 Good morning everyone, my name is Deputy Commissioner Brett Pointing, I'm very pleased to be joined here today with Detective Superintendent Mike Nyland, who's running Task Force Maxima and of course Superintendent Jim Pio, who's in charge of Task Force Take Back. Well ladies and gentlemen, yesterday all police jurisdictions in Australia combined in a national day of action against criminal motorcycle gangs in Australia. All states and territories participated, and it was a blitz across Australia to send a very clear message to criminal motorcycle gangs that Queensland's not going alone here, that all jurisdictions are combining through this national day of action to rest assure the public that we're taking this matter seriously and doing proactive enforcement, but also to enhance public safety through Australia. It's my intention to read out the national results and of course talk to the Queensland results, and then there'll be an opportunity at the questions of course. On a national level, some 57 members of criminal motorcycle gangs and their associates were arrested. Over 122 vehicles surged, 79 search warrants were executed throughout Australia. Over 362 licensed premises that are known to be frequented by criminal motorcycle gang members and associates that were checked for compliance. Over 125 bail compliance checks were conducted. These are members of criminal motorcycle gangs who have bail conditions or rather corrective restraints, who are visited by police throughout Australia. The types of offences related to assault, robbery, property offences, drug offences, firearms offences, traffic offences and other miscellaneous offences. In terms of Queensland, Queensland results, 11 persons were arrested, 11 search warrants were executed. Over 238 licensed premises were checked. There were 60 bail compliance checks conducted in Queensland, and of course that means that the residents of these criminal gang members were visited to ensure compliance with the orders. In addition, a number of actions were also taken in Queensland correctional centres with respect to criminal motorcycle gang members or their visitors. As a result of that, a number of breaches were identified, and Queensland correctional services officers are taking action with respect to a number of weapons located. There was also charges relating to willful damage to property within corrective services, and there was a number of positive year-on tests which will result in action down the track. As I mentioned, this was very much a whole of Australia operation, 24 hours of action, but all jurisdictions were very keen to send a message to tribal motorcycle gang members that this very much is a national approach. Now I'll open up to questions. Can you give an idea of the specifics in Queensland? Do you wrote down some of the charges nationally? What sort of charges did you visit in Queensland? Those charges in Queensland very much related to... Could I talk just in relation to the two lots of the charges. One related to the president of the Gold Coast Banditos. His search warrant was executed in Brisbane at his home address. He was charged in relation to possession of steroids. In Mount Isa, the home of the president of the rebels, search warrant was executed up there. Whilst he wasn't charged, three persons at that address face eight charges in relation to drug possession. Drug possession? That's correct. I think it's a very important point also that the charges in Queensland related to offences all through out points from Brockhampton, Emerald, Burnett, Hebb's, Gold Coast, all throughout the length of breadth of Queensland. We've been plating the results over the last hour and we've been in a position later on to give everyone more specific details of locations and details of the rest of the charges. Was it very difficult to get the other jurisdictions on board or were they happy to come with it? This operation was put together very, very quickly and all jurisdictions were very, very keen to participate. High degree of enthusiasm I think everyone acknowledges the problem with criminal motorcycle gangs is not Queensland specific, it's not Australia specific, it's an international phenomenon and all jurisdictions were very keen to participate. Did you say Queensland would be? Look, the Queensland certainly initiated it. It came back to the request of Queensland. We believe to be effective in our job, it really has to be a national approach and all jurisdictions were very keen to participate. Well, we've been assured by government that a very serious about the mission, which is to eliminate criminal motorcycle gangs from Queensland, so we believe it is. We've certainly had strong support to date and we're assured that we'll have that support in the future. Yes, we've already been advocating additional $20 million for both of the task force and certainly another $5 million was allocated to crime stoppers to encourage people who provide information that will lead to a arrest of criminal motorcycle gang members and to shut down the gangs. Across the country, how many additional police were put on yesterday? It's very, very difficult to collate just at the moment and we encourage people probably from the media to talk to their own jurisdictions and those states. Really this