Latest / Real Crime with Adam Shand / Deported for a 45-Year-Old Crime | Tom Mackie

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Deported for a 45-Year-Old Crime | Tom Mackie · Real Crime with Adam Shand

0:05
Speaker 1: Appoche production Welcome to Real Crime with Adam Shand I'm
0:15
Speaker 1: your host Adam Shand. I met Tom Mackeye in two
0:18
Speaker 1: thousand and eight during a moral panic about outlaw bikers
0:22
Speaker 1: in South Australia.
0:23
Speaker 2: As part of the government crackdown. The Pinks were the
0:25
Speaker 2: first biker club in the country to be declared a
0:28
Speaker 2: criminal organization.
0:30
Speaker 1: Then Premier Mike Ran had enacted anti association laws he
0:33
Speaker 1: believed would destroy the clubs. South Australian Premier Mike Ran
0:38
Speaker 1: introduced the Serious and Organized Crime Act, which he described
0:41
Speaker 1: as the world's toughest anti bike laws. Tom and his
0:46
Speaker 1: brother Perry had founded the Descendants club back in the
0:48
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies. They'd come from New Zealand as teenagers with
0:53
Speaker 1: the spirit of rebellion. The club survived a crackdown by
0:56
Speaker 1: police in the seventies, but several members fell into the
0:59
Speaker 1: drug trade and ended up in prison, including Tom, Hiding
1:03
Speaker 1: and Plainside.
1:04
Speaker 3: Police said storefront was a bikei club house used.
1:08
Speaker 1: By members of the Outland motorcycle gang the Descendants. He
1:12
Speaker 1: emerged determined to return the club to its freedom seeking roots.
1:17
Speaker 1: When Ran tried to ban the clubs, Tom and other
1:19
Speaker 1: bike has got together to challenge the laws before the
1:22
Speaker 1: High Court, which declared them unconstitutional. The descendants are a
1:26
Speaker 1: declared outlaw motorcycle gang, and the brothers played a prominent
1:29
Speaker 1: role in fighting the state's harsh anti bikey laws. After
1:33
Speaker 1: that success, Tom and Perry went back to a quiet life,
1:36
Speaker 1: which mainly involved raising their families and enjoying club life.
1:41
Speaker 1: But then Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton had other ideas.
1:46
Speaker 1: In December twenty twenty, Tom and Perry were arrested and
1:49
Speaker 1: placed in immigration detention, penning their deportation to New Zealand
1:53
Speaker 1: for failing the character tests.
1:55
Speaker 3: Tom and Perry Mackie are being sent back to New
1:58
Speaker 3: Zealand fifty two years after emmigrating. Her visas torn up
2:02
Speaker 3: due to bad character and in.
2:05
Speaker 1: June twenty twenty five they now face imminent deportation after
2:10
Speaker 1: exhausting all legal avenues and Tom joins me from broad
2:15
Speaker 1: Meadows Detention Center.
2:16
Speaker 2: Get it Tom, Yeah, good evening, Adam.
2:19
Speaker 1: How you doing good mate? It's days away now after
2:23
Speaker 1: four and a half years of waiting. What's the next step.
2:27
Speaker 2: Well, look, we're just pushing as much stuff as we
2:31
Speaker 2: can directly through to the Minister you know, personal pleas
2:35
Speaker 2: from the family to relook at our case, perhaps you know,
2:38
Speaker 2: a late endtervention. In the likely event that he's going
2:42
Speaker 2: to do that, then we're just faced with having to
2:44
Speaker 2: comply with it, go with the deportation, and then you know,
2:48
Speaker 2: while sitting off shore, I hope that somewhere on the
2:50
Speaker 2: line in the future there's an adjustment to the directions
2:54
Speaker 2: that sort of work around this act and we can reapply.
2:56
Speaker 2: I mean, technically speaking, there's always an avenue to reapply
3:00
Speaker 2: for a visa to come back in the country. But
3:02
Speaker 2: technical normally deportation is pretty much the end of it,
3:05
Speaker 2: and not not many people have the success after that.
3:08
Speaker 1: Because you and Perry have raised big families in Australia.
3:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, like ten kids between us, twenty two grandchildren,
3:16
Speaker 2: three great grandchildren married to Australian woman for you know,
3:22
Speaker 2: in relationships for over forty years. Five generations you know,
3:25
Speaker 2: from my mum and dad Australian citizens down to my
3:28
Speaker 2: great grandchildren. So you got five generations over fifty five people,
3:33
Speaker 2: all Australians bar two of us who were only permanent residents.
3:36
Speaker 2: So we were the odd two out.
3:37
Speaker 1: Yeah. People will be saying why didn't you apply for citizenship?
3:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, Look, one of those things, isn't it. It's never
3:43
Speaker 2: suggested to you. It's not a part of any criteria
3:46
Speaker 2: where you know, if the government come to you and said, look,
3:48
Speaker 2: we decided that, you know, after ten years, twenty years
3:50
Speaker 2: as a permanent resident, there should be a progressive pathway
3:54
Speaker 2: to citizenship. Never were asked. When our parents and our
3:58
Speaker 2: sister got citizenship, they got the papers as we said, Yah,
4:02
Speaker 2: I don't know, we'll do that a bit later, got
4:05
Speaker 2: back to it, and that's you know, it's just one
4:07
Speaker 2: of those things because there's no need to do it.
4:10
Speaker 2: There's no real impetus. Never felt like it was urgent,
4:13
Speaker 2: so we didn't never bother.
4:15
Speaker 1: Your last conviction was how long ago?
4:18
Speaker 2: So just over forty five years ago since I last convicted.
4:22
Speaker 1: And what was that?
4:22
Speaker 2: For narcotic possession? Yeah, the result of an operation run
4:26
Speaker 2: by the SA Drug Squad. At the time, they had ways,
4:30
Speaker 2: ways and means our secure and convictions. But as happens,
4:33
Speaker 2: they stand up in court and the conviction stands. You know,
4:36
Speaker 2: whether it was absolutely as framed or not.
4:39
Speaker 1: Because we've talked about that in the past, that you
4:41
Speaker 1: believe you were loaded up with some heroin back in
4:44
Speaker 1: the day.
4:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. Unfortunately the word of one me against six
4:51
Speaker 2: police or two in the actual action, but four that
4:55
Speaker 2: were part of the visit that day. The corroborating power
4:58
Speaker 2: of senior police is always going to outweigh the word
5:02
Speaker 2: of a defendant in a court case. It's well know,
5:05
Speaker 2: and in those days it was a well practiced methodology
5:08
Speaker 2: by police to get secure convictions, and many times came
5:12
Speaker 2: unstuck in lots of ways in course of appeal and
5:15
Speaker 2: raw commissions and all sorts of things. But of course,
5:18
Speaker 2: just as many times, the conviction stuck. And in my case,
5:21
Speaker 2: that's stuck.
5:22
Speaker 1: Because something happened to you while you were in jail.
5:24
Speaker 1: Your heart changed. You realized you couldn't beat the system,
5:27
Speaker 1: and you decided that you were going to change your
5:29
Speaker 1: club from one that was had a criminal focus to
5:33
Speaker 1: one that was really centered around the motorcycle.
5:36
Speaker 2: Well that's had It's a return, isn't it. You know?
5:38
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, we all go around in circle.
5:39
Speaker 2: So you know, you wander off with a little bit
5:41
Speaker 2: of a venture in lots of ways, behavior, you know,
5:45
Speaker 2: all sorts of ways, and then you bring it back around.
