GARY ADSHEAD:
Thanks for your time, Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER:
Gary, thanks for having me.
GARY ADSHEAD:
Ok, here in WA we have sort of a burgeoning bikie industry. What have you got planned that might chip away at some of their armour?
PRIME MINISTER:
It’s a $10 million strike team that the AFP will set up with the West Australian police. There’s about 450 active bikie gang members here in the West – about nine gangs, about 25 chapters – and we do need to keep a good eye on them and we do need to crackdown on all criminal activity.
We know that bikie gangs are very, very active in drugs, in prostitution, in money laundering. All aspects of crime that aren’t simply random and spontaneous there seems to be a bikie gang element to these days and that is why as an important component of our National Anti-Gangs Taskforce we need to have this Western Australian strike team.
GARY ADSHEAD:
What do you say to the people that complain about them losing their civil liberties, Prime Minister?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well obviously we are governed by the rule of law and everyone has rights, but it’s important that we have a strong, effective policing system and that’s what this is all about. It’s not about taking anyone’s rights away. It’s about giving the police the resources and importantly the coordination to crackdown on what is a national problem – a cross border problem – and which is very hard for the state police forces to tackle on their own.
GARY ADSHEAD:
They’re obviously organised, they have lawyers that are out there pushing the rights of the OMCGs – the outlawed motor cycle gangs – they’re out there in the public now. In fact from time to time they have protests up at Parliament complaining about some of the legislation that’s being brought in here in WA. Do you think that the average person in WA thinks that the outlawed motorcycle gangs pose a problem – a threat?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think the average person wants to be safe in his or her home, wants to be safe in his or her streets, in his or her community, and while it’s true that for much of the time these gangs are more of a menace to each other than for the general public, every time drugs are being pedalled there’s a gang dimension.
There’s also the intimidatory aspect of these gangs, particularly when they get together and as we know there are elements of gangs now involved with rogue elements of some of our unions, particularly the construction union. So this is an added dimension to the gang problem in Australia and it’s one of the many reasons why we need a coordinated national approach.
GARY ADSHEAD:
Will this be, in terms of what you are planning, a one off – the strike team – or will it be rolled out over a period of time?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it is ongoing and the $10 million in funding is to keep it going for four years. Certainly the National Anti-Gang Taskforce is something that will be ongoing until this problem is beaten.
GARY ADSHEAD:
The profits that can be made clearly here in WA have led to the expansion of the number of gangs that operate I think you’ve only got to go back to about 2003-2004, Prime Minister, I think we had about four to five, now we’re up around nine; clearly an indication that there’s money to be made. Other legislation has come, it’s being used, but they still seem to love this state. What makes you think this could stop them?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Gary, there’s no one magic wand here, there’s a whole range of measures that are necessary – state and national government measures that are necessary – but this is an important new initiative and it will mean much greater coordination of the anti-gang effort by police here in Western Australia because of the much closer and more practical cooperation between the Australian Federal Police, the Crime Commission and Western Australian state police.
GARY ADSHEAD:
And of course with the bikies, as I said, there comes the lawyers. You’ve obviously gone past the view that a lot of these gangs aren’t just social clubs that want to get together and have a chat and a ride on their bike.
PRIME MINISTER:
Many, many years since bikie gangs were just innocent social organisations. It might have been true 20 or 30 years ago, but it hasn’t been true for many years.
GARY ADSHEAD:
Just finally before I let you go, we’ve got a teachers strike about to begin here in Western Australia. What would be your message to the teachers who are about to take to the streets here in Perth to complain about funding cuts?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think the place for teachers is in the classroom with their students; that’s the proper place for teachers.
Now look, I don’t claim to be vastly familiar with the particular grievance today. I know that the independent public schools which Premier Colin Barnett has put in place are a very good innovation. I know that education funding in Western Australia is probably more generous than anywhere else in our country, particularly since the new Coalition Government restored the $1.2 billion that Bill Shorten had cut out of funding for Queensland and Western Australia just before the election.
So I know that there are lots of good things happening in Western Australian schools and as I said, if I was a teacher in Western Australia, I’d want to be making the most of it in the classroom with my students.
GARY ADSHEAD:
I’ll let you go. Thanks very much for joining us today.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you, Gary.
[ends]