associational autonomy

The ABC reports that WA Attorney General Christian Porter has defended the State Government's proposed anti-association laws on the basis that the statutes will target criminal organisations. Mr Porter told ABC Local Radio the laws would only be used to combat organised crime.

The proposals are a reflection of restrictions on associational autonomy apparent in the anti-OMG (ie outlaw motorcycle gang) statutes in South Australia and NSW that have been highlighted in this blog. The WA statutes would reportedly give WA police the power to ban people from 'associating with certain groups and from visiting some establishments'.

Mr Porter claims that the legislation is appropriate -

You have to show to the relevant standard that an organisation, in this case we say that there are criminal organisations in the form of bikie clubs, that they are a criminal organisation

That's a nice slide from 'organised crime' as in bureaucratised 'Murder Incorporated, Don Corleone and the mafia through to 'criminal organisations'. Criminal because they behave in a criminal way or because they've been dubbed as 'criminal organisations' while the cameras roll?

Tom Percy QC, highlighting concerns, is reported by the ABC as commenting that the laws are a draconian attack on basic civil liberties and will not just target bikie gangs' -

It's about basic freedoms, but specifically the right to associate with whom you want to associate, it's also about whether the government has the right to take that freedom from us. I say, it hasn't.

The fact that this legislation could even be contemplated that we can even think about it in a civilised country in 2010, demonstrates the glaring need in Australia for a constitutional Bill of Rights