A couple of weeks ago, taxi drivers had a "sit in" at Brisbane airport to protest against parking or some other lame shit. When a handful of police on bikes tried to shift them and clear the traffic they started complaining of abuse to the media and using the race card. In reality one Indian cabbie got a solid shove and told to move out of the way (which for those who lived in Brisbane during the Joh day's is actually a pretty tame response).
Fast forward to last Thursday night and there was a massive crack down on taxi drivers in the valley. Every cab was pulled over and, defect vehicles taken off the road, immigration officers were also there checking visa's (alot of student visa's have restrictions on hours worked and I doubt many cabbies work less than 20 hours a week0. Even last night as I drove home I spotted a taxi driver having his papers checked on the side of the road.
The point of my rant is police do a thankless, shit job. Their powers of authority have been eroded over the past 20 years as corruption and abuse of power has been become less socially accepted. But don't fuck with them. There are a thousand pointless laws that are generally allowed to slide (drug use is one of them) but give a copper enough grief and it will be use against you. Plenty of people bend the laws every day and so long as you are not a public nuisance the police will generally show some restraint.
