OFF THE WIRE
ANTI-BIKIE laws will be introduced into Victoria this year, according to the government, after it failed to meet its target of delivering them last year.
The ground-breaking laws will give the police chief commissioner or Director of Public Prosecutions the power to apply to the Supreme Court to have bikie gxxgs banned.
If a judge is satisfied the organisation is engaged in serious criminal activity, such as drug dealing or extortion, it can ban it, with members who continue to associate suffering tough penalties.
The pledge was a key plank in the Coalition's tough-on-crime agenda before the 2010 state election.
But the government did not deliver the new laws last year as it intended.
Police Minister Peter Ryan yesterday said that the legislation would come this year and had been delayed because the government pursued a ''big agenda'' last year.
Similar laws in South Australia and New South Wales have faced successful High Court challenges and Mr Ryan said the government was working carefully to ensure that did not happen in Victoria.
Mr Ryan made the comments while launching an inaugural police conference aimed at tackling serious and organised crime.
The secretive two-day conference at the MCG will focus on counter-terrorism, surveillance, cyber crime and the drug trade, with Victoria Police discussing crime-fighting with other agencies.
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/state-moves-on-bikie-laws-20120313-1uyhl.html
