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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-10-13 Daily Xml
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MOTORCYCLE GANG HEADQUARTERS

Mrs REDMOND (Heysen—Leader of the Opposition) (15:36): My question is to the Premier. Can the Premier advise the house how many bikie headquarters have been bulldozed to date? In a government press release of January 2006 the then police minister stated, 'It was this government who introduced the anti-fortification laws to tear down bikie headquarters.'

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON (Croydon—Attorney-General, Minister for Justice, Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Minister for Veterans' Affairs) (15:36): I am pleased to answer that question—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: —because it was in my electorate of Croydon that the Rebels outlaw motorcycle club decided to buy the social club and sports centre of the Federated Gas Employees Industrial Union. That was on the corner of Chief Street and Second Street, Brompton. It is an area of Adelaide where you never see a Liberal. Let me respond to the member for Heysen.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: We did better than bulldozing. We prevented it being built altogether. After it was bombed in 1999 and the windows of houses along Chief Street, Brompton were blown out (and, indeed, the reverberations of the explosion could be heard where I lived in Kilkenny), the Rebels wanted to build a two-storey headquarters with nine metre high concrete tilt-up walls. I asked the then Liberal premier, John Olsen, and the Liberal minister for police, Robert Brokenshire, to do something about it, and they refused to. So, we introduced when we came to government anti-fortification laws. As a result, the Rebels headquarters at the corner of Chief Street and Second Street, Brompton was not built and, indeed, there is a legitimate business there to this day.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: Mr Speaker, this is a government whose ministers don't use words like 'shit', 'wanker' and 'turd' live to radio. We are not the kind of government whose leader uses expressions like 'vinegar stroke', 'donkey punch' and—

Mr GRIFFITHS: I rise on a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am rather surprised by the words coming from the Attorney-General's mouth. I ask him to refer back to the question.

The SPEAKER: No doubt there is some relevance, which the Attorney-General will make apparent.

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: All I can say is that the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow attorney-general have potty mouths, like members of outlaw motorcycle gangs. But, be that as it may, our anti-fortification laws were used to remove excessive fortifications from a Rebels headquarters at Unit 1, 41 Wood Avenue, Brompton. Our fortification legislation succeeded. Furthermore, we went to the Supreme Court to remove razor wire, locked manholes and a cage around the house from Hells Angels' premises at Cromer in the Adelaide Hills, the home of Mr Osenkowski. There are three examples where our anti-fortification legislation has worked as intended.

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