"I THINK, as a natural course of events, now the police are used to the legislation, I think we will naturally see less focus will be on the public domain and more now will be on gathering more intelligence on the bad criminals." - Jarrod Bleijie Attorney-General.

Do I hear a Tony Abbott echo - good criminals and bad criminals - or can we presume the end of the "bikie wars"? VLAD laws have been broadly condemned, not because bikies are lovely chaps, but because the laws themselves are wrong.

Proscribing guilt by an Act of Parliament rather than through the judicial process was always a bad idea.

In a democracy Parliament is no place to declare as outlaws certain individuals or groups. In open society allegations of guilt stand or fail in a court. The government has argued that innocence can be proven in a court. That concept is dangerous and against the fundamental rule of law.

It is up to the accuser to prove guilt, not the accused to establish innocence.

As has been said in this column previously: there are outlaws and bad laws - one does not justify the other.

The Criminal Code has been altered to include declared criminal organisations. Individuals associated with them face mandatory harsher sentencing.

That is lazy lawmaking. Rather than declare an organisation criminal by the weight of parliamentary numbers the correct, fair and reasonable course should be to take that allegation to a court and prove it.

Mr Bleijie has revealed that 565 criminal motorcycle club participants and assoc

iates have been arrested on 1219 charges in the past four months. The number of those who rely on the government-declared criminality of the organisation to which they belong is unknown

The by-election in the Federal seat of Griffith looms this weekend with the LNP's Bill Glasson, tipped as a future Abbott Government minister, drifting out to $5 in betting with Labor's Terri Butler firming to $1.12.

Only last year Mr Glasson secured a 5.45% swing against the incumbent Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd. He beat Rudd 42.22% to 40.36% on the primaries and reduced the once safe Labor seat to a 6% margin.

Where will the blame be slated if he suffers a bad loss - the Newman or Abbott government?

Later this month the LNP faces a state by-election in Redcliffe which it seems destined to lose. Will a bad loss there be blamed on the government's overall performance or be seen as a referendum on VLAD?

The government then faces a High Court challenge to laws rushed through to make the political point that it's tough on crime.