Page 1710 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 1 April 2009
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We only need to go back to 2005 to see how strong our government is. The head of an outlaw motorcycle group was asked what they would do if people did not accede to their request to remove their colours. It is easy. Asked if the Rebels had threatened Ulysses members with violence, the head of the Rebels said:
Whatever—that’s what they say. Whatever it takes mate. If you want to play the game you want to be in shape to play it, don’t you.
Then we have the story of a member of Ulysses, a 60-year-old woman, a 60-year-old female member, who was allegedly forced onto a roadside and made to remove strips from her jacket otherwise she would be bashed and her bike destroyed. That is the sort of group that Mr Corbell does not think needs the attention of this place and needs it urgently. We squibbed it in 2005. The government squibbed it. We had several thousand visitors. We had 5,000 members of Ulysses come to Canberra—
Mr Corbell: Are you criticising the police?
MR SMYTH: Come on. It was 5,000 members of Ulysses—
Mr Corbell: It sounds to me like you are criticising the police.
MR SMYTH: I am not criticising the police; I am criticising you and your government because they—
Mr Corbell: Who enforces the laws? The police.
MR SMYTH: Members of Ulysses said they were reluctant to officially alert police for fear of reprisals.
Mr Corbell: I would have thought threatening violence was a crime.
MADAM ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Mr Corbell, I told you not to interject.
MR SMYTH: I know this galls you, Mr Corbell.
MADAM ASSISTANT SPEAKER: You are on a warning, Mr Corbell. I warn you.
MR SMYTH: But the problem for the people of the ACT is that the government took no action in 2005. Here we are in 2009 revisiting the same issues and we hear all the lines from the human rights compliant Chief Minister and the human rights compliant attorney. But what about the human rights of those people who expect to be protected, to live in a suburb where there is not murder, not to be threatened on the road by motorcycle gangs? We can get as much advice from the GSO as we want but what Mr Hanson is doing in his motion and what the Liberal Party supports in his motion is a call for action from a minister who clearly has no idea how to combat this.
He talked about law and order tub-thumping. Hardly! Premier Rees is a law and order tub-thumper? Premier Bligh is a law and order tub-thumper? I note the Attorney-General calls us knee jerk. Nathan Rees and Anna Bligh are probably knee
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