Tuesday, 5 April 2022

Knife crime

Ms MAXWELL (Northern Victoria) (17:42): (1857) My adjournment is to the Minister for Police, and the action I seek is for the government to outline its response to the prevalence of knife-related crime in Victoria. A recent Herald Sun article included a very disturbing report that the number of life-threatening stab wounds treated at the Alfred hospital over summer had risen by 50 per cent compared to the previous year. From December to January 21 people each month were admitted to the Alfred with life-threatening stab injuries. Back in 2006 Les Twentyman said that the carrying of and the use of knives had reached epidemic proportions. Here we are more than 15 years later and this description appears to still ring true.

Police Chief Commissioner Patton in 2020 said that knife crime would be high on his agenda, and the minister was reported at the time as saying that she was in discussions with the commissioner about how to tackle the issue. Police have initiated a number of weapons amnesties and exchanges, including a pilot exchange back in 2006 where youth were able to hand in their knives, no questions asked, in return for incentives such as sports tickets. Fifty-two knives were subsequently melted down and formed a new sculpture outside the Footscray police station. The Age reported a police officer speaking anonymously who said violent crime involving knives and young people had never been worse nor more brutal. Police have seized a record number of weapons under search and seizure powers. We have very clear laws around possession and use of controlled weapons as well as a prohibition on their sale to people under 18 years of age.

How we circumvent access to these weapons and their trade between criminals is certainly a difficult task. I commend Crime Stoppers for initiating the campaign ‘Lose the knife, not a life’ to educate young people about the dangers of simply carrying a knife. Indeed if you do not have one in your possession, you cannot use it. It would disturb all of us that some youth have a sense that they need to arm themselves to protect themselves, including children as young as 10.

I know there was some objection in January to a police operation that utilised special search and seizure powers. However, 23 knives were confiscated. Knife-related crime is not isolated to metropolitan areas. A stabbing was being investigated just last weekend in Wodonga, four people in the north-west in February, a case in Shepparton last October, last August a young person lost his life after being stabbed in Wangaratta—the list goes on. Police have indicated they will run workshops in schools and community centres to educate young people, and I would appreciate details of how extensively these will be run across Victoria. Certainly by the time young people are deciding to carry a knife on them we are further down the road for intervention than I would hope. The Les Twentyman Knives Trash Lives advertisement is compelling watching, and I hope it is distributed widely through schools and online to young people to encourage conversations about the serious, dangerous and sometimes fatal consequences of knife crime.