5:47
Speaker 2: So when the club had a bit of a run
5:49
Speaker 2: with the Biking Squad at the time, and they use
5:52
Speaker 2: the methods as they used to get the convictions they
5:54
Speaker 2: need to justify, you know, ends justify the means. Yeah,
5:58
Speaker 2: there's only one way to sort of separate yourself, and
6:00
Speaker 2: that that stepped back from it a little bit, you know,
6:02
Speaker 2: let them move on, and of course by doing that,
6:04
Speaker 2: you really returned to what you were doing before, which
6:07
Speaker 2: was for us, it was motorcycle racing and when that
6:10
Speaker 2: was our passion, that's what our sort of life story is,
6:13
Speaker 2: racing from little dirt bikes, you know, when we're first
6:15
Speaker 2: old enough to buy them, and then through to drag racing,
6:18
Speaker 2: and then spent the next twenty twenty five years traveling
6:20
Speaker 2: around Australia racing motorcycles and working on them, and you know,
6:24
Speaker 2: returning to the sort of the fun, more fun part
6:26
Speaker 2: of what we were doing. So you know, that was
6:30
Speaker 2: pretty easy to return to something that you enjoyed. It's
6:33
Speaker 2: not even like you're departing a style of life into
6:37
Speaker 2: something totally different. It's just a return and that's what
6:39
Speaker 2: I guess that's the true form of rehabilitation, and that
6:42
Speaker 2: you go back to the behavior that didn't get you
6:45
Speaker 2: in trouble and keeps you out of trouble. And it
6:47
Speaker 2: was pretty simple formula.
6:49
Speaker 1: Because you as president, what standards were you now enforcing
6:52
Speaker 1: in the membership of the club. There was only one chapter,
6:54
Speaker 1: by the way, there was an avalaide that was it. Yeah,
6:57
Speaker 1: so you could keep an eye on the members.
7:00
Speaker 2: Well, that's right, And we didn't have a hierarchical role
7:02
Speaker 2: as such. Did let experience drive decision making. So as
7:06
Speaker 2: an original member and you know, you try and set
7:10
Speaker 2: direction as you were an older brother, a father figure,
7:14
Speaker 2: or even just a part of a group. So so
7:16
Speaker 2: it was more a consensus, you know, to sort of
7:19
Speaker 2: move from people getting sick of getting hounded to just
7:23
Speaker 2: sit back a little bit. Do some motor bike racing
7:26
Speaker 2: police squads move on different clubs, different themes, you know,
7:31
Speaker 2: sort of rise up, particularly in the motorcycle scene. Over
7:34
Speaker 2: the years, it evolved into a different structure and a
7:37
Speaker 2: different perception and everyone has of it now. But it
7:39
Speaker 2: was easy for us to stay here the way we were,
7:42
Speaker 2: being small club, family based, single chapter, one town, pretty
7:46
Speaker 2: easy to not be affected by international national trends or compulsions.
7:50
Speaker 1: You know.
7:50
Speaker 2: Some some groups would have to operate, you know, in
7:53
Speaker 2: a way that's set by somewhere else. We never had that,
7:57
Speaker 2: so you know, to sit back, go motor boat racing
7:59
Speaker 2: pretty easy because we weren't getting pulled or dragged in
8:02
Speaker 2: any other directions.
8:04
Speaker 1: But the one percent tag, which yeah, delineates clubs that
8:10
Speaker 1: have that tag from other social clubs.
8:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll look at the handy label that's been tagged
8:15
Speaker 2: onto people. Because the original days of all the motorcycle
8:18
Speaker 2: clubs in Australia, I don't think any, if and if
8:21
Speaker 2: any did, there were few and far between actually identified
8:24
Speaker 2: with a one percent tag. All wore it. It was
8:25
Speaker 2: an americanism and it evolved and unfortunate. It's one of
8:29
Speaker 2: those things where the more you're accused of one percent
8:32
Speaker 2: of a different for everyone else and one percent identify
8:35
Speaker 2: as an outlaw. Then it actually followed suit that lots
8:38
Speaker 2: of clubs started actually wearing a one percent badge because
8:40
Speaker 2: that's what they were told it was expected of them
8:43
Speaker 2: in the media. So, you know, the media narrative drives
8:46
Speaker 2: a lot of stuff. If you tell a certain group
8:48
Speaker 2: of kids that this is what they're being accused of,
8:51
Speaker 2: you know half of them will go do it because
8:52
Speaker 2: that's what's expected, and clubs did a bit of that,
8:55
Speaker 2: you know. So the one percent thing in our early days,
8:58
Speaker 2: the one percent thing meant nothing. It was an americanism,
9:01
Speaker 2: and you'll find every senior member from the seventies would
9:04
Speaker 2: probably take that from most clubs. Some grabbed it quickly
9:07
Speaker 2: and evolved with it and run with it and made
9:09
Speaker 2: it a part of their thing, and then everybody did,
9:12
Speaker 2: almost everybody did, and then the police and the authorities
9:16
Speaker 2: lashed onto it as ah, there's the identifier, that's what
9:19
Speaker 2: makes them different. Well, once they started saying it, everyone
9:22
Speaker 2: started believing it. Whereas, like I say, you go back
9:25
Speaker 2: to the old photos of nineteen seventy two, seventy three,
9:27
Speaker 2: seventy four, big club runs where all the clubs are there,
9:31
Speaker 2: you won't find a one percent badge there anywhere, very rare.
9:33
Speaker 2: No one cared about it, police didn't care about it.
9:36
Speaker 2: It wasn't a political identifier, and we didn't wear them.
9:40
Speaker 1: Because it's become synonymous with crime, and all the clubs
9:44
Speaker 1: are tagged with it. You've got forty one clubs, but
9:47
Speaker 1: really there's only a handful of clubs that are even
9:49
Speaker 1: in the media these days being involved in organized crime,
9:52
Speaker 1: Yet all of you get tagged with the same idea
9:56
Speaker 1: because of the one percent bags you wear.
9:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, well that's what you know. There's been a handy tool,
10:02
Speaker 2: didn't it for labeling. There's been a very handy tool
10:04
Speaker 2: for law enforcement that want to market a product of
10:08
Speaker 2: you know, create fear. And we've got the solution. Just
10:10
Speaker 2: give us more resources. And so if you've got ten clubs,
10:13
Speaker 2: they are always in the headlines, and thirty that no
10:15
Speaker 2: one's ever heard of. But you can create some legislation
10:17
Speaker 2: that covers all forty. You know, you've cultivated quite a
10:20
Speaker 2: big range of potential arrests atistics without the actual justification.
10:26
Speaker 2: Just say they're all one percent, as they must all
10:28
Speaker 2: be criminals. And no matter what we say, and no
10:32
Speaker 2: matter what the stats you get, Professor Goldsworthy and all
10:35
Speaker 2: these criminologists come on and go and talk to all
10:37
Speaker 2: over all commissions and all the commissions of inquiry and go, hey,
10:41
Speaker 2: fifty two percent you know on our stats. Crime Commission
10:44
Speaker 2: will tell you there's fifty two to fifty five percent
10:46
Speaker 2: of them. I've got criminal records, So what's this criminal organization?
10:50
Speaker 2: Through and through? It's not real in the stats, absolutely
10:53
Speaker 2: not real.
10:53
Speaker 1: Yeah. I wrote a book back in the day called
10:55
Speaker 1: out Laws. I looked at the level of bikey crime
10:58
Speaker 1: occurring in society and it was low level. Really what
11:01
Speaker 1: it was low level in the States, you guys get
11:04
Speaker 1: all the publicity. I looked at it recently, it really
11:06
Speaker 1: hasn't changed much despite all the publicity and some of
11:09
Speaker 1: these very high profile clubs getting involved in some pretty
11:12
Speaker 1: upscale organized crime, drug importation and so forth. The average
11:16
Speaker 1: biker is still a busted ass guy with his motorbike, house,
11:21
Speaker 1: a little family, and he's not a mister b No.
11:25
Speaker 2: No, it's look it it's a membrane between you know,
11:28
Speaker 2: motorcol groups, people in the community that are involved, and
11:32
Speaker 2: the transfer of people just mingling, you know, using their
11:36
Speaker 2: club membership for what they get out of that that's
11:39
Speaker 2: good for them, and then also having a sideline of
11:43
Speaker 2: criminal endeavor. And you know that goes on in all workplace.
