Govt action on bikie-gang disorders

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34046, 9 January 1976, Page 1

Govt action on bikie-gang disorders

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, January 8.

Both the Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) and the Minister of Police (Mr McCready) today indicated that the Government would take early action on the problem of motorcycle gang disorders.

Mr Muldoon said in Auckland that he had a fairly strong feeling that the Government would change the law to make it easier for local authorities to inhibit bikies’ offensiveness.

“Local authorities say that their hands are tied,” said Mr Muldoon. “It is up to the legislators to untie them.”

A decision on possible legislation would be made after the police reports were in, Mr Muldoon said.

Mr McCready is due to present the report of the Commissioner of Police (Mr K. B. Bumside) at the first Cabinet meeting of the year, on January 19. Mr McCready said in an interview today, after talks with the Mayor of Mount Eden (Mr R. A. Gribble): “The law is going to be upheld.”

Mr Gribble had sought the meeting after a bikie was shot dead, allegedly by members of a rival gang, in a house at Mount Eden on December 29. ‘Top priority’ On January 4, in a confrontation between a gang and the armed offenders’ squad at Taumarunui, a gang member was shot dead by a police marksman. Shots had allegedly been fired at a traffic officer earlier.

Mr McCready said that if the Government decided that legislation was required, it would be given top priority in the Government’s programme.

However, the House of Representatives is not expected to meet before March. A Waikato University lec-

turer in psychology, Dr D. R. Thomas, said today that police overreaction or harsh crack-down measures against bikies could lead to an increase in gang violence. He urged the police to establish communication with gang members, and for long-term research to be done to find why bikie gangs were formed, saying: “We need words, not bullets.” Follow-up action He was not critical of the police action during the confrontation at Taumarunui, but said that police follow-up action was extremely important. “If there is a general clamp-down on bikie gangs as such, irrespective of whether they are of the aggressive type or not, I think this will tend to breed more aggression,” Dr Thomas said. "It creates resentment among the gangs, and they start to feel justifiably oppressed; and when that happens, .they start to look for way's of ‘getting back’ by the use of aggressive means,” he said. He said that where there had been communication between a bikie gang and the police and local authority, as before a recent bikies’ gathering at Wellington, there had been no violence. Assurance Mr Muldoon, in Auckland, said he agreed it was "a very grey area to touch,” and gave an assurance that any action taken would not infringe the rights of the ordinary citizen.

"We would not want the police breaking in if there was just a noisy party. But night after night . . . something has to be done,” he said.