The One Percenter Encyclo Pedia

Heavy Duty is the perfect name for Australia’s most popular Harley-Davidson magazine—a thick, 150-page bimonthly Aussie organ of biker culture. Everything about the motorcycle lifestyle is heavy duty down under. Say “G’day” to the magazine’s associate and technical editor, Doc Robinson, as he explains about outlaws in the outback:

THE ONE PERCENTER DOWN UNDER
By Doc Robinson

Australia has a land mass comparable to the lower forty-eight states of the United States, with year around riding made enjoyable by mild weather conditions. The main city of Sydney has a climate similar to Los Angeles. While the north of the country is tropical, even the southernmost section almost never experiences snow except in the mountains, so motorcycling has always been popular down under, virtually from day one, with both Harley-Davidsons and Indians being imported in relatively large numbers.

Australian culture has always been influenced by a combination of its British heritage and the influence of American movies, television shows, and pop songs. Movies from The Wild One to Easy Rider to Wild Hogs have all contributed to the psyche of Australian motorcyclists.

For quite some years, however, the Australian outlaw culture was distinctive, with movies like the Australian-produced Stone (1974) being a more or less true-to-life portrayal of the scene in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the bikes of choice rarely included Harley-Davidsons, but rather Kawasakis and Hondas.

The last forty years have seen a change in the makeup of clubs from less formal hangaround types of associations to the adoption of formal one-percenter rules and regulations. This is particularly so with international clubs, many of whom are now represented in greater or lesser numbers across the country. In that time, many of the dozens of clubs that were unique to Australia have patched over to some of the larger international clubs—the Darwin-based Blonks MC becoming Hells Angels, for example. Australian crime intelligence recently floated an estimate that from a total population of just under twenty-four million citizens, there are probably around 3,500 fully-patched motorcycle club members representing some thirty-nine clubs.

As in other parts of the world, an ongoing battle is fought between the one-percenter clubs—whose members are referred to as “bikies”—and the forces of law and order, especially around election time. South Australian Premier Mike Rann, who was then Opposition leader, stood on a bulldozer as part of a macho law-and-order campaign by the Labor party in the lead-up to the 2002 election and pledged to bulldoze the outlaw club fortresses, saying, “We are not just dealing with meatheads on motorbikes; we are dealing with basically the foot soldiers of organized crime.” It is now three election victories later, and not a single fortress has been demolished under Rann’s leadership. At least eight major complexes still stand in South Australia, including those of the Hells Angels, Descendants, Finks, Gypsy Jokers, and Rebels. And there are no current plans to bulldoze any.

However, Rann’s legislation in South Australia was touted to be “the world’s toughest laws to combat criminal motorcycle gangs.” This landmark Serious and Organised Crime legislation is designed to “disrupt and dismantle criminal bikie gangs and prevent them from carrying out their illegal activities in South Australia.” Unfortunately for the government, it has not withstood legal challenges by the clubs at this time. In a big “me too” rush, other states pushed through anti-bikie legislation, which has also stalled because of legal challenges.

Unfortunately, at times, one-percenter clubs can be their own worst enemies, such as with the much publicized Milperra Massacre, a firearm battle between rival motorcycle club members on September 2 (Father’s Day), 1984, in Milperra, a southwestern suburb of Sydney. Seven people were killed: six motorcycle club members and a fourteen-year old female bystander. And more recently, the bashing death at Sydney airport in early 2009 involving two one-percenter clubs. These and a number of other incidents across the country have resulted in somewhat of a swing in public sympathy away from the clubs.

Yet despite this, the “anti-bikie” legislation is widely seen as extremely flawed, with opposition coming from many sources including the ultra-conservative Law Society presidents of several states and even the South Australian police commissioner, Mal Hyde, who said earlier this year that “Bikies have cultivated an image of committing more crime than they actually do, and there is a great deal of public concern that may not necessarily match the serious crime that they are committing.”

How the anti-bikie legislation pans out in the long run is yet to be determined. But it would be a brave person to predict the demise of the one-percenter clubs down under. Australia began as a convict colony and an anti-establishment, anti-authority streak has always been a part of the Aussie society. This is not going to go away any time soon. Club members with whom I spoke recently say there has been an increase, not a reduction, in prospective members across the country. Don’t wave goodbye to three-piece patches just yet.