stated yesterday, the witnesses get scared. There is a code of secrecy. There is a code of silence within these organisations.

I do not know if any one of these members of the outlaw motorcycle gangs have gone to gaol. I would be interested for the Attorney-General to advise the house how many have gone to gaol. Then we go on to the other aspect of it. I remember the Premier, when leader of the opposition, in the campaign leading up to the 2002 election, saying—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: And we stopped that fortress.

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: Yes.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: We stopped that fortress.

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: Through the planning laws. Nothing to do with the then leader of the opposition, now the Premier, saying in the '02 election campaign, 'I am going to get the bulldozer and I am going to put it through their front wall. I am going to put it through their front wall.' How many bulldozers has the Premier got on and smashed through the front wall of these bikie fortresses? None.

I will tell the house how long it has taken. It took the government the best part of two years, ending up in the Supreme Court if my recollection is correct, to pull a bit of barbed wire down from around a house out at Cromer out the back of Birdwood where a Hell's Angel lived and conducted some of his activities.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: It was razor wire. His name is Eugene Osenkowski.

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: Well, whatever his name is.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: We went to court and we won.

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: Yes, but how long did it take you to get to that point? Years. The Premier is saying that he will get on the bulldozer.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: What's your point?

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: The point is that your government's rhetoric does not meet your actions, and that has been the way you have operated—

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: I rise on a point of order, Mr Acting Speaker.

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: —right through—

The ACTING SPEAKER: Order! There is a point of order.

Members interjecting:

The ACTING SPEAKER: Order! Come on! The Attorney-General.

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: The member for Kavel is constantly using the second person and addressing his remarks to me when he should be addressing them to you, Mr Acting Speaker.

The ACTING SPEAKER: Order! I uphold the point of order. Please refer all your remarks through the chair.

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: Yes, Mr Acting Speaker, I will. How pedantic can you get from the Attorney-General's point of view? Nevertheless, we will push on.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson interjecting:

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: Well, I will not use the word 'you', I will use 'your government' if that is more suitable.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: No, that is the same problem. It is not the Acting Speaker's government.

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: Well, Mr Acting Speaker, the government, then, if that meets your pedantic ways.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson interjecting:

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: Yes, well, we will see how you go and how correct you are in parliamentary procedures and practices. You are not the absolute icon of correct—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: He is doing it again.

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: No, I am not, I am referring directly to the Attorney-General and to the way he conducts himself in the house.

The ACTING SPEAKER: I understand. I do not want to interfere with your contribution, but the Attorney-General will continue on this point throughout the entire length of your deliberations. If you just ignore him and put your remarks through the chair he will be silent, and if he is not the chair will name him.

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: Thank you, Mr Acting Speaker. I continue the point that this government's rhetoric does not meet its actions. The Premier has said in election campaigns that he will put bulldozers through bikie fortresses. The Attorney-General has advised the house that this government has stopped the construction of a bikie fortress—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson interjecting:

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: Come on!

Mrs REDMOND: I rise on a point of order, Mr Acting Speaker. The Attorney-General just interjected again on the member for Kavel, and you indicated that you would name the Attorney-General if he interjected again.

The ACTING SPEAKER: Indeed, I did but, alas, I did not hear him.

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: We press on, Mr Acting Speaker.

The ACTING SPEAKER: And no-one likes a tattle tale.

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: It is my understanding that the reason that the bikie fortress was not constructed involved the planning laws. It was a development application and planning law issue that stopped that bikie fortress—no bulldozer there. The Attorney-General yesterday talked about the walls being nine metres high. Now, nine metres would probably be almost to the height of the ceiling of this chamber. I cannot imagine—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson interjecting:

Mrs REDMOND: Mr Acting Speaker, again the Attorney is heckling and interrupting the speaker.

The ACTING SPEAKER: And again, because of the background noise in the chamber, I did not hear him. Again, I add that if I hear the Attorney interject I will act. I do not need help from anyone else, especially the member for Schubert.

