 As part of its commitment to ensuring the safety of the community and promoting a safe and responsible road use across Queensland, the QPS will conduct a proactive policing response to a motorcycle event that's planned for tomorrow. The event that we're looking at is an annual event. Happens each year, attracts a large number of participants. This is one of those opportunities where the QPS is able to work in partnership across the organisation with many of its operational units. We'll have representatives from the State Traffic Task Force, State Traffic Support Branch. We'll have people from the PSRT, our public safety response team. We'll have staff from Task Force Hydro. So very much is a united operation designed to ensure the safety of our road users during the course of this annual event. There'll be a large contingent of police. We make no apology for that. It's very important that we ensure road safety, particularly in circumstances where we know there is going to be potentially some traffic disruption. And we'll be there to respond to incidents and respond to traffic and community safety matters as they emerge. And of course our response is developed around the idea that it is very important to keep people safe during the course of this event. On the other hand, I would like to do Detective Inspector Gary Watts, who will provide you with an update from Task Force Hydro. Thanks very much. Thanks, Chief Superintendent. Just to let you know that police will not be conducting an escort of the participants of the ride tomorrow. The police contingent is there to ensure the safety of the community and to ensure that all traffic regulations are complied with. Unfortunately, past events have seen blatant life endangering offences being committed. Such offences include the mass running of red lights, crossing double-wide lines and riding at excess speed. Participants of the run have also at times conducted their own traffic control at intersections. This places all road users at risk. This behaviour will not be tolerated and enforcement action will be taken. And I'll just ask you, we've got some footage that we'd like to show you. That's a previous run and the first bit of footage there obviously depicts the mass running of red lights now. There are hundreds of participants for that run, as you can quite obviously see, they're running red lights through Brisbane there and it places all road users at risk. With respect to last year and previous runs, I can say that traffic enforcement has been taken and the total of that is in the tens of thousands of dollars worth of traffic infringement notices has been issued. Pretty much, most of them are paid, yes. And do you know where they are? At this stage we believe they're heading south of Brisbane and we're still in dialogue with the organisers. In previous years there have been a reluctance to involve the police in relation to the destination of the run, which makes our response all the more difficult to manage. What do they do? Look, effectively what this is and the vision that you've just seen is really behaviour that is completely unacceptable to anybody and in particular to other road users. What we've seen on that vision and what we've encountered in other circumstances is nothing short of quite dangerous and it definitely puts other road users at risk. The roads, as we know, are there for everybody to share. It's completely unacceptable to have circumstances where particular groups decide for their own purposes to take over a section of roadway. That's not what Queensland Road Rules are all about. It's certainly inconsistent with the QPS's mandate to do all we can to ensure the safety of road users in Queensland. Which buggy gang is it and how many of them are you expecting to be on the front? Look, I'm not going to go into what motorcycle group we're talking about here. Certainly not my intention or Detective Inspector what's intention to give any publicity to any particular motorcycle club. We'll simply say that it's a motorcycle club that's well known to us. We anticipate that the people involved in this will be in the hundreds and so we're responding appropriately with the amount of resources that we're going to need to ensure a safe experience for road users in and around that area. Is it possible that he needs that we're preparing for things to stop them? We have many contingencies in place. So we have resources adequate to this. It doesn't matter to us essentially in which direction the run proceeds. Effectively what we'll be able to do will be to respond effectively with the resources that we have and the resources that we'll deploy. So you sent your wife? No, it's not a case of doing any escorts. We certainly don't escort groups of people, particularly if there's going to be behaviour that's unlawful, etc. Our primary purpose in all of this is to ensure that the roads are kept as safe as possible during the course of this event for other road users. We'll certainly be monitoring the progress of the run. We'll be doing that from static locations, we'll be doing that from mobile locations, but we'll certainly be in and around the vicinity of this run to make sure that we can intervene if we need to, take whatever action we need to take, but primarily do what we need to do to make sure that the other road users in Queensland are kept safe at that time. You said that you believe that they're heading south. Is that unusual? Is it usually a north run that you've seen in previous years? I'll let you know. They travel all over South-East Queensland at times. You do believe, though, that they will head to the surface paradise at least on the way through? No, no, we have no information to suggest they're going to the surface paradise, but as the Chief Superintendent Murray said, if they do, then that's up to them. We will manage them accordingly. New South Wales. Look, we really wouldn't talk about that arrangement. That's something for the New South Wales Police, certainly something that we wouldn't be comfortable with discussing. Well, it's, you know, our methodology is such that we wouldn't reveal precisely how many officers we're going to have as you can understand for pretty good reasons, not the sort of thing that we would be publicising. What we can say is that we have modelled a number of scenarios and we believe that in all the circumstances we have appropriate resources to be able to effectively manage this event for the safety of other road users. Please, please. Well, once again, we wouldn't be prepared to reveal that. We would say to you that we have a range of assets across the organisation. We have a range of cooperative sections within the police service and we will make