11:46
Speaker 2: You know, not everybody in every workplace is using that
11:49
Speaker 2: workplaces as the crush for their activity. It's just it's
11:52
Speaker 2: just a part of their life. So I've certainly seen
11:55
Speaker 2: in my time that the vast majority of blokes I
11:59
Speaker 2: know and kick around with and have met and other crews,
12:02
Speaker 2: you know, and days are all about you know, brother,
12:05
Speaker 2: good fun, family, motor boat riding and all the good
12:07
Speaker 2: stuff is plottin the scheme that must go on if
12:10
Speaker 2: you're supposed to be one hundred percent and only exists
12:12
Speaker 2: for crime. I don't think that's a truism in any
12:16
Speaker 2: group at all. It's just an exaggeration that law enforcement
12:19
Speaker 2: pedal to create a climate where they can get more
12:22
Speaker 2: resources because they've created the fear that this is what's happening.
12:25
Speaker 2: I don't see it.
12:26
Speaker 1: So what have you been doing since you gave up
12:29
Speaker 1: crime at the seventies, all those years ago? What have
12:31
Speaker 1: you been doing doing a living?
12:33
Speaker 2: Yeah? Well, just make we take on jobs that you've
12:35
Speaker 2: got a skill out or a trade at. You know,
12:37
Speaker 2: most of the boys a tradesman, and that I've always
12:39
Speaker 2: worked on motorbikes, and to spend the last twenty five
12:41
Speaker 2: years as a rigger, you know, working entertainment rigging, putting
12:44
Speaker 2: up shows and you know entertainment centers and on navles,
12:48
Speaker 2: big day outs, all that sort of stuff, hanging all
12:49
Speaker 2: the speakers and the lights and working out those sort
12:52
Speaker 2: of things where you set up the show and then
12:54
Speaker 2: you watch it. For nothing, and then you pull all
12:56
Speaker 2: apart at the ends a good gig.
12:59
Speaker 1: So you're not driving a Ferrari, you don't live with
13:01
Speaker 1: a mansion, you don't get around like that.
13:04
Speaker 2: Nah, that's right. You know, it's one of those things
13:06
Speaker 2: in where they're only going to pull the one or
13:08
Speaker 2: two or the five or six out of every group
13:10
Speaker 2: of people that have got that sort of profile and
13:13
Speaker 2: then cast it as being this is an average it's not.
13:17
Speaker 2: You know, it gets out of the honesty. And I mean,
13:19
Speaker 2: you're never going to get absolutely honesty from law enforcement
13:22
Speaker 2: because it's not their interest. They're not going to go
13:24
Speaker 2: to the meter and say, look, you know, yeah, we
13:26
Speaker 2: know this club pretty well. They got four or five
13:28
Speaker 2: boys that get up to a bit. Now the others know,
13:31
Speaker 2: we've got no problem with them. There are many members
13:34
Speaker 2: of many clubs that have never been raided by police,
13:37
Speaker 2: never been hassled by them. They have no interest in
13:40
Speaker 2: them because they do nothing. Then you see them on
13:42
Speaker 2: a TV present if you're going these guys are all
13:44
Speaker 2: criminals down and he exists for crime, and you know
13:47
Speaker 2: that's just a plete and exaggeration and lie to perpetuate
13:51
Speaker 2: better resource funding. It's nothing to do with the truth.
13:54
Speaker 2: But how do you prove it? You know, we can't
13:55
Speaker 2: prove that. We can just say, well, in my case,
13:58
Speaker 2: forty five years without him arrest. I don't know from
14:01
Speaker 2: most normal people that would suggest with the amount of
14:04
Speaker 2: police attention that we get in terms of observation, supervision,
14:10
Speaker 2: interacting with us on our rides and runs and stuff.
14:13
Speaker 2: You're thinking forty five years with that sort of observations
14:16
Speaker 2: on us, you wouldn't get away with much. And yet
14:20
Speaker 2: there's no convictions. So what about the benefit of the doubt,
14:23
Speaker 2: or maybe there's no convictions because there's nothing to convict for.
14:26
Speaker 1: It certainly caused you a lot of grief, this membership
14:29
Speaker 1: of a club. I remember talking to one BIKEI back
14:31
Speaker 1: in the day in Adelaide, saying to him and all,
14:33
Speaker 1: with trouble and strife that he was facing, maybe you
14:35
Speaker 1: should take up golf as a hobby rather than motorcycles.
14:39
Speaker 1: Have you ever considered giving it away completely, just stepping
14:42
Speaker 1: away from it.
14:43
Speaker 2: Well, you know, we get to the stage, like in
14:45
Speaker 2: our club particularly and most clubs, where you get to
14:47
Speaker 2: a retirement age. You know, whether that's locked in on
14:50
Speaker 2: a formal idea or whether it's just you pick a
14:53
Speaker 2: time when you know you're too old to pick up
14:55
Speaker 2: your bike that falls over, or you're too old to
14:57
Speaker 2: ride it all day and can't walk for the rest
14:59
Speaker 2: of the day. And so if you can't actually complete
15:02
Speaker 2: your club runs and stuff like that, anything out, it's
15:04
Speaker 2: pretty much time to hang up my hat and just
15:07
Speaker 2: you know, so good o the boys now and then
15:09
Speaker 2: go down for a beer at the clubhouse. And that's
15:11
Speaker 2: That's got a whole variety of how you go about that.
15:13
Speaker 2: Every club's different, and in fact most clubs are quite
15:16
Speaker 2: private about that. There's all sorts of stories that permeate
15:19
Speaker 2: through the media that you got to pay your way
15:20
Speaker 2: out and you lose your bike, and there's all sorts
15:22
Speaker 2: to carry on you can never leave or rubbish, you know,
15:25
Speaker 2: look at all absolutely because if you have been a
15:28
Speaker 2: really good mate and a really good club member for ten,
15:30
Speaker 2: twenty thirty forty years and your back is so bad
15:33
Speaker 2: you can't ride your bike, what your club's going to
15:35
Speaker 2: cripple you financially because you want to leave, Like really,
15:39
Speaker 2: I mean, the brotherhood doesn't extend of compassion for a
15:42
Speaker 2: bloke that's actually at the age where it's actually dangerous
15:46
Speaker 2: for them to be on a run and it doesn't happen.
15:49
Speaker 2: People just get Look, you know where you go, come
15:51
Speaker 2: down when you want. Yes, you come for a ride
15:53
Speaker 2: when you want. You can keep your colors in the
15:55
Speaker 2: wardrobe if you want. Because you're an honorable member. You're
15:58
Speaker 2: left on good standing. We don't require that you handle
16:01
Speaker 2: back there. And just like the military, you retire from
16:04
Speaker 2: the military, you get to keep My dad add he's
16:06
Speaker 2: an Avy uniform in the wardrobe my whole childhood, So
16:09
Speaker 2: you got to keep his uniform so I can retire
16:11
Speaker 2: and keep mind the police will not believe you.
16:16
Speaker 1: But you did see some clubs go down this gangster path,
16:20
Speaker 1: and whether it's conforming to media portrayals or criminal opportunities,
16:26
Speaker 1: I don't know. But things did change and some clubs
16:29
Speaker 1: were the worst offenders for this sort of stuff and
16:32
Speaker 1: brought heat on the others.
16:34
Speaker 2: Yeah. Look, and that's you know, you're going to get
16:36
Speaker 2: that across all facets of all things, aren't you. It
16:39
Speaker 2: doesn't really matter. If that's where a trend heads and
16:44
Speaker 2: the type of people that like the look of that
16:46
Speaker 2: trend go to those groups, then of course that's where
16:48
Speaker 2: it's going to go. Nothing's going to change that, and
16:52
Speaker 2: if police action comes in and it's targeted, then of course,
16:56
Speaker 2: as they did in the seventies where they like your
16:58
Speaker 2: squads in the day there as you were very targeted.
