Thursday, 31 July 2025

Ministers statements: community safety

Anthony CARBINES (Ivanhoe – Minister for Police, Minister for Community Safety, Minister for Victims, Minister for Racing) (14:36): I want to firstly update the house that police were involved in a critical incident last night at Yarra Junction. These incidents, when they occur, are very distressing for everyone involved, and I want to place on record my thanks to those police members who responded and for the work that every police member does 24/7 to keep us safe. They are doing that right now, and they often put themselves in harm’s way to do so. Victorians are very grateful for the work that they do, and I want to thank them for the work that they did last night.

I would also like to update the house on our nation-leading machete ban. I was with the Premier down at the West Melbourne police station to look at the location and the design of our machete disposal bins, some 45 bins at 24-hour police stations across the state, part of a $13 million investment that rolls out our community awareness campaign. We want to make sure that those surrender bins go live from 1 September through to 30 November. There are stiff penalties applied to keep those machetes. If you want to hang on to them, police will track you down – up to two years in prison, a $47,000 fine. We want to choke the machete supply, and we have seen that through the interim ban and removal of machetes from our shelves. Amazon did a complete nationwide ban. We also want to thank the Minister for Consumer Affairs, my friend, who made sure of some 470 retail inspections, with only seven retailers not complying. There are some 5500 machetes not going interstate for sale that will be destroyed right here in Victoria. Young people have to drop the knife. They have to save a life. They have to change lives.

This machete ban also adds to increased tough powers that the Allan government has introduced: stop-and-search powers without a warrant. We have seen a record 14,000 edged weapons seized across Victoria by our police members. We will hit another record thanks to these tough new changes to the law here in Victoria. We will do whatever it takes, the Allan government, to back police and keep Victorians safe.