those decisions about what's to be used, but it's not the sort of thing we would be discussing. That sort of law-breaking behaviour that you've shown in the video is that you need to do this particular event or do other runs organised by other clubs to involve similar behaviour? It's certainly not unique behaviour to this particular event. However, the numbers that participate in this event are quite large and that's what it makes it, from our perspective, more dangerous than the other type of behaviour in runs. As you know, we police a variety of runs involving outlaw motorcycle gangs and our operations and methodologies are really dictated by the nature of the run and the level of law-breaking. If the road users are concerned or a community, like a community town, is concerned about their behaviour, should they stay away from the mentality or should they pull off to the side of the road? What is your recommendation to people if they are worried about their behaviour? Well, I think the important thing is around this issue of road safety. The issues that we're mainly concerned about are those. The last thing in the world that we want to see arising from this event is the fact that someone is killed or injured as a result of some sort of incident that was avoidable on the roads. So what we would be urging the people participating in this motorcycle run and for people who encounter that run on the way to please exercise caution with each other, it could easily be a very dangerous situation if a motorcycle was to come into collision with a vehicle, et cetera, as all sorts of very bad outcomes. So we'd be urging everybody involved in this and people encountering it to be cautious. If people are particularly worried about behaviours that they'd like to report to the police, we'd urge police to contact crime stoppers and, of course, to report the incident to crime stoppers and police will respond. Previously, this club has engaged at service for the Robinson and O'Call on their behalf. Why would they seem to need to do that and would you expect them to do that again in this case? Look, whatever strategies they, you know, any particular club wants to use, whether they want to engage legal representatives, et cetera, is, you know, is really irrelevant to us. As I said, our purpose will be there to ensure that their roads are kept safe over that period. You know, clubs want to bring lawyers with them, et cetera, that's entirely a matter for them. Irrelevant to us, we will be focusing on the road safety issues at hand. You're expecting... It really depends on the weather. When there is a favourite around at the moment and it does have an effect on numbers, but they still run the event and they still have significant numbers. So it's a good day? I couldn't comment on how many people intend to go, but we commonly look at around 250 people that may participate, depending on the weather that is. Would you describe this particular bikey gang as worse than other gangs in relation to dangerous behaviour on the road or any behaviour? No, look, we wouldn't speculate on the particular clubs. We wouldn't discuss them individually. Fact is, large numbers of motorcycles, close proximity to other vehicles, it's potentially a dangerous scenario irrespective of what club is involved. Where are they leaving from, what? They're leaving from just south of Brisbane. Where are they leaving from? It may be. We are careful with the number of contingencies around that. We've planned for, you know, for eventualities that things may change. And if they do change, we'll be in a position to respond appropriately. So let's make one comment there. You mentioned before about a particular OMCG. Just to let you know, the make-up of this ride is vast majority of people are members of the public. And we want to get it through to them that just because they're participating in a mass ride does not mean that they're immune from enforcing the law or having traffic infringement notice issued to them. Behaviour, as you've seen in the video, will not be tolerated by the QPS and will be taking action in relation to that. Sorry, so just to clarify that you're saying the vast number of people who participate in this ride aren't actually don't belong to a motorcycle club that is going on for the fun? They don't belong to an outlaw motorcycle gang. They may belong to a variety of motorcycle, social motorcycle clubs, but that's correct. They are, by majority, members of the public going along for the ride. Would you expect interstate members of this motorcycle, this outlaw motorcycle club to be attending? There may be a possibility. We're planning for any time during the course of tomorrow. And that won't be a time of our choosing, but we'll be ready to respond when the ride commences. What is the fund for that to hold the introduction? Well, that would be a court-imposed penalty, and it would be up to the magistrate to make a determination about that. But there is an offence for impersonating a police officer. If that was to happen, then we could take action. There are a range of other offences that were out... Has that charge been employed? Well, the key with impersonating a police officer is they've got to be impersonating a police officer. They've got to be doing something, wearing a uniform that I'm entitled to wear, et cetera, et cetera. If you're talking about just informal traffic direction, there are a range of offences under the traffic legislation around placing a person's self on the roadway in an unsafe way. There's a number of potential offences that would fall under that act. But I think key to it is that if we have people who are clearly breaking the law, putting themselves in dangerous situations, perhaps creating dangerous situations by their behaviour, then there is criminal sanctions for people who do that. There's all sorts of negligent acts that can amount to injuries that will come from something like that. So that's the reason that we want to be involved in this. We want to be involved to the point where we can observe, we can take action that's required, and we can ensure that the law is enforced. Fairly and impartially, and that we'll be there to manage overall the aspects of this run. How much is it for crossing onto the other side of the road? No, just off the top of my head, I don't know. Yes, there have been people who have been injured. As a result of these run, there's been traffic actions between participants, and certainly that's what we are attempting to do tomorrow is to prevent that from happening. I can't really say. I believe that motorcycle accidents inherently are dangerous, so I couldn't comment on the injuries, though. OK, thanks for that. Oh, yeah? Yes.