HSC Legal Studies: News Watch - Gangs

Bikie Gangs - A Parliamentary Research Paper

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 11:11:48 +1100

The NSW Parliamentary Library has produced an E-Brief titled "Gang Laws: An Update" by Jason Arditi (June 2009). This paper outlines the response of the NSW Government to the death of Anthony Zervas on 22 March 2009 at Sydney Airport. Parliament introduced legislation targeted at changing the behaviour of gangs in public places, most notably, bikie gangs. This paper provides an analysis of the likely effectiveness of this new legislation.

Bike Gangs in Australia - the status of laws

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:14:03 +1100

The Australian Institute of Criminology has published a paper "The Status of Laws on Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs in Australia" by Lorana Bartels, AIC, 12 June 2009. This paper sets out the laws in Australia governing organised crime gangs and, in particular, outlaw motorcycle gangs. It presents an overview of each jurisdiction's current and proposed legislative framework, as well as recent proposals to coordinate legislative responses. This would be a useful paper to read when considering the recent legislation introduced by the NSW Parliament to outlaw certain bikie gangs.

Control of Bikie Gangs

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 11:38:59 +1100

In April, the NSW Parliament rushed through legislation to deal with bikie gangs in NSW. The Crimes (Criminal Organisations Control) Act 2009 was passed and assented to on 3 April 2009. The second reading speech and explanatory notes explain the intention of this new legislation.

The legislation provides the mechanism to outlaw motorcycle gangs and their members and to target outlaw motorcycle gangs, seeking to declare them to be criminal organisations.

This weekend, 16 gangs protested about this new legislation by driving their bikes through Moore Park: http://www.smh.com.au/national/men-of-colours-stand-united-in-face-of-bikie-bill-20090613-c6pb.html

For additional information about this new Act and public discussion about it, you can do a search on Proquest Australia and New Zealand Newsstand, a database of fulltext newspaper articles. You need to register as a client of the State Library. Set to "all 2009" and type in "bikie gangs".