Mr Venning interjecting:

The ACTING SPEAKER: Order! You are interrupting your own member's time.

Mr Venning interjecting:

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: Shut up!

The ACTING SPEAKER: Order! The honourable member will not use profanities in the house to another member.

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: I think the Attorney-General yesterday was mistaken when he said that the walls were intended to be nine metres high. In the old measurement that is nearly 30 feet. I think he meant three metres or nine feet.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson interjecting:

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: Again, the Attorney-General needs to check on the accuracy of the statements he makes in the house.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson interjecting:

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: Yes, I am fully aware of how tilt slabs operate, Attorney. I want also to talk about a family I know who have been directly affected by associations and involvement with outlaw motorcycle gang members. It was to their absolute distress that the only daughter of this family became involved with an outlaw motorcycle gang member. Whilst it was not necessarily explicitly stated, there was a suggestion that this young lady was involved in prostitution activity—coerced into that activity by the outlaw motorcycle gang members with whom she was associated. Obviously this caused an enormous level of anxiety and distress to the parents of this lass.

I will not go into any more detail, but it took two or three years for this girl to realise that her involvement with these people was taking her nowhere and could well be the start of the end of her life. She removed herself and discontinued the association. She moved out of Adelaide suburbia, left her work and basically lay low for quite a while. After things settled down and the bikie gang members got used to the idea that she would not be around, she was able to return to some form of a normal life and relationship with her family members. While I observed this from a distance, I was aware of the absolutely terrible and shocking times endured by her loving and caring parents.

It goes on to other criminal activity that we have seen proliferate in relation to bikie activity—the home invasions. The biggest mistake I think that this parliament has ever made is the legislation concerning the cultivation of cannabis. The bikies, the criminal people and the people who have a propensity for criminal activity in our society saw this as a really outstanding opportunity to make some quick money. They syndicated the cultivation of cannabis and, of course, the bikie outlaw motorcycle gangs seized this opportunity and got into the business of growing cannabis.

The exact details of many of these home invasions are not reported in the media, but I would bet that the majority of them are to do with drugs, particularly cannabis, and bikie gangs have a reasonably significant involvement in this activity.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson interjecting:

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: I have almost taken up my 20 minutes, which has been peppered with nonsensical interjections from the Attorney-General, which is his norm. As I stated at the outset of my contribution, I am pleased to support the state Liberals in this legislation.

Mr VENNING (Schubert) (21:08): I did not intend to, but I will speak very briefly. I make the point that I support this legislation because, as a previous owner of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, not all motorcyclists who own Harley-Davidsons and who wear black singlets and black helmets are bikies—

Mrs Redmond: You in a black singlet is a worry!

Mr VENNING: I wear them all the time. In fact, former premier Olsen rode on the back of my Harley-Davidson when we did the Bay to Hahndorf Toy Run when he was premier. It started to rain and he became a little anxious when it became a bit slippery. I have always owned a motorcycle. You do not have to belong to a motorcycle gang to enjoy the sport of motorcycling. I know the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries (Hon. Rory McEwen) is also a member of the Ulysses Club. I have also been a member of the Ulysses Club, which is a club of older members, with the motto 'Growing Old Disgracefully'. Most people such as I could not afford motorcycles like this when we were young, but now we have the opportunity.

I make the point that people in motorcycle clubs do not have to be in those clubs to enjoy the sport of motorcycle riding. They can dissociate. Why are they there? Are they there to enjoy motorcycling, or are they there to become involved in the criminal element that usually and often goes with them? As most members would know, and as I have seen in my many years in this place, from time to time, we do come upon the activities of these groups. It is undoubtedly how they operate and the heavy hand with which they operate is fairly frightening to the layperson. You can understand that most people do not want to cross them and want to keep away from them. They rule by intimidation. It has to be addressed and brought to heel.

I certainly support this legislation. We have to clean it up. You have to give the police the power they need to clean it up and the community needs to feel safe because, at the moment, these gangs are a law unto themselves. They feel that they are above the police and above the law and they create total mayhem. Many of them breed on that. The misery they inflict upon the community at large cannot be underestimated.