was, from the Queensland perspective, very much there was a whole service approach. There was enormous amount of activity and of course there was a number of different protest rise that had been going on over the last couple of days. So really it was a whole of the Queensland approach that was pretty much, whilst there's always cool business, the focus over the last 24 hours has almost all pleased in the Queensland focused on this. Can I ask you, what different clubs were targeted throughout Queensland? Well the entire 14 clubs in Queensland were targeted. CMG across Queensland were targeted. So every club with no links to criminal activity? Yeah. Every CMG in Queensland was targeted. And just on the seriousness of the challenge, story position, why maybe that's followed very well personally by serious. And so was this more about sending a message from a mature audience? It was most definitely sending the message. Another one was up in Toowoomba, a Patch Bandito member. He was found with 20 grams of amphet and he's been charged with supply and possession. He was also located with nearly $3,000 in cash. It's sending a message and we're going to take what action we can, whenever we can. We've seen in southern states just over the weekend the intervention of the Australian Defence Force working with the police. Is that something we're likely to see in Queensland? That's a good observation. I spoke to Deputy Commissioner Fontana from Victoria this morning. The military asset, which is in essence a crime, was simply used because Victoria Police had taken possession of a prime mover. They did not have the equipment to be able to seize it, so they used the equipment of the military. And we see that very common in Queensland in a range of contexts, whether it's the disaster management context. We'd be in the same position if we were taking possession of a prime mover or another piece of equipment. If we never had the hardware to move it, well then we'd probably seek to find those resources, likely, if we couldn't then we'd seek the assistance of the military. I'm sure that's more about logistics rather than the police. Absolutely, very much a logistical issue, not a tactical one. Was this past 24 hours a first in terms of the scale of this operation in targeting bikers? Yes, certainly, to my knowledge, in my experience in the QPS, we've never had a national day of action on cruel motorcycle ban. So I'd expect this to be the first of many. All jurisdictions were extremely enthusiastic about participating in it. We know that often enforcement action does displace motorcycle gang members. We know that the highly mobile, highly agile, you know, the network of infrastructure in Australia, whether it's airport or other forms of travel, makes it very easy for gang members to travel throughout the length and breadth of Australia quickly. So we know we need to attack this on a national level and that's what we saw yesterday. Could you please connect with them again to make this a regular occurrence? Well, we'll debrief this event and over time and have a look at the success of it. We'll analyse it and we'll get back together with our colleagues from other jurisdictions and make those decisions. But certainly, I think from our point of view, it has been a success and I think it sends a clear message to gang members that just because there's a strong enforcement action in Queensland doesn't mean you can find safe haven in other states and territories and I think that's a very, very important message that Australian police jurisdictions are committed to working together on this. Jim, you're on the streets. Do you feel like there's a shift in power at the moment from where we were two weeks ago? Almost definitely. As you can see now, there's not so many criminal motorcycles out there on the street and whilst they've certainly gone to ground from what my colleagues have said, here you can see that there's been a number of other strategies that have taken place to address the criminal active people behind the scenes. Just on that, do you have any intelligence or do you have any concerns that you might have gone to the ground now in terms of some sort of greater effort by the Cubs later on to make it fine and make it pretty much fine? Yeah, look, that's something that I've considered but again, with the strategies that we've got in place, should they combine and you do see it from time to time, you'll see members patch over. You know, it might be only a couple of them and even if the Cubs do combine, I'm quite confident that our sustainable strategies will hold us in good stead for the future. Well, it's not simply a matter of the task force coming doing their job and leaving. This is a situation where the task force coming implement new strategies, sustainable strategies and remain until they're quite satisfied that these strategies will be able to ensure the safety of the community. So I can see these things being ongoing for quite some time, in particular the aspects in relation to the criminal investigation and the side of things. Well, we were saying, we were speaking about it before, we were saying that some of these bikies are getting fed up with all the attention and are just simply handing in their colours, is that right? Yeah, look, I think to date