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  • AADD Moderators: swilow | Vagabond696

The implementation of the new "VLAD" act

theysayrollingsfun

theysayrollingsfun

Bluelighter
Joined
Aug 9, 2009
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210
I thought I'd put this up here because I'm sure quite a few of you will be interested to have a read.

This law was supposed to target the bikies, but is so broad that virtually any "club" falls under this act also.


http://www.guestlawyers.com.au/index.php/blog/are-you-a-vicious-lawless-associate.html


For those of you that can't be fucked reading a wall of text ill put a couple of examples up for you:


"John Smith is a member of the Yeronga Bulls Rugby Union Club. After losing the elimination final to the Sherwood Falcons, John and his teammates head to the RE hotel for their official end-of-season function. A number of the members of the Sherwood Falcons are also having (celebratory) drinks at the RE. During the course of the evening an argument breaks out between the two groups about the afternoon’s game. The argument turns physical and John is arrested for the offence of affray. John is an engineering student, with no criminal history. He pleads guilty in Brisbane Magistrates Court and receives a $1,500 fine with no conviction recorded. Unfortunately for John, the VLAD act is enlivened. His football club is a relevant association and he has committed the declared offence of affray while participating in the teams affairs at their official function. Unless he can prove otherwise, he is a vicious lawful associate and will be required to serve 15 years in prison."

Or


"Daniel Jones is a member of the Northern Suburbs Commodore Car Enthusiasts Club. Daniel engages in online forums on the organisation’s website and displays his car at the regular show and shine events. On one Thursday evening, during the show and shine, Daniel gets in his car and performs a burnout on the road. He is seen by a passing police patrol and followed. Daniel attempts to evade the police for a short period of time during which he speeds. After being overtaken by the police vehicle he pulls over and is charged and pleads guilty to the offence of dangerous operation of a motor vehicle. He is sentenced to a 6 month wholly suspended sentence in the District Court but because the offence was committed while he was participating in the affairs of the car club, unless he can prove otherwise he will be regarded as a vicious lawless associate and spend the next 15 or 25 in prison. Again, if the police had previously been required to shut down show and shine events due to street racing or there were posts on the online forums in which burnouts, racing or other dangerous racing were boasted about, Daniel may have difficulty proving that dangerous driving was not a purpose of the club and will automatically spend 15 to 25 years in custody."


Australia has officially lost the plot.
 
Arseholes.

They realised that people in numbers produce more power than the average joe blow.

This has made me so sad.

I'll have to be extra careful leaving book club now, might end up in prison for 25 years.
 
I don't agree with these laws in any way, shape or form. It is a ridiculous and dangerous precedent to be setting, however, I don't believe the scenarios presented by the OP are likely to take place in any way whatsoever. This is not the United States where there is a profit motive and/or vote restriction motive by certain individuals either in Government or with Government in their pockets, it will be a cold day in hell before people in this country are serving 15 years for a bar fight or a non fatal road incident, from what I can tell 15 years is a relatively long time to serve for fucking homicide or rape in this country. I am not saying these laws shouldn't be opposed because they are utterly ridiculous, it just seems a little hyperbolic to create imaginary situations and state what the absolute worst case outcome would be for the individual concerned IF they were even prosecuted under these laws, which isn't what the laws are being implemented for. All that said, I am vehemently opposed to giving the Government any extra powers to incarcerate people and just because these laws wont be used this way in the current climate is no reason to put these laws on the books so they may be abused down the line.

I can't believe this shit is passing really, I would of thought there would be massive public opposition to this kind of thing, it seems like people are happy to have more and more rights taken away sadly.

This country is becoming a fucking police state, my brother was frisk searched by police on two separate occasions last weekend, around the corner from our house, walking home from a night out. One of those times he was relatively intoxicated and the other time he was stone cold sober. That is just one weekend, he does not drive and when he isn't catching a lift to and from home with me it seems like he gets physically searched by police almost every weekend. He actually dresses well too and while he is young would not fit the stereotypical appearance of a trouble maker or anything, it seems to me that Victoria Police are abusing the shit out of their increased powers to search individuals and not for the stated purpose of detecting weapons in the CBD. The suburb I live in is the last on the metropolitan train line, more than an hour outside of Melbourne...