I am a previous owner of a Harley-Davidson. In fact, I took Mr Ralph Clarke—the member for Ross Smith at the time—for a ride along Hindley Street and, indeed, in the car park here. He understood that I can ride a motorcycle. In fact, I believe that, after the experience, the member could not walk away—he was seen to be doubled over. Also I can recall taking my current leader for a ride on the back of the Harley along Hindley Street to look at the sights. He was amazed at the reaction we received putting along Hindley Street. In fact, he now owns two motorcycles. For the record, certainly these were the days before he and Stravroula were married.

We have a lot of fun on motorcycles. People can have fun. They are a glorious pastime and you do not have to belong to a motorcycle gang to enjoy them. I certainly support the legislation.

Mr HANNA (Mitchell) (21:13): I am dealing with the difficult subject tonight of serious and organised crime. Many people have called the legislation with which we are now dealing 'bikie legislation' because of the surrounding publicity. Indeed, going back to 2001, the then opposition leader, Mike Rann, came out with a public statement about how he was going to get tough on bikie gangs. In South Australian legislation they are generally known as 'outlaw motorcycle gangs'. It is important to make the point that this legislation can deal with any organisation. Although the Attorney-General has specifically referred to outlaw motorcycle gangs in his explanation and justification for the legislation, in fact any organisation can be the subject of the measures contained in this legislation.

I am told that the now Premier, Mike Rann, was particularly impressed with the extremely strong legislation in the United States, which the FBI and others used to attack organised crime in that country. I am not sure whether or not that is true. Maybe that was what ultimately inspired this legislation. It is worth mentioning that it was in 2001 that the South Australia Police set up Operation Avatar to deal with motorcycle gangs.

This is a group of officers dedicated to observing, analysing and, ultimately, limiting the operations of our bikie gangs. The gangs can be simply described in the media as criminal groups, nuisances, etc. I think the reality is a little more complex. I say that because I think there is a spectrum of criminality among the membership and associates of these groups. At the core, I agree with others that there really is serious organised crime at work.

I have had the opportunity to study organised crime in a theoretical sense to some extent and the more enduring of the bikie gangs display the traits of organised crime, not only in the type of crime but also in the close-knit, insular nature of the clan and the fact that there is a very strict hierarchy where only a few people at the top really know what is going on a lot of the time. The other characteristic of organised crime is that, after the early formative years, a deliberate veneer of respectability develops around some of the operations of the group, so you have some of our motorcycle gangs, or their members at least, owning very substantial and prestigious real estate around Adelaide—apartments and houses that I could not afford to buy. In other words, the money gained from illicit operations, whether it be drug production and dealing or prostitution, eventually ends up in non-criminal assets and activities.

The government has sought to sever the tie between bikies and nightclubs and that can only be applauded as a good thing, given the opportunities for drug dealing and perhaps violence that the nightclub scene offers to the wrong people. The government's intention then of curtailing the activities of bikie gangs to the extent that they are involved in organised crime is admirable, but I have suggested that it is a picture which is a little bit more complex. I say that because many gang members, I have no doubt, are engaging in criminal behaviour at the other end of the spectrum. They might smoke a bit of dope; they might enjoy getting into a fight; they might have a blatant disregard for the traffic laws but, if I can put it this way, there is perhaps nothing more serious than that for a lot of them. Then you also have associates who might assist with some of the drug activities or some of the prostitution activities but who cannot be considered gang members themselves.

So, I am suggesting that there is a very full spectrum of criminal behaviour which is exhibited by the groups we are talking about and, at the same time, we need to bear in mind that there are a number of motorcycle groups which, to my knowledge, are entirely free from criminal activity, at least in any sort of organised or coordinated way. We need to take special care in treating legislation which is targeting motorcycle gangs to ensure that innocent people are not caught up in it and not just other motorcycle gangs either. We need to be careful with this legislation, particularly, that entirely innocent citizens are not caught up with the net of the law being cast over what would otherwise be entirely innocent activities, leading to jail terms of up to five years, and there is a serious risk that this legislation does just that.

