The Courier Mail headline claims they’re “collateral damage” but it’s just cheap PR spin: “Bikie WAGS collateral damage in Queensland war on bikies”.

In fact these women are complicit – they’re not “collateral” to anything.

Neither are they, strictly speaking, “human shields”, as I’ve claimed, because human shields don’t deliberately put themselves in the way of danger, and there’s no danger of these “shields” being hurt. But the strategy is similar.

If you go out with, or marry, someone who is a member of an outlaw bikie gang, you can’t claim to be innocent of what your partner does.

This type of bikie gang calls itself “outlaw” for a reason, and it’s not because it’s an elaborate joke.

It’s no joke. The gangs regard themselves as outside the law, and are major suppliers of drugs to Queenslanders, as well as enforcement muscle for a number of other shady operators.

If your partner is involved with a criminal organisation it might cause problems for you, but the solution is not to ask the government to go easy on criminals. The solution is to insist your partner leave the gang.

That’s if you are sufficiently troubled by the criminality.

If you’re not, then not only will you stay around, but what you might also do is allow yourself to be used to milk sympathy from the public as a way of allowing your partner, or at least his mates, to continue in their criminal ways.

MUM-of-two Sarah Trappett works in childcare and is a former nanny who doesn’t really like motorbikes. 

Yet this quietly spoken 28-year-old is a bikie WAG.

Husband Chris has been a member of Australia’s largest motorcycle gang, the Rebels, for 3½ years.

And that, according to Ms Trappett, makes her collateral damage because of the Newman Government’s tough anti-bikie laws.

“It’s been very stressful,” she said as she cradled the couple’s two-week-old son Carter. “I just think these laws are ridiculous.”

Not only has her husband been branded a “criminal” ¬because of his Rebels links, he also faces losing his job as a tattooist under a new licensing crackdown.

My heart bleeds for her. And perhaps hers could bleed for other people’s children who are damaged by the drug trade that her husband’s cronies prosecute.

I wonder how the stress of someone whose son or daughter is addicted to crystal meth shapes up against hers – sons or daughters who have lost more than their jobs because of their addictions.

To avoid the “Newman Government’s tough anti-bikie laws” all her partner has to do is walk away. He doesn’t have to give up his bike, just his cronies.

It’s not the government who are using these women, their relationships and their children – it’s the outlaw gangs and their publicists.

On the basis of this article, it’s also the women themselves, who are as much a part of the criminal conspiracy as their partners.