On 5 December 2013 the Australian mainstream media reported that Qld Premier Campbell Newman had appointed Retired Brigadier William Julian Andrew "Bill" Mellor to control the state government's anti-bikie strategy.
ABC News was one of the media outlets which ran with the story that had apparently come to light after transcripts of Parliamentary Crime and Misconduct Committee (PCMC) hearings were tabled in Parliament in November 2013.
The ABC’s initial reporting revealed the house number and suburb in which Mellor lived. Campbell Newman complained to Prime Minister Abbott about what he called a security breach and, insisted that the Australian Broadcasting Commission should pay for a security upgrade to the Mellor residence.
An upgrade Bill Mellor’s own security consultancy firm has since supplied for an undisclosed sum.
While ABC Managing Director Mark Scott would be Internet savvy enough to realise that it would take a burly bikie with a laptop just minutes to track down Bill Mellor’s home address from information already listed on Google’s search engine before December 2013; Messrs Abbott and Newman either did not know or did not care that Mellor’s full residential address and current telephone number for his home-based business had been placed on a website with which he was connected by the man himself.
While a number of other easily accessible websites*, along with an online newsletter, all list the suburb where Bill Mellor lives. The Sensis online telephone book also gives his current residential 'phone number & address and, Google Images has a link to that webpage with his full residential details.
Campbell Newman also obviously did not remember that in a February 2013 media release he identified Bill Mellor as being connected with the association which owns the main website in question.
So Premier Newman himself would have led any interested bikie straight to Brigadier Mellor (he certainly led me) and Google Earth would have done the rest by supplying an image of the basic layout of the Mellor home and the streets leading into the little 14-house cul-de-sac in which Mellor lives.
However, it seems that no bikies were interested in where Bill Mellor lives, as according to The Courier Mail on 28 September 2014 It is understood that no threats or incidents have materialised.
Perhaps Campbell Newman can complain about another aspect of the ABC’s coverage and get Mr. Mellor enough money to inject some life and colour into his rather tired front garden.
* Even the then Governor-General unwittingly became part of the information overload by publishing Bill Mellor's full residential address at the time he received his Member of the Order of Australia - which was but four mouse clicks away from revealing the amount of money he paid for this house and years later received from its sale, as well as the price paid for his present residence.
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