Wednesday, 12 November 2025

 Anthony CARBINES (Ivanhoe – Minister for Police, Minister for Community Safety, Minister for Victims, Minister for Racing) (14:36): Can I just start by saying that Victoria Police members are working harder than ever before. We have seen that through a record number of arrests – 77,000 arrests this year alone. That builds on a record number of arrests last year. That hard work needs to be backed by our courts through new laws that ensure that the courts have the power and authority to deliver serious consequences to violent young repeat offenders in our community, and we also want to see the consequences that the community expect. The violent, brazen nature of this new type of offending must be addressed, and too often the consequences do not match the crime. As Minister for Victims, I have heard that message loud and clear from many victims that I have sat with. Adult time for violent crime and tough consequences for repeat young offenders are what the community needs. It needs to be backed by the principles of punishment and deterrence and backed by the hard work of police, who keep us safe.

This builds on work we have done so far with our government’s nation-leading machete ban. We have already seen some 7600 edged weapons surrendered by Victorians. That is on top of our expanded stop-and-search powers for Victoria Police that saw a record number of 12,000 edged weapons seized last year. We have seized over 11,000 this year, and we will beat that record, once again getting those edged weapons off our streets. Thanks to our tough new bail laws we have seen remand up 26 per cent for adults and up 46 per cent for youths. That just shows very clearly that when you breach your rights and your privileges you are going to find yourself back on remand.

We need to make sure that perpetrators of violent crime know they will feel the full force of the law – that consequences matter. We need to make sure that we listen to victims, we listen to police and we ensure that we are acting to make it very clear that those people will see the tough consequences that they deserve when they cause violent crime in our community.