17:01
Speaker 2: You know, they actually went after the personalities rather than
17:05
Speaker 2: convinced legislators to just give us a big broad brush.
17:08
Speaker 2: In that way, we can jar them all for knowing
17:09
Speaker 2: each other, they actould come out and court. So in
17:11
Speaker 2: our club at the time, a couple of us went
17:14
Speaker 2: to jail, but a whole lot didn't because they weren't
17:16
Speaker 2: doing anything. But now they'd all go to jail just
17:18
Speaker 2: for knowing the guys that did. So it's a broad
17:21
Speaker 2: brush approach from legislation that's actually made the crime wave
17:25
Speaker 2: as such much bigger than it really is, because now
17:27
Speaker 2: we can all go to jail for knowing each other,
17:29
Speaker 2: whereas once on a time you had to go to
17:31
Speaker 2: jail for doing something not knowing someone. So I think
17:35
Speaker 2: that has played into it.
17:37
Speaker 1: Because you got through the consorting law era in the
17:39
Speaker 1: seventies where people could be jail for simply hanging out
17:43
Speaker 1: with other people with criminal records, and we thought that
17:46
Speaker 1: was finished. It was a very corrupt piece of legislation.
17:48
Speaker 1: That gave police too much power and created a whole
17:51
Speaker 1: raft of informers. That was a very healthy situation, and
17:55
Speaker 1: most states got rid of it, but we saw nearly
17:57
Speaker 1: two thousands this returned in the form of anti association
18:01
Speaker 1: laws and it was targeted at other clubs. How much
18:05
Speaker 1: yours directly, But no, you made yourself a target by
18:12
Speaker 1: unifying the clubs in a sense, by creating the United
18:15
Speaker 1: Motorcycle Council to oppose the legislation.
18:20
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I mean, as it stands, when you're an
18:23
Speaker 2: older guy, and especially in the club seeing you've been
18:25
Speaker 2: around a long time, you know and know well a
18:28
Speaker 2: lot of the older original members of all the other clubs,
18:31
Speaker 2: no matter what they've morphed into, and so those friendships
18:34
Speaker 2: come from personality friendships. And so then when there's actually
18:37
Speaker 2: a combined action where you think, look, let's all get
18:39
Speaker 2: together and you know, what are we going to do
18:41
Speaker 2: about this? Is it worth hiring some lawyers and have
18:44
Speaker 2: a bit of organized resistance to this legislation because it's
18:46
Speaker 2: going to affect our workplaces, it's going to affect our
18:49
Speaker 2: poker runs and stuff like that, you know, normal lawful activity.
18:52
Speaker 2: It's going to impact that we probably should get some
18:54
Speaker 2: legal minds on this. So rather than one club were
18:58
Speaker 2: at all, why don't we just unify and do some
19:00
Speaker 2: raffles and bikes and do some stuff to raise some
19:02
Speaker 2: money to hire the legals that can do it. Do
19:05
Speaker 2: you go to you go to the friends you know
19:07
Speaker 2: from other clubs that you've known for ten years, twenty years,
19:09
Speaker 2: thirty and you have a friendly relationship with, so that
19:13
Speaker 2: can easily be and was labeled as a unification of
19:16
Speaker 2: all the gang leaders the sky's falling in? Or was
19:19
Speaker 2: it really just a bunch of old guys that have
19:21
Speaker 2: known each other a long time from each club come
19:23
Speaker 2: together because they can actually peacefully talk and discuss intelligently
19:28
Speaker 2: motors operandi to actually try and defend the lifestyle, which
19:31
Speaker 2: is actually what it really was. But the pits as
19:34
Speaker 2: it once again law enforcement and media can get in
19:37
Speaker 2: bed together and make it what they wanted, which was
19:39
Speaker 2: a unification of the bad guys. Or was it really
19:42
Speaker 2: just a meeting of the grandfathers? You know, we know
19:44
Speaker 2: what was true, and the police and the media in
19:46
Speaker 2: close absolutely know that too well.
19:49
Speaker 1: I saw it up close as well. I was in
19:51
Speaker 1: your clubhouse doing some of those meetings you'd have people
19:55
Speaker 1: from clubs, not just old blogs by the way, some
19:57
Speaker 1: younger guys as well, from clubs that had deep and
20:01
Speaker 1: abiding feuds rivalries over the years, but they were appared
20:05
Speaker 1: to put it aside for the purpose of protecting the
20:08
Speaker 1: overall movement.
20:10
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, and it became sort of a catalyst for
20:14
Speaker 2: introducing younger guys. So you know, you always took a
20:17
Speaker 2: few of you younger, newer members along because they didn't
20:20
Speaker 2: often have any interaction with other clubs. And sometimes having
20:23
Speaker 2: all those newer younger members along where they got to
20:27
Speaker 2: meet newer younger members of other clubs and form friends,
20:31
Speaker 2: found people that they sort of got along with the
20:33
Speaker 2: right that all of us older guys that were friends anyway.
20:36
Speaker 2: So now we had younger members who became friends. And
20:40
Speaker 2: here we are ten fifteen years after those days, and
20:43
Speaker 2: now those members are twenty thirty year members who are
20:46
Speaker 2: still friends. So the legacy that it started, the legacy
20:50
Speaker 2: that we had with all the older members got an
20:53
Speaker 2: opportunity to start that for the younger members started then,
20:56
Speaker 2: and now fifteen years later, those people still have friendships
20:59
Speaker 2: and phone numbers, so that anything that arises, whether it's
21:02
Speaker 2: another political movement or putting out a spotfim, you've got
21:05
Speaker 2: that contact. So it served a lot of purposes that
21:08
Speaker 2: were all positive. There was no plotting, scheming and you
21:11
Speaker 2: were witnessed at some of those meetings. There was no
21:13
Speaker 2: plotting or scheming or let's bringing the world down. It
21:15
Speaker 2: was all about positivity, you know, represent ourselves properly. Well.
21:20
Speaker 1: It was quite remarkable seeing a group of people I
21:23
Speaker 1: guess you'd dedicated themselves living beyond the law, if you like,
21:27
Speaker 1: in their own world, were suddenly going to the High Court.
21:30
Speaker 1: Tell us what happened, Yeah, yeah.
21:33
Speaker 2: Well there was a case where the first declaration of
21:36
Speaker 2: a club started in South Australia and a couple that
21:38
Speaker 2: were changed and become the test case. And so it
21:41
Speaker 2: was really because we'd already started unifying a little bit
21:45
Speaker 2: on ideas and fundraising to help whoever was the first
21:48
Speaker 2: one that sort of unified then and now the clubs
21:52
Speaker 2: had actually a fight on their hands with a real
21:55
Speaker 2: case which took a year or so to progress through
21:57
Speaker 2: the High Court, and the High Court handed down to
21:59
Speaker 2: six to one affirmation that our view was right, that
22:02
Speaker 2: these type of draconian and the association and declaring clubs
22:06
Speaker 2: you know, sort of almost terrorist groups. Was I think
22:09
Speaker 2: one judge in the High Court in his summary of
22:11
Speaker 2: had declared a repugnant law. So you know, it got
22:15
Speaker 2: washed away, it got scrapped because it was an overreach.
22:19
Speaker 2: And as governments do, which I guess if they're entitled
22:21
Speaker 2: to do, they instruct their solicitors to spend a few
22:24
Speaker 2: years on reconstructing another version of it. That they did
22:27
Speaker 2: they as she marketed it, the next version of it
22:29
Speaker 2: as high Court proof, So you know, they construct legislation
22:34
Speaker 2: to meet the ends which they want. Was is the
22:35
Speaker 2: match the media threats that they were making. We're going
22:38
Speaker 2: to do this, We're going to do that to these clubs,
22:40
Speaker 2: and we're going to make it high court proof as
22:41
Speaker 2: a slayer on the highest court in the land. So
22:44
Speaker 2: that's the political side of it.
