Thursday, 6 March 2025

Knife crime

Ann-Marie HERMANS (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (17:58): (1497) My adjournment is to the Attorney-General, and the action I am seeking is for the minister to take some immediate measures – measures, I might add, that the coalition and the community have been calling for – to develop stronger laws to crack down on Victoria’s violent knife epidemic. This is also in response to the Premier’s hint last week when she conceded that a review of bail laws was needed to address knife crimes across the state. The Allan Labor government is failing Victorians with its flawed ideology and lack of action. It is almost a daily reality that we read about stabbings in Victoria, with young people losing their lives over senseless acts by knife-carrying perpetrators. We only have to look back at last week where a 25-year-old male getting off a bus at Wyndham Vale was set upon by two youths and stabbed to death. He was apparently not known to the offenders.

Since 2015 police are said to have taken almost 120,000 edged weapons off Victorian streets, and with that number reaching record levels last year. Frighteningly, police seized 14,797 knives, swords, daggers and machetes last year, which is the highest number seized over the last decade. In this recent record bust in a factory warehouse in Dandenong South, police from Springvale divisional response unit seized 930 weapons, which included samurai swords, zombie knives and katana swords. One of the concerns that police have with this seizure is that some of these weapons were being sold to children. Police are ‘zeroing in,’ according to Natalie Dollard, the response inspector, not only on those who carry and use edged weapons, but also on those who are illegally sell them. Police became aware of the supplier after seeing an online company selling prohibited weapons without a permit or licence. Reports indicate that admissions to Victorian hospitals of people with stab wounds doubled in the past decade. The rising number of teenagers involved is a worrying trend. A record number of knives were taken off Victorian streets in 2024, with almost 40 blades found and destroyed each year. What about the numbers that we do not know about and are not being detected because they have not actually been seized? In my area, I have to say, we have got record numbers here as well, because in 2024 there were six times the amount of home invasions compared to 10 years ago. Since 2017 the amount of thieves brandishing weapons when entering homes has nearly doubled.

The Herald Sun’s analysis of break-ins by suburb revealed that Dandenong was the worst hit suburb in the state and Clyde North was almost second-worst hit by only one house invasion, with Berwick being close behind as a primary target suburb. Last year alone, Victoria Police seized so many weapons that it equated to 40 knives, machetes and other blades that were removed from the community each day. Attorney-General, I call on you to address this issue with the utmost urgency before more lives are lost.