What If Bikies Ran Australia

South Australia has never been kind to bikies. The state has dabbled in anti-bikie legislation before, and clamped down again as of September last year. Ten groups across SA are now considered criminal organisations, forcing the Comancheros and the Rebels to abandon their clubrooms. The Tattoo Industry Control Bill has also been drafted to keep bikies from operating tattoo parlours, which will ultimately put a tattooist and former Gypsy Joker named Bear out of business.

Bear, also known as Robert Cameron, has formed the Free Australia Party to fight back. He owns two parlours in Adelaide and wants to repeal SA's laws while enacting a host of changes across the country. Some of these changes are pretty eccentric, but then, of course they are.

I sat down with Bear to eat deep-fried fish/chicken things, and talk about a future that he'd be proud of.

Hi Bear, tell me, where did the nickname come from?
Bear: I've had it since I was three. I used to run around naked all the time and my mum called me Bare Bum. It was abbreviated as I got older.

Ok, cool. And how did the Free Australia Party get started?
It all started when we were building a tattoo parlour. All my friends were standing around, drinking and carrying on, talking about the laws that are coming in. I said, you cunts sound like a bunch of fucking politicians, why don't you start a political party?

Four or five hours later I was still working away, and the fellas come bursting in the door. Guess what it's only going to cost us 450 bucks and we only need 150 members and we can start a party! So we all chipped in 50 each and called a meeting, got all the clubs together. That was a big thing, getting them together in the one room, especially because they'd all been at each other for a while. At first they were all thinking, fuck, is he setting us up? Then they relaxed.

What are your policies?
I believe we should have the right to bear arms providing you're a fit and proper person. If you're a good, honest person you should have the right to defend your fucking property—not just your property, but your country. We also need our military. It doesn't matter what anyone likes to think.

Okay. So how do you feel about conscription?
I do like the idea of conscription. If you leave high school and you haven't got a job within 12 months, you do two years armed services as a pre-apprenticeship thing. Then you can go into the public sector or whatever. Everybody should have a bit of fight put in them.

So military spending would get a boost?
Yes well, my second plan is to build, basically, a Thunderbirds base. We'd have warehouses full of hospital tents for ebola, stuff like that. The minute there's a disaster anywhere on this planet we set a plan into action and within 48 hours we've got people on the ground. Woomera would be the perfect place to do it because there's already a detention centre there. If we need to take international prisoners for trial we have a place ready to go.

What about the environment?
I've got a plan to save the river system and turn South Australia into the food bowl of the country. We'd have hydroelectric plants every 500 kilometers down the Murray River. We could regulate the flow of the Murray forever and we could flush it when we want to. But the most important thing is that every second year we wouldn't have to rescue Queensland from floods.

Some of this is pretty ambitious. Who will vote for you?
I don't really care if people vote for me or not. My mission is to wake people up. Australians are basically in a coma. They're in a deep sleep and they're not noticing what's going on.

Let's move onto your time as a Gypsy Joker. What's a memory that stays with you?
The memory that sticks out, that makes my hair stand up on the back of my neck, was when a great man passed away. We were cruising down the Kwinana Freeway, going to his funeral. We were 20 kilometres from the cemetery and there were people lining the highway, thousands and thousands of them. They had their heads bowed and their hands on their hearts. It was the most amazing thing. You'd never see a Prime Minister get that.

That's amazing. But then bikies are also infamous for fighting each other?
Normally we get along. We formed a thing called the United Motorcycle Council. That's where all the clubs get together. We can get two guys out the back and they can punch the shit out of each other and the loser cops it, instead of involving the whole club.

What gang conflicts were you involved in?
My shop got firebombed, so I decided to take action into my own hands. I went and dealt with it and I did a few years in jail. I now realise I did the wrong thing. My oldest son was only four when I got locked up. That hurt me, not being able to see him. That's what woke me up.

So you've turned your back on that sort of thing?
Well, starting the Free Australia Party also helped. Sort of. It was also four years of the most incredible partying I've ever done, because every club got together. Every fucking weekend. Friday night we'd have a party at one clubhouse, Saturday night another clubhouse, Sunday night another one. It was just a big drinking competition—see who can snort the most coke. It waned off a bit, which is a good thing because I'd probably be dead by now.

Do bikie gangs propagate violence?
We don't promote violence and as a matter of fact, we quell a lot of it. There are certain criminal elements around every city who aren't in bike clubs, but if they step on the wrong toes they get reprimanded—which the police can't do. We actually keep a lid on a lot of crime that the police can't.

Does Free Australia have a campaign slogan?
When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.

Thanks Bear.

Follow Mat on Twitter.