22:46
Speaker 1: So what is the state of play with being a
22:48
Speaker 1: biking in South Australia? Now, are you outlawed as some
22:52
Speaker 1: media would call.
22:53
Speaker 2: You, sorony of it all? And it's not illegal to
22:56
Speaker 2: be a member of a motorcycle club in Australia, not
22:59
Speaker 2: in any state. It's absolutely not illegal. You can join one.
23:03
Speaker 2: There are then tariffs and consequence that happened to you
23:06
Speaker 2: for that membership. But you can legally be a member,
23:09
Speaker 2: no problem at all, and you know, display your membership
23:13
Speaker 2: in areas where it's legal. Obviously not hotels or license
23:16
Speaker 2: premises anymore, and in some states not even on the street,
23:20
Speaker 2: but certainly in lots of other areas you can. So,
23:23
Speaker 2: you know, for one of those things where it's a
23:25
Speaker 2: legal activity to be joining a club, but there will
23:28
Speaker 2: be so many other consequences that are placed on you,
23:31
Speaker 2: you know, to try and encourage you to not stay
23:34
Speaker 2: with that club, will be in that club, but that's
23:36
Speaker 2: designed to make it unbearable or uncomfortable to the point
23:39
Speaker 2: where you may walk away. And then of course we
23:42
Speaker 2: move into this position where the Immigration Acts sort of
23:46
Speaker 2: comes in over the top of that and goes well,
23:48
Speaker 2: just because you've had an association with a Mozole club,
23:51
Speaker 2: whether you left twenty years ago, thirty years ago, or
23:54
Speaker 2: last week, you know, your permanent residency visa becomes compromised
23:58
Speaker 2: because even though membership is not illegal, it actually is
24:02
Speaker 2: seen negatively under thecharacter assessment, and therefore your visa can
24:08
Speaker 2: be canceled, and therefore you can be placed in attention
24:10
Speaker 2: and removed from the country for at one stage in
24:13
Speaker 2: your life. Because there's no time limit. Could have been
24:15
Speaker 2: forty years ago, it could have been four days ago.
24:18
Speaker 2: You're liable for a whole other set of punishment. Where
24:22
Speaker 2: now the original bit of trouble I got in the
24:25
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy nine ninety eight I've now been incarcerated now
24:30
Speaker 2: for another four and a half years, you know, three
24:32
Speaker 2: times longer than that sentence got me, and about to
24:36
Speaker 2: be deported. So that's three punishments for one offense. You know,
24:39
Speaker 2: some people might say that's done past the pub test,
24:41
Speaker 2: but that is the state of play when it comes
24:44
Speaker 2: to club association legislation. It's not illegal, but you can
24:49
Speaker 2: be deported over it.
24:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, because the means to do this was, as you say,
24:56
Speaker 1: the conviction back then, more than twelve months in jail
25:00
Speaker 1: would I mean you couldn't pass the character test. But
25:03
Speaker 1: also your advocacy on behalf of the other clubs was
25:07
Speaker 1: seen as you showing that you're a leader of the
25:10
Speaker 1: clubs in South Australia and that having won this high
25:14
Speaker 1: court battle, that you may well be predisposed towards breaking
25:17
Speaker 1: other laws.
25:18
Speaker 2: Absolutely well, it shows in their eyes, it shows that
25:22
Speaker 2: even campaigning for your own rights and being proven that
25:24
Speaker 2: your rights were being illegally affected, which is what the
25:28
Speaker 2: High Court did. It struck down the government's legislation as
25:31
Speaker 2: illegal legislation. So we were being illegally corralled by legislation
25:36
Speaker 2: that got thrown out. So my punishment for bringing that
25:40
Speaker 2: with a bunch of another hundred people that got involved
25:42
Speaker 2: in the UMC. So my punishment for being involved in
25:46
Speaker 2: exposing that illegal legislation is that that shows that you've
25:49
Speaker 2: got anti government character. Well not really, I've got pro
25:52
Speaker 2: lawful law character. That's what I've got. You know. I
25:56
Speaker 2: was interested in campaigning for the laws being legal, not
25:58
Speaker 2: so much anti government. They just had to be the
26:00
Speaker 2: people that were bringing them about. So my anti government
26:04
Speaker 2: stand and so on legislation means that that's another slant
26:08
Speaker 2: on my character.
26:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, And a lot of what Minister Dutton relied upon
26:12
Speaker 1: back then in twenty twenty came from the media. So
26:16
Speaker 1: I do confess to feel a little tinge of guilt,
26:19
Speaker 1: more than a little tinge actually about publicizing what you did,
26:24
Speaker 1: because I guess I was seeing something that was pro social,
26:27
Speaker 1: that was, as you say, it was trying to assess
26:30
Speaker 1: whether this was fair and constitutional. In the end, it's
26:34
Speaker 1: caused the destruction of your family here in Australia.
26:38
Speaker 2: And you know, and I guess that's the timeline of
26:41
Speaker 2: legislation that actually should not be retrospective because when we
26:44
Speaker 2: were involved in that advocacy for better laws around motorcycle clubs,
26:50
Speaker 2: not only was it legal to do that and still is,
26:53
Speaker 2: but there was no other ramifications that could be used
26:57
Speaker 2: against this because the Immigration Act as it stood under
27:00
Speaker 2: the five oh one wasn't using character assessments on motorcycle
27:04
Speaker 2: club advocacy as a component. So in two thousand and seven, eight, nine,
27:09
Speaker 2: ten eleven, when we were doing all this advocacy work
27:12
Speaker 2: for better laws, no one was getting deported for doing that.
27:15
Speaker 2: No one was getting deported for being a motorcycle club associate.
27:19
Speaker 2: Twenty fourteen, a new law come in that actually included
27:24
Speaker 2: those things, unbeknown to all of us, of course. And
27:27
Speaker 2: then years and years later when they trolled through all
27:30
Speaker 2: the names and heritage timelines for people involved in those things,
27:36
Speaker 2: you know, they struck across a couple that were like myself,
27:40
Speaker 2: long term fifty year residents, permanent residence but actually still
27:45
Speaker 2: on the visa and this new law forbid being involved
27:49
Speaker 2: in political protesting when you're on a visa. But when
27:53
Speaker 2: we did it, it was legal. But then when they
27:55
Speaker 2: made it illegal, they reached back into the past. So
27:57
Speaker 2: basically technically that I'm getting passed for the sins that
28:00
Speaker 2: I did when it wasn't illegal to do it.
28:02
Speaker 1: You've been there four and a half years. Now, you're
28:05
Speaker 1: inside broad Meadows Detention Center. Now what's it like as
28:09
Speaker 1: a long term resident there or inmates?
28:10
Speaker 2: If you like mundane? You know, I mean that's a
28:13
Speaker 2: problem with this. It's a cage bus stop. You know,
28:16
Speaker 2: it's not a prison. So while you get a few
28:18
Speaker 2: little things that are more comfortable in terms of devices
28:23
Speaker 2: and the ability to have these conversations uncensored, there's no
28:27
Speaker 2: actual progress. So I can't through progressing like in a
28:31
Speaker 2: prison system where you will come in at the bottom
28:34
Speaker 2: of it as a maximum security prisoner, and then your
28:37
Speaker 2: behavior and your work record and your demeanor will will
28:40
Speaker 2: every six months or a year reassess your security rating.