The experience of the Avatar section within the police force is worth making further mention of because either the work of Avatar has been successful or it has not, I would suggest. Assistant Commissioner Rankine briefed members of parliament and staff last week, indicating that over 600 arrests had been derived from the work of Avatar. Interestingly, that compares with a bikie population of about 200 hard-core members and a number of hangers on or associates. If you compare those arrest statistics in simple terms, it rather looks like Avatar has been fairly successful and then one questions the need for this legislation which goes so much further in incursion on the rights of people.

When it comes to violent activity, whether it is between gang members or by gang members against innocent members of the public, one can only take one's hat off to the government and say that any reasonable measures are welcomed. The real question in a case like this is whether the legislation goes too far, and I strongly suspect that it does.

The object of the legislation is set out in clause 4 of the bill. It is worth considering that it is not only to disrupt and restrict the activities of organisations involved in serious crime but also to protect members of the public from violence associated with such criminal organisations. It is interesting that the thrust of the legislation is not to limit the involvement of organisations in drug dealing or prostitution, and the like, in particular but, rather, the focus is on protecting members of the public from violence. As I have said, that in itself is a worthy goal but one then looks at how widely the net is cast. First, there is a procedure for gangs or other organisations to be declared to be covered under the legislation, and the Attorney-General has the say in ultimately deciding whether certain organisations should be the subject of a declaration.

With the current cast of characters in Adelaide—the government, the Attorney-General, the police force and the Police Commissioner—no-one particularly suspects that this legislation will be twisted to be used for any ulterior motive other than the objective set out in the legislation. We obviously need to be very careful that, in future times, less scrupulous public officers and elected members do not use this legislation to declare organisations which have a proper role to play in civic society to be organisations under the legislation. For example, we would not want trade unions or protest groups such as 'No War' to be declared such organisations. I am glad to see that there is a safeguard in the legislation suggesting that it should not be used against groups which have non-violent motives, whether they be to dissent, protest, etc. However, the scope is there for abuse, I would suggest.

The second important part of the legislation is the provision of control orders and public safety orders. The control orders can be directed at people who are gang members, if we are talking about bikie groups; otherwise as defined in the legislation. Those who are the subject of a control order can effectively be put under house arrest. They can be declared, effectively, to be committing a crime if they associate with certain other people. The public safety orders, again, have tremendous scope to limit the ability of individuals to participate in public events and to participate in society. For example, if there is a concert or a sporting event where the police suspect that there might be some violence, then they might be able to obtain a public safety order to do their best to ensure that an individual will not attend that event. Of course, that can be on suspicion. There need not be any hard evidence, one might say, to get the order and to create a limitation on a person's liberty to go about and see the sport they want to see or attend the rock concert they want to hear.

I am glad to see that there is court involvement, that is, judicial involvement in those things; however, there is a severe limitation on the reasons for orders being made public. One can understand, of course, that sensitive matters of criminal intelligence, just like matters of national security, need to be handled extremely discreetly. The reasons are obvious. But, at the same time, we need to ensure proper accountability; hence, I give very great weight to the principle of judicial oversight when it comes to these things.

One of the most contentious aspects of the legislation is the series of offences set out for associating with other specified people—the criminal associations part of the legislation in clause 35 the bill. This is perhaps where the greatest dangers lie. There is a series of exemptions; for example, close family members, people acting in a professional capacity, and so on, can have the requisite six or more contacts per year with a bikie gang member without falling foul of the legislation. But one can imagine a number of other people who might have an entirely innocent course of activity whereby they come into contact with bikie members. I can think of drinking mates in a pub, for example. Such people may well fall foul of the legislation and, ultimately, run the risk of imprisonment for five years. That is an extremely serious matter.