I don't see that this thread relates directly to drugs, and certainly does not relate to any HR aspect of drug use, I do think it could generate some interesting discussion and is of interest to readers of this forum (should be of interest to any Australian really!), the same argument could be made for the Strip Searches in Brisbane CBD thread and as I recall that was allowed to stand. I am happy to leave it open at this time but if the discussion heads anywhere inappropriate or any of my fellow mods have a problem with it then it may be subject to close.
 
Is there a big problem with biker gangs in Australia then? I remember seeing a documentary years ago about a bike gang called The Mongols but that was in New Zealand I think.
What is the Tattoo Parlour Act?
 
drug_mentor said:
I don't agree with these laws in any way, shape or form. It is a ridiculous and dangerous precedent to be setting, however, I don't believe the scenarios presented by the OP are likely to take place in any way whatsoever.
Click to expand...

VLAD will have little impact on the general public, which is what my friend goes into detail about in the link posted above.

The VLAD act’s only purpose is to impose mandatory sentences (and restrictions on bail terms) on people found guilty of an existing set of offenses under the existing Criminal Code.

{...}

the other two are way worse, and THOSE are the laws that actually ARE guilty of infringing on freedom of association (among other shitty provisions).
Click to expand...

...

maxalfie said:
What is the Tattoo Parlour Act?
Click to expand...

A Bill
for
An Act to provide for the licensing and regulation of body art
tattooing businesses and body art tattooists and other related
matters and to amend the Liquor Act 1992 and the Police
Powers and Responsibilities Act 2000 for particular purposes
Click to expand...

Read the Bill here.

Read the CL(COD) Amendment here.
 
drug_mentor said:
I don't see that this thread relates directly to drugs, and certainly does not relate to any HR aspect of drug use, I do think it could generate some interesting discussion and is of interest to readers of this forum (should be of interest to any Australian really!), the same argument could be made for the Strip Searches in Brisbane CBD thread and as I recall that was allowed to stand. I am happy to leave it open at this time but if the discussion heads anywhere inappropriate or any of my fellow mods have a problem with it then it may be subject to close.
Click to expand...

Those examples weren't written by me, they were a direct quote from the article I linked at the top.


"A person is deemed to be a vicious lawless associate[4] if the following three conditions are satisfied:



The person commits a declared offence.
The relevant offences are listed in Schedule 1 of the VLAD. The listed offences include serious offences such as murder and various sexual offences but also include the offences of affray (which is taking part in a fight in public, a misdemeanour for which the maximum penalty is one year imprisonment); assault;[5] dangerous operation of a motor vehicle; receiving tainted property and possessing dangerous drugs.It is not unusual for people with limited or no criminal history to be fined or to be sentenced to community based orders such as probation or community service rather than be imprisoned for these latter offences.



The person was a participant in the affairs of a relevant association when the offence was committed.
As flagged earlier, a relevant association is not a criminal bikie organisation. It is any corporation; unincorporated association; club or league; or group of 3 or more persons. The definition of a relevant association does not contain any requirement that the group, corporation, club, or 3 friends as the case may be, engaged in illegal activity. Groups such as school P&Cs, swimming clubs and RSLs are all relevant associations under the VLAD Act definitions. As Queensland Law Society President Annette Bradfield noted, the legislation was so broad that it could apply to virtually any type of club or association.



The offence was committed in the course of participating in the affairs of the relevant association.


If these conditions are satisfied, a person is deemed to be a vicious lawful associate unless they can prove that engaging in certain offences is not one of purposes of the relevant association.



Our natural inclination may be to think that regardless of the broad initial definitions, the act will only catch career criminals who are in organisations whose clear purpose is to engage criminal behaviour, as has been alleged about by certain bikie clubs. I think that it is highly unlikely that there is any organisation in existence in which declares that engaging in criminal activities is one of its purposes. But significantly, the police and prosecution do not have to prove that one of the purposes of an organisation is engaging in criminal activities, the charged individual must prove that this is not the case."
 
maxalfie said:
Is there a big problem with biker gangs in Australia then?
Click to expand...
I personally don't think there's a big problem with the bikers, I do however think that the media has done a damn good job of making the masses believe there is a big problem. At the end of the day, it makes a good story for the journo's.
 