28:42
Speaker 2: So you work your way to a better prison, You
28:44
Speaker 2: work your way to a better job, You work your
28:46
Speaker 2: way to eventually to a country jail. You have work
28:48
Speaker 2: your way to home detention on weekends, you work your
28:50
Speaker 2: way to parole, so there's a carrot in front of
28:53
Speaker 2: you the whole way, and so there's a progression of
28:54
Speaker 2: your rehabilitation. And I did a lot when I was
28:57
Speaker 2: in prison for my drug offense and came out of
29:00
Speaker 2: a prison farm at the shiniest end that you can
29:03
Speaker 2: rehabilitate yourself with an assess and it worked because I
29:06
Speaker 2: never went back, obviously it worked. But in here don't
29:10
Speaker 2: matter what you do. As we saw the NZEDYQ High
29:13
Speaker 2: Court decision a year or two back where two hundred
29:16
Speaker 2: detainees got released by the High Court that was not
29:19
Speaker 2: based on their character. It was based on the country
29:22
Speaker 2: they came from. So they got released because they the
29:24
Speaker 2: countries they come from won't taken them back. And they
29:27
Speaker 2: just happened to be the biggest bunch of rat bags
29:29
Speaker 2: in the system generally. So you've got all the worst
29:32
Speaker 2: people getting released because of a court decision, whereas all
29:34
Speaker 2: the best people who own homes and have got jobs
29:37
Speaker 2: and got families that would behave and did behave, didn't
29:40
Speaker 2: come here because they misbehaved. They come here because of
29:42
Speaker 2: who they know. We weren't beneficiaries of that High Court decision,
29:47
Speaker 2: and so you get the sort of stigma here where
29:51
Speaker 2: it's a well known thing set in here by officers
29:53
Speaker 2: and staff and all of us that are that all
29:56
Speaker 2: the wrong people get the visas, whereas in a prison
29:59
Speaker 2: you've got to earn them, you know, so you get
30:01
Speaker 2: out of prison, you've somehow earned that. This is not
30:04
Speaker 2: an earned base cage. We just sit in there and
30:07
Speaker 2: you either get deported or you get out because some
30:10
Speaker 2: legal avenue is open to you.
30:13
Speaker 1: Because in prison you get a release date. In your case,
30:17
Speaker 1: the release date is when you submit to deportation. And
30:20
Speaker 1: you've been fighting it all this time.
30:23
Speaker 2: That's try you well. I mean, I think coersion just
30:25
Speaker 2: got made illegal in relationships. So we're victims of coersion.
30:29
Speaker 2: So we've got to sit there for a year and
30:30
Speaker 2: year and year, and they ring you or come and
30:32
Speaker 2: see you every thirteen weeks as after by law. Are
30:35
Speaker 2: you ready to go yet? Do you wish to sign? No?
30:38
Speaker 2: I'm still fighting it. And of course when you read
30:41
Speaker 2: the voluntary removal paper that actually says on there, I
30:44
Speaker 2: respectfully request the Minister of Home Affairs or Emigration to
30:48
Speaker 2: remove me from Australia as soon as possible. So you're asking,
30:51
Speaker 2: please can I go? Or please can you remove me
30:53
Speaker 2: from my family? And like I said the first time
30:56
Speaker 2: I read it, I am never going to sign a
30:57
Speaker 2: document that actually asked the minister to remove me from
31:00
Speaker 2: my family forever. Who the hell would sign that? Like,
31:04
Speaker 2: I don't want to leave my family forever. They're devastated,
31:06
Speaker 2: They've been devastated for five years. But because you won't
31:10
Speaker 2: comply with that, then you're just sit here. You sit
31:13
Speaker 2: there until you do or they eventually get sick of
31:16
Speaker 2: you and they're forcible removal, which they don't like doing
31:19
Speaker 2: because it's basically forcing you out of the country kicking
31:22
Speaker 2: and screaming, And they don't do it a lot, but
31:24
Speaker 2: they will do it. And if they know that's your stance,
31:28
Speaker 2: then that's what they have to do. But you know,
31:32
Speaker 2: has that for like a cohesive thing? I mean, I
31:34
Speaker 2: can't earn my way out of here by reasonable behavior,
31:37
Speaker 2: passing courses, moving to a less secure facility so that
31:41
Speaker 2: I can say untrustworthy home. I can't do what you
31:44
Speaker 2: can do in a prison. All I can do to
31:46
Speaker 2: get out of here is give up and request to
31:49
Speaker 2: be removed to a country. I don't know what a choice.
31:52
Speaker 2: The hell would I'll never take that choice. Why would I?
31:56
Speaker 2: I don't really want to sit in there forever, but
31:58
Speaker 2: I don't want to ask them to take me away
32:00
Speaker 2: from my family. That is just fundamentally emotionally impossible for
32:04
Speaker 2: me to do and impossible for my family to not
32:08
Speaker 2: so much tolerate. But they are fighting just as hard
32:11
Speaker 2: for the last five years through videos on social media
32:17
Speaker 2: campaigns with all my grandkids talking on video about Australia
32:21
Speaker 2: is our home, you know, just over and over, just
32:24
Speaker 2: letting me go viral. So everybody gets it that when
32:27
Speaker 2: you've got fifty family members, you know, ten children, twenty
32:31
Speaker 2: two grandchildren, three great grandchildren between you, who the hell's
32:34
Speaker 2: going to walk away from that like willingly? When you
32:37
Speaker 2: haven't done anything, Like we didn't come from prison to
32:40
Speaker 2: this environment. Everyone else there did, so you sort of
32:43
Speaker 2: expect that that's a continuation of your punishment. But this
32:47
Speaker 2: is not a continuation of any punishment. We're Laura abiding.
32:51
Speaker 2: Motorcycle clubs are legal to be a part of so
32:54
Speaker 2: we're Laura.
32:54
Speaker 1: Abiding because over four years or nearly five years now,
33:00
Speaker 1: you've seen a whole range cast of characters come through there.
33:03
Speaker 1: What sort of people have you been associated with?
33:06
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I mean it's a pot pourri of
33:10
Speaker 2: the migration. Cohort is a microscopic version of what you'll
33:15
Speaker 2: get in twenty suburbs around Melbourne. Just take ten people
33:18
Speaker 2: out of every suburb and put them in there, and
33:19
Speaker 2: that's what you've got. All nations, all nations, all safe
33:23
Speaker 2: size and languages and not a lot of English. So yeah,
33:26
Speaker 2: it's challenging, but it's okay, you know. I mean it's
33:29
Speaker 2: like everything you may do with the predicament, we're handed
33:32
Speaker 2: and of course we're lucky, but with such strong support
33:35
Speaker 2: from our family, like we can live mentally outside of
33:37
Speaker 2: this place and we can actually live our days in
33:39
Speaker 2: the visiting room where regular visiting and spending most of
33:43
Speaker 2: the day in the visiting room with your family is
33:45
Speaker 2: sort of you know, it's just saving grace because you
33:48
Speaker 2: keep those bonds going, it keeps you in family mode.
33:52
Speaker 2: And then we just come back into this environment to
33:54
Speaker 2: walk some laps and generate some kilometers. As you know,
33:58
Speaker 2: we've spent the last four and a half years walking
34:00
Speaker 2: around around a soccer pice to generate twenty six thousand
34:03
Speaker 2: kilometers of steps through our Fit Better accounts to raise
34:06
Speaker 2: money for charity, and that sort of kept us linked
34:09
Speaker 2: to our family through a charity group.
34:11
Speaker 1: So you've walked the equivalent of around the globe in
34:15
Speaker 1: a small circle effectively.
34:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, Basically, twenty thousand steps a day punches out to about,
34:22
Speaker 2: you know, one hundred and twenty hundred and thirty kilometers
34:24
Speaker 2: a week, rounds out at about six thousand k's a year.
34:30
Speaker 2: Four or four and a half years later, we've on
34:32
Speaker 2: the twenty third of March, we've banged past twenty two
34:34
Speaker 2: hundred and thirty two k's, which is actually registered on
34:37
Speaker 2: the Againness Book of Records as the World Runners Association
34:42
Speaker 2: length of the lap around the globe on land. So
34:45
Speaker 2: to qualify for that, if you were to do it physically,
34:48
Speaker 2: you got across four continents and cover twenty six thousand
34:52
Speaker 2: and you actually then become a part of the circumnavigators.
