Descendants founders appeal to High Court to stop deportation

Senior SA bikies Tom and Perry Mackie have launched High Court action to try to stop being deported from Australia.

Two of the state’s most senior bikies are taking their fight to stave off deportation from Australia to the High Court.

High-profile lawyers acting for Descendants founders Tom and Perry Mackie are seeking special leave to appeal in the High Court – the final legal avenue in their bid to stay in Australia.

The move follows 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 cites three grounds of appeal in which the Full Court erred and seeks to have that decision set aside, that the order made by then Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton to cancel the Mackies’ visas be quashed and that the federal government pay the cost of the action.

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 2021 after their temporary visas were cancelled on character grounds.

Descendants founder Tom Mackie.

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 Mackies’ original applications for judicial review stated 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 and lawyers acting for the pair then launched an appeal to the Full Court of the Federal Court.

UMC head Tom Mackie knocks on the door of the Macclesfield Hotel as hundreds of bikers are locked out for the day during the United Motorcycle Council protest ride to Macclesfield to raise funds to fight the State Government's anti-association bikie club laws.

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

“ … there is nothing irrational or illogical in the Minister linking the appellants’ role within the Descendants OMCG with the garnering of support by that organisation among a number of other OMCGs to oppose legislation designed to curb their activities, as the information before the Minister described those activities,’’ the judgment stated.

The High Court special leave application states the Full Court’s decision “is wrong in principle and should not stand uncorrected.’’

If deported, the Mackie brothers will 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, 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.