Rather than dealing with these objections about curtailment of people's rights by trying to rewrite the legislation, I will be putting forward amendments to do two things: one will be to ensure that there is judicial review in relation to every aspect of the legislation and, secondly, to shorten the sunset provision. My amendment will make the legislation expire after two years rather than after 10 years, as the government would have it.

Honestly, I think two years should be sufficient. I say that because I would expect that the police for many months, if not years, have been preparing for the implementation of this legislation. If they have not, it is either a fault of SAPOL, or it is a fault of the government in not alerting SAPOL to the government's intentions, bearing in mind, as I said, that the first warning shots were fired back in 2001 by the Premier Mike Rann, as he later became. The best way of implementing the legislation, if one for a moment adopts the motivations and expectations of the government, would be to strike swiftly at those groups and their members who become the subject of a declaration.

I understand that we cannot really have that debate about implementation here, but my point is that, if the implementation is handled correctly—and I mean by swiftly acting on the provisions once they go through the parliament—there is not a need for this legislation to hang around for 10 years. As we go through the committee clauses in detail, I will be able to revisit that point. I mention those two amendments because they are the best means I can see of ensuring that the potential undue restriction of innocent citizens does not occur.

Although I can applaud the objective of the legislation, the real question with legislation such as this is whether it goes too far, whether it trades off the liberties of innocent citizens too much against the desire to curtail the activities of violent members of society. I think there is a risk of that, and I think that, with amendment, the legislation would be much more appropriate for our society, given the degree of the problem, and given the civil liberties we enjoy at this time.

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON (Croydon—Attorney-General, Minister for Justice, Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (21:33): I thank member for Mitchell for his thoughtful examination of the bill. The member for Heysen, on behalf the Liberal Party, summarised at great length the legislation in other jurisdictions.

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: And the Opposition Whip laughs, as well he might, because we knew that providing information to the house was not the member for Heysen's purpose: detaining it was. We, of course, keep the laws of other countries under surveillance in the Attorney-General's Department, and it informs our considerations. The government may include laws from other countries that work in the second phase of our legislative response to outlaw motorcycle gangs.

The member for Bragg asks why we are introducing this legislation when measures to date have been unsuccessful. Obviously, the government disputes the member for Bragg's assertion, and I refer the house to my remarks in question time yesterday, when I listed the achievements of Operation Avatar, and I also listed the recent achievements of the new Crime Gang Task Force.

It is worth remembering that the government has increased enormously the number of police officers dedicated to policing the outlaw motorcycle gangs. This is something that Robert Brokenshire, former minister for police, called for when he was a Liberal; he has now left the Liberal Party. But, we have actually—

The Hon. G.M. Gunn interjecting:

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: Well, the member for Stuart says that Mr Brokenshire is an opportunist.

Mrs REDMOND: Point of order: relevance?

The SPEAKER: I ask the Attorney not to respond to interjections.

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: I apologise, Mr Speaker, for responding to the member for Stuart's interjections; it is just that I wanted it on the record. Mr Brokenshire called for a big increase in the number of police officers dedicated to policing outlaw motorcycle gangs, and that is just what we have done. Not only that, we are also providing civilian specialists in forensic accounting and criminal law and procedure to back up those sworn officers, and we are also increasing funding to the Office of Director of Public Prosecutions and to the Legal Services Commission, because, living as we do in a rule-of-law society, it is important that impecunious members of outlaw motorcycle gangs have a legal defence, and that will assist the court in expediting the trials.

I say, in response to the member for Kavel who asked how police will enforce the new legislation, that they will enforce it in the normal way police enforce legislation. Then there was the contribution of the member for Stuart, who asked how a person who is served with a control order or a public safety order will know their rights and their obligations. The member for Stuart would not have asked that question had he read clauses 15, 16 and 30, because they would have provided the answer. It would not be right for me to just read into Hansard the text of a bill in response to the member for Stuart's question. I simply refer him and the house to those clauses.

