Queensland Taskforce Recommends Repealing VLAD Act, Introducing Control Orders
Thursday 7 April 2016 @ 12.35 p.m. | Crime
A Queensland taskforce into organised crime has unanimously recommended the repeal of the controversial Vicious Lawless Association Disestablishment Act 2013 (Qld) (“the VLAD Act”). The taskforce makes 60 recommendations, including the establishment of an independent statistical research body to analysis crime data and the introduction of a new targeted sentencing regime of control orders to replace the current scheme. The taskforce was led by retired Justice Alan Wilson and included representatives from the police, lawyers and government.
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has announced that the Government will be implementing legislative reforms as a response to the Wilson report, as well as to the Queensland Organised Crime Commission of Inquiry’s Report from October 2015. She told ABC News:
“These new laws will be tough, workable and enforceable. The VLAD laws only got two convictions, I repeat, only two convictions… There will be no let-up from police or prosecutors, we will be giving them more resources. I want more convictions, not less…
I reassure Queenslanders the current laws will stay in place until the new regime is being enforced.”
However, current opposition MP Jarrod Bleijie, who introduced the VLAD Act during his time as Queensland Attorney-General told ABC News any moves to repeal the VLAD Act:
“should send shivers down the spines of every police officer in Queensland, who as a community and society, [are] sent out to protect the citizens of Queensland and [are] put on the front line to deal with these issues.”
The Wilson Taskforce Report
The Introduction to the report notes:
“The Taskforce was charged with reviewing the 2013 anti-bikie (VLAD) legislation. It saw its job as one which also required the consideration of those laws in the context of framing effective anti-organised crime legislation for Queensland.
While it has recommended the repeal of the greater part of the 2013 suite it has, to that end, gone a further step and developed a renewed Organised Crime Framework – a package of laws which preserves some parts of the suite but overcomes what the Taskforce concluded were excessive, disproportionate or unnecessary elements of it; and, is better suited for combating not just OMCGs [Outlaw Motorcycle Gang], but organised crime in all its forms.”
The report raises a number of issues, particularly concerning the proportionality and effectiveness of the 2013 reforms. The report notes:
“The 2013 suite very quickly followed ugly public misconduct by OMCG members. They were referred to by a Government Minister as ‘vicious, violent thugs’ who were running rampant across Queensland. They were described, in Parliament and the media, in terms suggesting wide-spread criminal activity necessitating a strong and rapid legislative response.
But the most recent and apparently reliable statistical evidence (the Byrne Report) shows that OMCGs are, in fact, responsible for considerably less than 1% of all reported crime across the state (and that this was also the case when the 2013 laws were introduced).”
The report suggests introducing a new “Serious Organised Crime circumstance of aggravation” into Queensland's Criminal Code, which would include new definitions of “participant” and “criminal organisation”. This would replace the VLAD Act and would only apply to a list of specific offences, including ones related to “drug offending, sexual offending and child sex offending, fraud and money laundering, serious violence, and attacks on the administration of justice.”
The report also proposes a new control order regime, which would apply to convicted individuals only, and would be incorporated as a new sentencing option under the Penalties and Sentences Act 1992.
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