By Bill Mason

BRISBANE -- New powers to allow police and security guards to forcibly move on “trouble-makers” at Brisbane South Bank were a return to the “police state tactics of the Bjelke-Petersen era”, Susan Price and Ana Kailis said on May 7.

Price and Kailis were Democratic Socialist candidates in the March 26 Brisbane City Council elections and campaigned on the issue of police harassment of Aborigines and unemployed youth.

In final figures released recently, Price won 8% in the ward of Central, while Kailis gained 4.5% in Dutton Park.

“These new powers will be used to victimise blacks and other young people, as part of the ongoing hysterical campaign against so-called `youth crime,'” Price and Kailis said.

The powers, announced by the state Labor government on May 3, will allow police to demand names and addresses without restriction, order people to leave the area and seek a court order to have “offenders” banned from South Bank for up to a year.

If the trial is considered a “success”, the powers will be extended statewide, police minister Paul Braddy confirmed.

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