Bikies are a national menace and require a similar response on a national scale

Drive to break up outlaw bikie gangs is overdue. The gangs indulge in Australia-wide, hugely profitable criminality, including distributing drugs.State and federal attorneys-general have been given details of proposed South Australian laws to break up the gangs. Even before the laws take effect, SA's war on bikie gangs has led to the arrest of 22 gang members and confiscation of $120,000 in cash, cannabis, ecstasy tablets and amphetamines and 35 firearms. Victorian Police Minister Bob Cameron's office last night said he had no intention of signing on to the SA's laws. He believes specific bikie laws are not needed. But Operation Purana's success in ending Victoria's deadly underworld war demonstrates that targeted action works. The bikies are a national menace and require a similar response on a national scale.