Bikies' PR a shambles

Events at the weekend, when three Perth bikies from the Finks were injured in a dust-up with the Coffin Cheaters, must all but signal the end of the United Motorcycle Council's PR campaign.

The Council (in WA and nationally) wants to have laws of association abandoned. The Council (aka, the bikie gangs) hired a Brisbane PR outfit, Cole Communications to help with its image and key messages. Frontman was the Finks' Ferret, who, while colourful, was not a great choice.

So the UMC's spokesman is a Fink, of the same club in Sunday's brawl, in which one Fink lost three fingers and another was shot.

How credible now is the bikies' assertion they are just a group of fun-loving bike riders?

Another aspect to this is the WA Police's lack of "intelligence" about the gathering. A quick glance at the Sunday Times' weekly motorcycle column would have told them about the event. Surely it's not difficult to "do the maths" and realise that drag-racing Harleys would attract bikies?

Bikies' PR company taking a risk

The Brisbane PR company that represents bikies has this to say on its web site: "We will not support business activities that we believe cause fundamental harm to people, communities, or the environment."

With reputation management a cornerstone of PR, I wonder if they're risking their reputation by having the bikies as a client?

Whatever the effect this will have on the PR company (whose ethics I find hard to fathom) certainly the bikies are spending up big. The campaign they're running has all bases covered, including a raft of web sites (national and State bodies in NSW, SA, Qld and WA). Some are on Twitter. However, I do wonder why one of the links leads to a gang in Norway.

The angle they're taking is that the proposed legislation, curtailing the right of freedom of association, will affect everyone in the community. Certainly, they have a point. But, as WA Police Commissioner Karl O'Callahan pointed out, it only applies to groups with criminal leanings. Scouts, fear not.