WA Government plans to introduce new anti-consorting laws for bikies

Kate Campbell

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PoliticsState PoliticsWA NewsLabor

BIKIE gangs have been put on notice, with the WA Government aiming to introduce tough new anti-consorting laws early next year.

Tensions between WA’s biggest bikie gang, the Rebels, and their rivals the Comancheros, are rising and are believed to be the reason for a spate of five tattoo parlour fire-bombings in the past six months, and shots being fired at the Waikiki home of a senior Rebels bikie this week.

Police Commissioner Chris Dawson feared innocent people could be caught in the crossfire of the latest feud.

Police have raided several properties, seizing guns, drugs and cash.

Attorney-General John Quigley.Picture:Danella Bevis

Attorney-General John Quigley wants laws that would ban people with convictions from consorting with each other, following the lead of a bikie crackdown in NSW.

“There continues to be a growing concern in WA and nationally about the operation of organised crime and criminal gangs, including bikie gangs, which remain the most high-profile manifestations of organised crime in Australia,” he said.

Mr Quigley said the Barnett government’s anti-bikie measures, introduced in 2012, had been a dismal failure and “too cumbersome and ineffectual”.

“(These laws) are not fit for purpose. They have never been used in six years and they never will be,” he said.

“I am considering the most effective legislative elements from other Australian jurisdictions to ensure that we come up with the best approach to tackling the problem in WA.”

Mr Quigley said the NSW anti-gang squad’s successful bikie crackdown, known as Operation Raptor, used anti-consorting laws to impede gang activities. He hoped to introduce anti-consorting legislation early next year.

More than 300 bikies have been convicted in WA of crimes that have penalties of more than five years in jail.

Police have been keeping a close eye on hostilities after several members of the Rebels’ Rockingham chapter defected to the Comancheros in June last year.