Raid on bikers’ pool party reveals shocking new police power

Extraordinary, tough new laws targeting outlaw motorcycle clubs are forcing bikers to hide their colors, cover their tattoos, paint over clubhouse signs — and get arrested if they get together in public. Even for a peaceful poolside party.

The Mob Reporter here with a taste of the new life for bikers in Australia’s largest state (by geography) after police began enforcing new rules for bikers who have been made public enemy Number 1. Police in Western Australia started wielding brand-new anti-association laws and anti-insignia laws by breaking up a poolside birthday party for a biker (or bikie as they are called in Australia) and charging attendees with displaying now-banned club logos and tattoos. The Unlawful Consorting and Prohibited Insignia Act came into effect on Christmas Eve, naming 46 motorcycle clubs and street gangs as designated groups. Among them are the Mongols, the Hells Angels, the Rebels, Bandidos, Gypsy Jokers, Comancheros, Coffin Cheaters, Mongrel Mob, Black Power, Gods Garbage, Nomads, Outlaws, Satudarah, Rock Machine, and many, many others. The state’s laws were declared to be the strictest in Australia, a country that already is probably the toughest against outlaw bikers of any democracy.

Attorney-General John Quigley and Police Minister Paul Papalia said the law is designed to give club members a clear choice: “Get out of the gang or get out of Western Australia.”

Last week police found several members of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club and the Rebels Motorcycle Club at a hotel pool outside Perth, drinking, eating and swimming in celebration of the birthday of one of the Rebels. Five club members were then charged with displaying prohibited insignia.

Queensland, on the other side of Australia, has an anti-consorting law it recently enforced against members of the Mongols MC when they were seen together on Hamilton Island, a popular tourist area near the Great Barrier Reef. Three Mongols members were charged with habitually consorting with a recognized offender and a fourth was issued a warning.

Human rights advocates, constitutional law experts, and others ask what the law means to freedom of association and peaceful assembly, even though these notions aren’t generally protected in Australia as they are in the United States and some other jurisdictions.

Australia - MR.