Yeah it seems to me that they're just playing bikies up as villains for their own gain, the media get more viewers, the cops get more funding, the politicians get to pass draconian laws and draw attention away from more serious issues, and the general public get duped, robbed of time and money that could have gone to more important things, and no reduction in actual crime rates. Especially not the crimes that matter, I mean relative to the amount of time and attention they get, how much do bikies actually bother the general public? Obviously shootings and firebombings and brawls suck, but how many innocent, non-bikies get harmed in those? Yeah they sell a lot of drugs, but we all know what happens when a drug dealer gets shot down.

Just don't see this achieving jack shit other than creating another law that can be exploited against people it was never openly intended for.
 
Problem is the examples of the OP may soon be the only way authorities have to enact these laws. People will go underground, no longer wear/own identifying "club" related material and be no different from the rest except they still do all the other things underground and out of sight. Bit like most outlaw bike gangs already operate Just not the ones trying to take over the drug market around certain cities etc of Australia, oh and the dumb asses associated with them that have fights/bashings over a fucking three way love triangle? Day's of our lives? That shit was out of order...

As for the more jails it's uneconomical but governments are not in it for making economic sense. They are in it for short term gains and popularity for the next election, oh and keeping the population generally dumb. I mean brilliant let's sell off all our assets and then what do we have for our next budget a fucking deficit because we sold off all our profitable government portfolio's so we have to raise taxes and cut jobs. Except police and prisons because we got to keep the population in check and make people feel were doing something right even though we are really butt fucking the country long term. No political majority is faultless all are to blame.

It's all about the greasy lie of bullshit created by media and cock shaking with politics, fool enough people and you get re elected, don't fool enough and then blame everyone else for the countries shitty state created by... the usual suspects. Same reason the Commonwealth bank makes a few billion in profit. What has happened to England who started this trend 30 years ago? Well they are fucked to be quite frank not even a glimmer of those Thatcher years.
 
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Crankinit said:
Yeah it seems to me that they're just playing bikies up as villains for their own gain, the media get more viewers, the cops get more funding, the politicians get to pass draconian laws and draw attention away from more serious issues, and the general public get duped, robbed of time and money that could have gone to more important things, and no reduction in actual crime rates. Especially not the crimes that matter, I mean relative to the amount of time and attention they get, how much do bikies actually bother the general public? Obviously shootings and firebombings and brawls suck, but how many innocent, non-bikies get harmed in those? Yeah they sell a lot of drugs, but we all know what happens when a drug dealer gets shot down.

Just don't see this achieving jack shit other than creating another law that can be exploited against people it was never openly intended for.
Click to expand...

You obviously haven't been on the Gold Coast. There was the woman walking with her kids at Robina shopping centre who got shot in cross fire between two gang members as well as the bloke who cut off a Sargent in Arms who had recently moved there and was shot through his car door out the front of the Gold Coast hospital. Not to mention the brawls that erupted in the middle of the restaurant strip early on a Friday night or the lifeguard who had his jaw broken when he asked a biker to move from the flags.

Like I mention else where, the general public has been happy to ignore their presence for years because they conducted their business away from the public, but when they start using tourist areas as a battle ground is it really that surprising the government wants to suddenly crack down?
 
Yep Busty/1k words it's been pretty fucking out of order all the shit going down around the Gold Coast. Once upon a time this kind of shit was controlled in house, stepping out of line was a serious fucking offence and probably had you 6 ft under. The bashing has me fucked I mean in the broad beach fucking mall?

Knew of the guy that did the Robina shooting, someone out to make a name for themselves, or just unable to get an opportunity any other way. This kind of shit is what brings heat and lot's of attention to your "business" so the question in my mind is WTF? Are to many of them getting pumped on the meth and just not thinking? I know old mate shooty was pumping meth, home made crack and probably roids so that makes sense but in public, middle of day, maybe it was a message I don't fucking know? Maybe the AC could come in (I think the AB is already making inroads to Australia) and teach them about the values of family lol, but I don't want neo-nazi skin heads with a reputation for brutal violence teaching anyone shit.
 
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