The politics of law and order is determined as much by what is implied as what is actually said in public.

Recent media reports have attributed a spate of violence in Sydney to bikie warfare, suggesting gang rivalries based on drugs and prostitution are behind the incidents. Such conflict is difficult to police because members of bike subcultures rarely speak to outsiders, let alone to the constabulary, even where one of their own is murdered or violently assaulted.

Public anxiety about organised crime is magnified by television dramas such as Underbelly and strengthens the case of those who seek to extend police powers.

It was no surprise, therefore, to hear the Police Commissioner, Andrew Scipione, call for the New South Wales State Government to enact legislation similar to the South Australian Serious and Organised Crime (Control) Act. Under this law, passed last year, Scipione's equivalent can ask the Government to declare a gang a "proscribed organisation" if it is deemed to be a front for criminal activities, and to empower police to limit the association between gang members. When asked about the police already having extensive powers under the criminal code, Scipione said those responsible for the violence were "terrorists".

Scipione's gambit suggests that the definition of terrorism should be extended to include clan violence that has no apparent global or treasonous dimension. He is gesturing towards recent reports that Lebanese men are joining bikie gangs in large numbers. He is playing on popular fears that those from Middle Eastern backgrounds are a fifth column: that they seek to undermine the national way of life, regardless of the fact that many come from families which have lived in Australia for generations.

While the SA law is different, it is also arguable that it has a greater potential for curtailing liberties. It gives the state power to regulate the social interactions of citizens simply by defining them as organisation members and independent of the need to establish their guilt in other criminal proceedings. Such a move is invidious and could only occur in a society habituated to the idea that these are extreme times requiring extreme measures.

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=8676&page=0