The member for Kavel also disputed that the walls of the proposed Rebels' bikie fortress on the corner of Chief Street and Second Street, Brompton, could be higher than three metres. I refer him to the planning application lodged by Mr Karim Awad with the Charles Sturt Council. That will tell him how high those concrete tilt-up walls were proposed to be.

I commend the bill to the house and I look forward to a thorough examination of all the clauses, because I am sure that the member for Mitchell will do it in good faith and another will do it to detain the house in its deliberations on the bill.

Bill read a second time.

Committee Stage

In committee.

Clauses 1 and 2 passed.

Clause 3.

Mrs REDMOND: The definition of 'criminal intelligence' is stated there to mean information:

...the disclosure of which could reasonably be expected to prejudice criminal investigations, to enable the discovery of the existence or identity of a confidential source of information...or to endanger a person's life or physical safety.

I understand all of that and the reason for that. What I want to clarify is whether there is any other scope for criminal intelligence. That is, that appears to me, in some ways, to be too narrow a definition of 'criminal intelligence' because it seems to me that there could well be intelligence which one would classify as criminal intelligence. It may not be capable of normal proof in a court of law beyond reasonable doubt but it may, nevertheless, be information gathered by the police through surveillance, through knowledge of a whole range of things over a period of time, through knowing the context and circumstances and so on, but which would not come within that definition. What I want to clarify is whether indeed that is intentionally so narrow as to capture only a situation where basically someone is going to be in danger or there is an absolute prejudice to a person or to criminal investigations.

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: The answer is yes, the scope of the clause is intended and it links to other clauses about criminal intelligence in the bill, and this kind of drafting has been upheld by the High Court in the Gypsy Jokers case last week.

Mrs REDMOND: The second question I would like to ask on clause 3 relates to the definition of 'member'. Again, I understand what the clause says. It divides the organisations into two classes; that is, where an organisation is that of a body corporate and, in the second case, any other sort of organisation. I am curious about this aspect of the first part of that definition, that is, the case of an organisation that is a body corporate, because a member of that organisation only includes a director or officer of the body corporate. It occurred to me, when I was reading that clause, that it would be possible, for instance, for Hell's Angels Proprietary Limited to form, to have a corporate structure, to have, certainly, directors and officers but, equally, to have employees or others associated.

If they did form themselves into a corporate structure, then are we thereby stopping ourselves from capturing the people who are broadly caught by the non-corporate structure in clause B of that definition when, in fact, we would want to capture everybody, should they incorporate themselves into a corporate structure?

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: The member is not reading the clause aright. Subclause (a) deals with the particular—namely, bodies corporate; subclause (b) deals with the general, including bodies corporate, so they are caught by (b).

Mrs REDMOND: My third question on this clause is in relation to serious criminal activity, meaning the commission of serious criminal offences. I wonder whether any thought was given to adopting what was used in one of the other jurisdictions that I spoke about, whereby they actually capture the preparation for the commission of serious offences, rather than restricting it to the commission itself of serious criminal offences.

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: That was a good point raised by the member for Heysen. If the member goes to clause 10 she will see subclause (1) refers to the purpose of organising and planning serious criminal activity, so that is a ground for declaration.

Mr HANNA: I ask the Attorney, through you, Madam Chair, about the summary offences contemplated in the definition of 'serious criminal offences'. Are we thinking there of matters surrounding prostitution, or minor drug offences, or what sort of thing?

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: We are still deliberating on that, but our principal focus is the offences regarding explosives.

Mr HANNA: I also have a question about the definition of personal details. Of course, these are the details which a person must give if they fall under the legislation. I notice that it is a bit more extensive than the amount of information one would normally have to give as a motorist, for example, stopped by police. It occurs to me that some of the people who might be caught under the legislation, because they might be associates of bikie members, might themselves be the subject of witness protection programs. I wonder how onerous that would be upon such people, to provide the address where they are currently living, where they usually live and where their business address is. Has that been considered by the government?

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: First, the Commissioner who instigates these orders knows who is on witness protection; and, secondly, the information goes only to the police.

Clause passed.

Progress reported; committee to sit again.