AAP General News (Australia)
08-08-1999
FED: The world of the one percenters
EDS: PLEASE NOTE LANGUAGE IN 9TH, 13TH AND 22ND PARAGRAPHS.
By Doug Conway, Senior Correspondent
SYDNEY, Aug 8 AAP - They call themselves the "one percenters" - men who don't give much of
a damn about the rules governing the other 99 per cent of the population.
Those who join bikie gangs comply with their own strict rules, even if they may pay scant
regard to some of those in statute books.
They often feel they don't belong in society. According to insiders, they find a sense of
belonging in the secret world of their clubs.
Many, but by no means all, come from broken homes with little or no family support. The
clubs become their families.
The gangs, each with a strict hierarchy, give structure to otherwise unstructured lives.
They have their president, vice-president, secretary, treasurer, sergeant-of-arms and road
captain.
Jock Ross, head of the Comanchero gang involved in the 1984 Father's Day massacre at
Sydney's Milperra, called himself "supreme commander". Whatever he said went.
Nominees or prospects must serve a virtual apprenticeship before they are accepted, and
work their way up the ladder before they are allowed to wear the club's colours.
The clubhouse of the breakaway Bandido gang sported a sign reading: "If it's white sniff
it, if it's female or it moves fuck it, if it narks kill it."
But club rules did not necessarily bear out those sentiments entirely.
Ross hated hard drugs, and similarly the first Bandido meeting stipulated heroin was not
allowed, on threat of "instant dismissal and a bashing".
"Everybody's woman is to be treated with respect, as you would want your own woman to be
treated," read another.
"No woman is allowed into the clubhouse unless her old man is there. This is to stop
dissension among members so nobody roots anybody else's missus.
"If a member wants to become involved with another member's missus or girlfriend, and the
woman's old man agrees, the member and his brother in question may decide if they can go
together."
Apart from a love of riding bikes, which is paramount, gang members are likely to share a
jaundiced view of authority - authority, that is, outside their clubs.
"They pride themselves on thinking they're different," said Sandra Harvey, co-author of
Brothers In Arms, a book about the Milperra massacre which left seven people dead.
"Those shootings were basically the culmination of a power struggle between two men who
wanted to control bike gangs.
"They lived by their own rules, and they got carried away."
Anthony "Snoddy" Spencer, the Bandido leader who committed suicide in jail, "craved" a
family, Harvey said.
"He found brotherhood, love and belonging with the men in a bikie gang," she said.
"His diary made it clear he couldn't cope with the guilt. He felt responsible that his men
were in jail suffering; he had done a terrible thing to his family. His brothers were
everything to him."
Snoddy devised a courtesy card for the Bandidos with "1%er" in one corner, and messages
including: "We are the people our parents warned us about", "FTW (Fuck The World)" and "If You
Can't Be Well Liked, Be Well Hated."
Authorities made sure the convicted Bandidos and Comancheros were kept in separate jails.
"I went to visit the Bandidos in prison," said Harvey, "and it was like the club still
existed within the jail."
Bikie clubs appeal to a wide age range, from teenagers through to men in their 40s.
Most members are said to be from working class backgrounds with limited resources, but Alex
Vella, leader of the Rebels, is a multi-millionaire.
Some are unemployed or have menial jobs, others work in banks and the public service. One
of the Bandidos of the 1980s was a violinist. Another, Phil McElwaine, was a Commonwealth
Games boxer.
Some have five or six children, sometimes to their "old ladies" on the side as well as
their wives, who both know of the other's existence.
"They are good fathers and good husbands," said Harvey.
But some come unstuck when their small worlds clash with the bigger world around them.
"It's almost like the boy scouts, only older," she said.
"They're like little boys that never grew up."
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KEYWORD: BODY GANGS (BACKGROUNDER) RPT
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