Descendants bikie bosses lose final bid to stop their deportation

High-profile Adelaide bosses Tom and Perry Mackie have lost their final battle to avoid being deported – and will be kicked out of the country within days.

Descendants bikies Tom and Perry Mackie have lost their High Court bid to halt their deportation from Australia.

The High Court has dismissed their special leave application to have the decision overturned – and awarded costs against the high-profile pair – leaving them with no other avenue of appeal.

It is understood they will be deported within days after finalising matters involving their Adelaide-based family members. While they will be flown to their native New Zealand, it is understood they will not remain there.

The High Court decision brings to an end almost two years of legal wrangling by lawyers acting for the men that has included multiple Federal Court actions prior to the special leave application.

Tom Mackie, founding member of Descendants.

Descendants founding member Perry Mackie. Picture: Facebook

The Mackies, who formed the Descendants in 1974 when they arrived in Adelaide from New Zealand, were taken into ­custody at their Ingle Farm and Prospect homes in ­December 2020 after their temporary visas were ­cancelled on character grounds.

They have been held in the Broadmeadows Immigration Detention Facility in Melbourne since then.

The decision to deport the pair took into account their criminal records, the criminal activities of their gang and their vocal opposition to South Australia’s anti-bikie laws when introduced in 2008.

The High Court move followed a Full Court of the Federal Court decision in July that unanimously dismissed appeals by the pair to overturn a finding in a judicial review by a single judge that sought to quash their ­deportation orders.

The High Court special leave application cited three grounds of appeal in which the Full Court erred and seeks to have that decision set aside and the order made by then-home affairs minister Peter Dutton to cancel the Mackies’ visas quashed.

The Mackies’ original applications for judicial ­review said Mr Dutton’s conclusion that it was in the national interest to ­deport the brothers was made in error.

Instead, the Mackies ­argued their opposition to anti-bikie laws was an example of “lawful and peaceful involvement … in political communication”.

In a lengthy judgment last October, Justice Tony Besanko rejected the brothers’ grounds of appeal.

Descendants bikie gang colours.

Then-home affairs minister Peter Dutton ordered to have the Mackies’ visas cancelled. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Lawyers acting for the pair then launched an ­appeal to the Full Court of the Federal Court.

Before a hearing of the Full Court of the Federal Court in May, barrister Bret Walker SC argued that comments made by Tom Mackie in 2009 urging opposition to proposed anti-bikie laws were examples of free speech, but this was rejected.

The Mackie brothers will now join more than 300 bikies and organised crime figures to be booted out of Australia on character grounds. They include failed bikie boss and petty criminal Vince Focarelli, and senior Mongols bikie Andrew Peter Stevens.

Stevens, a member of the Finks before it was patched over by the Mongols, fought and lost his deportation in the courts.