we've had about eight bikies hand in their colours and walk away and some of them are indicating that this really isn't what they joined the Bike Club for. So, yeah, that's a clear comment. Can we get a little bit more detail on the president of the Gold Coast, Van Dinos, who's been charged with possessing steroids? Is that going to be enough to keep him off the streets even if we do have compulsory bail introduced? He's been arrested and charged currently in custody and he'll face the Brisbane Magistrates Court on Monday. The issue of bail has been a topical one and I'm talking about this new legislation coming in. But would you say that the checks on the weekend to the 60 checks have proven that they are moving up to their bail expectations? Look, I haven't been able to collate the amount of breaches with respect to bail but we have seen historically enormous problems with recidivist offenders getting bail in terms of cracking down on CMGs and other other types of crime. Naturally, we're very supportive of the change in the legislative regime that will keep people in custody of committed serious offences. So my apologies for not being able to give you the results of the bail checks but police often on a daily basis arrest people today who have been released from bail yesterday. That's been an ongoing frustration for police. When you do get these people, you get them in front of a court and then they're given bail straight away. Will we pass on Tuesday? Do the police welcome them? I do. I mean, the police are highly committed to the objective of eliminating criminal motorcycle gangs from Queensland and all other crime. So any legislative support that we can get particularly to stop recidivist offenders, in other words stopping people from offending who continually offend and continually victimise people in terms of the corrective services operation. Can you give us an idea of what police were looking for? I understand they were sort of given specific tattoos to keep their eye out for. Was it about gaining information as well as every direction of criminal motorcycle gangs also obviously has a degree of intelligence analysis with it. But very much we were looking for breaches of the law and we noticed a couple of breaches there with the damage. Also a couple of positive tests to ultimately be analysed. Very much trying to monitor the activities of gang members in prison because one thing we do know that often gang members still try to conduct their illegal criminal enterprises from jail. So once again sending a clear message that even if you're in jail you're going to continue to be monitored and criminal activities are best to go. The weapons that were found, what type of weapons are we talking about? Like knives in particular. Small blades that are made from different materials in any other way than the knife. How are they getting drugs in jail? Any ideas? I think one thing we know about people who are in jail are highly creative and they find multiple ways of getting drugs into jail sometimes that's through their visitors and that's why yesterday based on intelligence certain visitors were also intercepted by us. We're very encouraged by the legislative reform package that we understand is going into cabinet during the week. It's not appropriate for us to discuss it in detail because it's yet to go through the parliamentary process but we're also tapped into the debate that's going on. We've also been consulted and we're very encouraged by the discussion around tougher laws. Do you see that as somebody similar in these cases? Well, one thing we do know about criminal gangs is whenever there's an intervention they also strategize and they work with professional people to strategize how they can overcome the changes. I think a good way of putting it is criminal enterprises look at the risks associated with their behaviour and they look at the rewards and they almost apply their own risk matrix. So our job and our intention is to disrupt these criminal gangs as much as we can. So tougher laws a lot more jurisdictions around Australia carrying out more enforcement action. We know they'll change their tactics and so we do expect them to challenge the legislation and the highest courts of the land naturally. We'll be able to see what happens there but of course I think what you're seeing in Australian policing jurisdictions is law enforcement changing tactics as well in response to criminal motorcycle gang activities. You three gentlemen have been in the QPS for a very very long time. Have you ever seen anything like we've seen in the last two years in terms of focusing on outlaw motorcycle gangs? No I certainly haven't in my 36 years haven't seen this amount of activity but of course we've also seen criminal motorcycle gangs change and morph into what they are today. We've seen younger members members who are not a heterogeneous group we're seeing members from all over the world a younger group that's more aggressive more competitive and the time is right now to really continue this enhanced effort it's a safety and security of Queensland that we're talking about here. This concern of effort we're putting in is critically important to making sure that criminal motorcycle gangs don't get a stronger foothold in Queensland and Australia.