Another week, another shocking bikie attack revealed in Canberra’s southern suburbs. It is now abundantly clear that more needs to be done to prevent these insidious gangs from ruining the safe, peaceful neighbourhoods of this city. Canberrans deserve protection from these kinds of people.
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Harrowing footage was released this week by ACT Policing shows three men – two armed with a handgun and shotgun – scaling the fence of the Calwell home of a rival gang member.
The men open a roller door, allowing a fourth man to enter, before pouring petrol on three vehicles. A firefight breaks out with the resident, before the cars are set ablaze and the intruders flee.
Police have charged two men, but are seeking the community’s help to identify the other two people involved.
Disturbingly, police said an innocent neighbour was close to being shot when a stray bullet passed through the wall of a neighbouring house where the person was sleeping.
As if that wasn’t enough, during the bikies’ escape they stopped to pump three bullets into a second house in the neighbourhood.
While these attacks are targeted, the fear that the average, law-abiding Canberran could be caught up in such affrays is beyond frightening.
But it seems an even greater fear - for the government at least - is in doing something that might conflict with the ACT’s human rights legislation.
So for the time being, the representatives of the city are content to allow Canberra to act as an island among other states who have stood up to these gangs and, in a valiant act to protect their constituents, imposed laws to stop them.
In an act of sheer strength and power, convicted killer and Nomads life member Mouhammed 'Moudi' Tajjour posted an image to his Instagram account in August of dozens of patched bikies posing arm-in-arm on Mount Ainslie.
That image should be the trigger, the wake-up call.
The government must, at the very least, revisit the idea of anti-consorting laws and confront the reality that the ACT has become an island for these gangs.
If the government is determined to continue to push back against the legislation, they will need to find other ways to deal with the influx and current turf war and explain to nervous Canberrans how they intend to keep them safe.
The human rights values of the few shouldn't override the the right to safety of the rest of the community.
