LNP pledges bikie crackdown policy ahead of next election

Controversial bikie laws scrapped by the Labor government could be set for a return with Opposition Leader David Crisafulli declaring the LNP would take the issue to the next election.

Controversial bikie laws scrapped by the Labor government could be set for a return with Opposition Leader David Crisafulli declaring the LNP would take the issue to the next election.

A decade after former Premier Campbell Newman enacted the Vicious Lawless Association Disestablishment Act – known as VLAD laws – targeting outlaw motorcycle gangs, Mr Crisafulli sensationally said on Thursday “the bikies are back”.

Labor scrapped the VLAD laws – which included extra prison time on top of sentences for members or associates of criminal organisations – in 2016, with a review finding the mandatory sentences “excessively harsh”.

Queensland Opposition Leader David Crisafulli. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Dan Peled

Mr Crisafulli said yesterday the repeal of those laws was a message to “bikies across the nation they were free to go back to doing their business in Queensland”.

“There is no doubt speaking with Queenslanders and speaking with senior people in the Queensland Police Service that the bikies are back,” he said.

“Those laws had an effect. Queenslanders deserve to be kept safe. Queenslanders deserve to go about their business, not being put in a position that because of an internal brawl between a couple of gangs, they can become collateral damage.

“We are calling on the government not just to review the laws, but to introduce laws that will protect Queenslanders.

“And if they won’t, then we will, and in 2024 people will have a choice between a government that allowed them back in or one that will drive them back over the border.”

Asked whether the LNP was proposing reintroducing the same laws as Mr Newman, Mr Crisafulli said he would ensure the laws were “fit for a modern era”.

“What I want to see with the current laws is an acknowledgment that they’re not working,” he said.

“I want to see new laws in this state that can deal with the issue of criminal motorcycle gangs.”

Acting Police Minister Mark Furner accused the LNP of “either deliberately misleading Queenslanders or ignorant” on the issue of bikies.

“Quite frankly, we won’t be taking advice from David Crisafulli when he sat around the cabinet table while Jarrod Bleijie delivered unworkable laws and wasted thousands in taxpayer dollars on pink jumpsuits in the Newman Government,” he said.

“The LNP got it wrong in government with laws full of loopholes that let the bikies get off, and now they’ve got it wrong again in Opposition.”

Mr Furner said police were “relentlessly” targeting bikies, and many were “either behind bars or they throw in their colours”.

“You don’t see bikies wearing their colours anymore in Queensland, they have to cross the border to do that,” he said.

“But we are always looking to do even more to make the laws even stronger.”

Mr Furner referenced an announcement made by Attorney-General Shannon Fentiman last month that retired District Court judge Julie Dick would undertake conduct a review of Queensland’s serious and organised crime laws, with the report due early next year.