34:55
Speaker 2: You get called and you get a T shirt and
34:57
Speaker 2: a badge. And so technically we've done the kilometers, but
35:00
Speaker 2: we haven't crossed any We haven't crossed the four continents,
35:03
Speaker 2: although when you look at the different language groups here,
35:06
Speaker 2: we certainly have.
35:06
Speaker 1: You know, I was going to say, you've got enough
35:08
Speaker 1: nationalities there to qualify somehow. But you've done it to
35:11
Speaker 1: raise money for dementia, because while you've been in there,
35:13
Speaker 1: your mother passed away from dementia.
35:16
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Mum had got diagnosed not long before we had
35:19
Speaker 2: our visas canceled. Perry and I were a primary careers.
35:22
Speaker 2: We were getting into auto medicals every day and making
35:25
Speaker 2: sure she had a lunch, making sure she had a dinner,
35:27
Speaker 2: because you're starting to forget those things. And we were
35:30
Speaker 2: doing volunteer work anyway. Perry was driving meals on wheels
35:34
Speaker 2: who were people we met when we were sort of
35:36
Speaker 2: the primary careers for our mum. We met all these
35:38
Speaker 2: support groups that the bus that used to come to
35:40
Speaker 2: the age care so unless she was in and take
35:42
Speaker 2: them all to the library. And I was told to
35:44
Speaker 2: Terry that one of the drivers one day and he said, mane,
35:46
Speaker 2: we need drivers. You've got a truck license on the AGAs,
35:48
Speaker 2: come on down. So I end up driving the community
35:49
Speaker 2: bus taking them all to the library. And it wasn't
35:52
Speaker 2: just mum and Dad's village, it was all the villages
35:54
Speaker 2: in the area. So I was doing that. Perry was
35:56
Speaker 2: driving meals on wheels because he got to know those
35:58
Speaker 2: people through them coming to see mum. So I sort
36:01
Speaker 2: of got us involved in a lot of that community
36:02
Speaker 2: stuff as well as beings care. So then we got taken.
36:08
Speaker 2: We were discussing with a family, like we've already had
36:11
Speaker 2: a walking group going, just a chat group on what's happened.
36:14
Speaker 2: We'd all lock in our fitbit steps every day is
36:17
Speaker 2: a bit of a quasi competition. So one of the
36:20
Speaker 2: girls in Adelaide thought, you know, I'm going to register
36:22
Speaker 2: it and let's generate all these kilometers in the sponsors, Like,
36:26
Speaker 2: let's get sponsors. Here'll be someone out there will give
36:28
Speaker 2: you a cent for a kilometer or a cent for
36:31
Speaker 2: one hundred kilometers. And we thought, yeah, okay, let's do it.
36:34
Speaker 2: And we just keept walking and walking and walking here
36:35
Speaker 2: thing and one day we're going to get out and
36:37
Speaker 2: then we can go collect and we're never getting out
36:40
Speaker 2: by the look of it. So we thought, well, here's
36:43
Speaker 2: a target. Once it come to our attention that there
36:48
Speaker 2: is this Circumnavigator club and if you do the twenty
36:51
Speaker 2: six and thirty two k's you can hang your hat
36:53
Speaker 2: on that, we thought, well, let's finish it there. Let's
36:56
Speaker 2: clack the money and a little charity here. I've got
36:59
Speaker 2: my prop already. It's Mackey Family Steps for the Dementia
37:03
Speaker 2: of Australia. That was the other day at twenty five
37:06
Speaker 2: thousand dollars. It's over nearly thirty thousand dollars now. We've
37:09
Speaker 2: raised with people just logging on and chucking a couple
37:12
Speaker 2: of dollars at A couple of seventy year olds have
37:14
Speaker 2: just walked around the globe in a prison. Never been
37:17
Speaker 2: done before that we've been told anyway, So just a
37:21
Speaker 2: bit of purpose, keep the family involved. Dementia's very big
37:24
Speaker 2: in our family. Mom passed two years ago. While we're here,
37:28
Speaker 2: we campaigned as best we can about transfers to get
37:31
Speaker 2: back to Adelaide so that she could be brought to
37:33
Speaker 2: us in the detention center there, which is very close
37:36
Speaker 2: to where she lived, so she could have lived out
37:39
Speaker 2: her last days by coming to visiting her sons every
37:41
Speaker 2: day rather than us coming to visit her. We worked
37:44
Speaker 2: for a couple of years before they denied it. They
37:46
Speaker 2: denied it four times. We've applied because there is no
37:48
Speaker 2: as I explained before, there's no pathway better to better
37:52
Speaker 2: places here. There is no behavior driven pathway. So no
37:56
Speaker 2: matter how good we were here and you know, reasonably
37:59
Speaker 2: well and I can think quite well respected by the
38:01
Speaker 2: Star getting permission to go back to Adelaide to aid health,
38:05
Speaker 2: and we had lots of letters from her treating physicians
38:08
Speaker 2: about how much it would do her good to be
38:11
Speaker 2: seeing us. We never got there. We never got to
38:13
Speaker 2: see her again, and she passed a couple of years ago,
38:15
Speaker 2: but we kept on. We've got the money and now
38:18
Speaker 2: it's sort of in her name that we've clocked the
38:21
Speaker 2: miles and now we're reading the money, and we've had
38:25
Speaker 2: planned on DEMNSA Australia. We're going to sound a representative
38:28
Speaker 2: and here so we could actually do a proper presentation
38:30
Speaker 2: involving the staff here who have been real supportive on
38:33
Speaker 2: this and actually often come out and walk with us,
38:37
Speaker 2: and so we can actually sort of give this place
38:40
Speaker 2: something to hang us hat on, you know, not that
38:42
Speaker 2: it does anything positive for anyone except you know, keep
38:45
Speaker 2: your healthy until your bus arrives. At least it would
38:48
Speaker 2: be seen that their programs and activity staff supported and
38:52
Speaker 2: participated in a fairly long term fundraising target that got achieved,
38:57
Speaker 2: you know, and they helped it, and so we thought,
38:59
Speaker 2: you know, you come in on it. You can all
39:01
Speaker 2: be a part of the presentation. But you know, as
39:04
Speaker 2: you well, we've got days less, so we're not going
39:06
Speaker 2: to be able to do that. We're not going to
39:07
Speaker 2: make it.
39:09
Speaker 1: So what happens from here? You've exhausted all avenues of appeal.
39:13
Speaker 1: What happens next?
39:15
Speaker 2: Basically we wait they come for us. The family's doing
39:18
Speaker 2: its best, they're lobbying the ministers involved that they're very emailing.
39:23
Speaker 2: We've got this charity group lobbying the minister, the social
39:28
Speaker 2: media campaigns that they're trying to run to alert the
39:30
Speaker 2: minister that this is a five generation, fifty five strong
39:34
Speaker 2: family that you're actually destroying. He may probably isn't aware
39:38
Speaker 2: of that because we're under that cancelation minister or cancelation
39:43
Speaker 2: where nobody has to read our file. It's a non
39:45
Speaker 2: compallable order. So we can request the minister read our
39:48
Speaker 2: file and intervene if he sees some value in us,
39:51
Speaker 2: but he can also refuse to read it. And of course,
39:54
Speaker 2: you know, sometimes it may be a safer option to
39:56
Speaker 2: not read something that you might find it's too compelling.
39:59
Speaker 2: And so you know, everybody, we know, hundreds of people
40:02
Speaker 2: have been emailing, you know, these ministers to say, look,
40:06
Speaker 2: just open it. You know, if you open it and
40:08
Speaker 2: read it, you may think different. There is a story
40:11
Speaker 2: in there about fifty three years in this country, fifty
40:14
Speaker 2: seven members of a family, five generations, heaths of grandchildren,
40:19
Speaker 2: a lot of Aboriginal grandchildren and great grandchildren in our
40:23
Speaker 2: blood lines, deeply entrenched in the community, involved in sporting
40:27
Speaker 2: clubs for thirty years, you know, awards, recommendations for fundraising
40:32
Speaker 2: before we came here for breast cancer. Family still in
40:36
Speaker 2: deeply involved in Red Tree Foundation for fundraising, facids and
40:41
Speaker 2: and and death. My grandson was still born two years ago,
40:45
Speaker 2: young Zen, And so we move on to that and
40:49
Speaker 2: make that family tragedy a part of what we do
40:53
Speaker 2: for funds now fundraising now. So yeah, that's that's where
40:59
Speaker 2: we're at.
41:00
Speaker 1: It's sad no matter what, it just doesn't seem no
41:03
Speaker 1: matter what you put forward, there is this absence of
41:06
Speaker 1: natural justice in the whole process which counts against you.
41:10
Speaker 1: If you fail that character test. No matter how much
41:13
Speaker 1: rehabilitation you've done, no matter how many good works you do,
41:17
Speaker 1: you're always a biki. You're always an ex criminal and
41:20
Speaker 1: we don't want you in this country. It's a very
41:23
Speaker 1: bitter pill to swallow.
41:25
Speaker 2: Look, it's the pathway you get taken down or pushed
41:28
Speaker 2: down or led down because all the stuff that we
41:31
Speaker 2: have that are countervailing situations to the actual bad character.
41:36
Speaker 2: So bad character is not the question in this. There
41:38
Speaker 2: are murderers, rapists, child molesters that are released from detention
41:43
Speaker 2: centers every week because they get the opportunity to go
41:46
Speaker 2: to the AAT or the AART. Now they administrative review
41:49
Speaker 2: tribunal with all their character references, with all their family,
41:53
Speaker 2: with all their rehabilitation, and all those things are presented,
41:57
Speaker 2: and if it's compelling, then that judge can actually go,
42:00
Speaker 2: you know what, I revoke your cancelation and I reissue
42:04
Speaker 2: your visa because you've proven that you're not a danger
42:06
Speaker 2: of the community to me with all this evidence, and
42:10
Speaker 2: we believe we would have a very strong chance of
42:12
Speaker 2: that being our outcome if we were granted the opportunity
42:15
Speaker 2: to go to that tribunal. But when you're canceled under
42:18
Speaker 2: a certain part of the five oh one Act, the
42:20
Speaker 2: Ministerial cancelation, it's written in your cancelation you are denied
42:24
Speaker 2: fair and natural justice. Like there's no hiding it. It's
42:27
Speaker 2: not like it's secret, it's written in your thing. You
42:29
Speaker 2: cannot apply for any tribunial, You cannot apply for revocation
42:33
Speaker 2: because you are denied fair and natural justice because the minister,
42:37
Speaker 2: one man, a politician, can decide, he may not be
42:40
Speaker 2: legally trained, that none of the countervailing situation will change
42:44
Speaker 2: his mind. Whereas as we know, ten twenty thirty percent
42:49
Speaker 2: of these cancelations, when they go to a proper court
42:52
Speaker 2: a tribunal, they do get found that they found wanting,
42:55
Speaker 2: they were wrong, the cancelation was wrong. It gets reversed.
42:59
Speaker 2: And I read those cases, and our lawyers read those cases.
43:01
Speaker 2: They go sheepers, you know, like when you stack up
43:04
Speaker 2: some only just won a murderer, double murderer, even against
43:08
Speaker 2: an narcotic conviction forty five years ago. Like who's the
43:12
Speaker 2: more bigger danger to the community In reality, that's.
43:16
Speaker 1: A very good question, Tom. Unfortunately, you're going to have
43:19
Speaker 1: to probably fight this fight from New Zealand, and you
43:23
Speaker 1: won't stop because your family is here. And let me say,
43:26
Speaker 1: I'm very sorry that it's come to this because I
43:28
Speaker 1: know in my heart who you are, and a lot
43:30
Speaker 1: of other people do as well. And unfortunately politics has intervened.
43:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, that's true, Adam. You know, you just can't
43:38
Speaker 2: make someone look at your file if there's a non
43:41
Speaker 2: compellable order. We we just can't force the issue where
43:44
Speaker 2: someone everyone has had eyes on it, believes in us,
43:48
Speaker 2: but we can't find a way to force the very
43:50
Speaker 2: people that need to look at it look at it.
43:52
Speaker 2: So it is what it is. We can we'll get
43:54
Speaker 2: forcibly removed, and then we can sit in New Zealand
43:58
Speaker 2: and find reacquaint ourselves with the country we don't remember,
44:01
Speaker 2: and hope that somewhere on the line, if labour stays
44:04
Speaker 2: in got for a couple of terms, which is looking
44:07
Speaker 2: like they might, that somewhere someone introduces an adjustment to
44:11
Speaker 2: the five oh one where there is a reevaluation on
44:13
Speaker 2: some of these deportations that some of these people can
44:15
Speaker 2: actually apply from overseas. And then that file gets open,
44:19
Speaker 2: and we think that one day if our file eve
44:21
Speaker 2: got opened and someone looked at it, it will be
44:24
Speaker 2: looked upon as we probably should have had that opportunity
44:26
Speaker 2: while we were here.
44:27
Speaker 1: I've got to ask you back in nineteen seventy seven,
44:29
Speaker 1: the prison psychologist said that you have the descendants. Was
44:34
Speaker 1: the pitvot around which you had built your life. Do
44:37
Speaker 1: you regret that?
44:38
Speaker 2: Now? Look, you can only regret that legislation that changed
44:44
Speaker 2: what that meant to me has impacted on my life.
44:48
Speaker 2: The club life for me has been all that family.
44:51
Speaker 2: There's lots of family involved in it, my brothers and
44:53
Speaker 2: son in law's sons. So the actual essence of club
44:57
Speaker 2: life is just family driven. It's honorable. What has changed
45:02
Speaker 2: is how it's being perceived in legislation. Nothing that I've done,
45:06
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, I haven't done anything that's actually
45:08
Speaker 2: created in my situation here. I've just been the same
45:11
Speaker 2: guy I was when I got out of prison forty
45:14
Speaker 2: five years ago. I haven't been arrested or broke the law.
45:17
Speaker 2: Since I've been the same person. The legislation has morphed
45:20
Speaker 2: into something else. Immigration legislation has morphed into something else.
45:24
Speaker 2: And now I'm being punished for something I already did
45:26
Speaker 2: the punishment for. And the meanwhile, I didn't change. Just
45:29
Speaker 2: the words on the paper that judge me have changed.
45:33
Speaker 2: And now I've got to pay. And now I can
45:35
Speaker 2: sit up in New Zealand and hope that more words
45:37
Speaker 2: come onto the paper later that give me a right
45:40
Speaker 2: to have another crack at it and come back, and
45:42
Speaker 2: hopefully that's before all of my eighteen seventeen grand kits.
45:53
Speaker 1: All right, I know how a feeling mate. I think
45:58
Speaker 1: we'll leave it there. Tom, Thanks Mane. That's Tom mackey,
46:05
Speaker 1: former president of the Descendant's Motorcycle Club inside the Broad
46:09
Speaker 1: Meadows Detention Center facing deportation, as he says, how many
46:14
Speaker 1: times can you be punished for the one crime? He did?
46:17
Speaker 1: The crime back in the seventies, did his time rehabilitated?
46:22
Speaker 1: His continuing offense was to associate with the Descendant's motorcycle
46:26
Speaker 1: club that's been now used against him. And I think
46:28
Speaker 1: this absence of natural justice is repugnant and I certainly
46:32
Speaker 1: don't regret supporting the struggle to strike down unfair laws.
46:37
Speaker 1: Let's hope there is some turn of justice at the
46:40
Speaker 1: end of this story, but right now looks pretty bleak.
46:43
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening. This has been real crime with
46:45
Speaker 1: Adam shand thanks for listening. Thanks for listening to this
47:03
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