I too rise to speak on the Firearms and Control of Weapons (Machetes) Amendment Bill 2024. I have to say that usually I stand here and I say it is with a great deal of pleasure I rise to speak on bills before this house, but it does fill me with a great deal of sadness to have to rise to speak on machetes and knives. I am going to in my contribution talk about some of the community safety issues my community, particularly in Brimbank and Wyndham, are facing right now in relation to machetes and knives as part of this bill and why this bill is so important to come before this house. I would urge the opposition to go ahead and support the bill. This is really important, the impact that it will have on my local community.
The purpose of the bill is to provide police with greater powers to tackle the prevalence of machetes in our community. I think that is something that the people in my local community will be very, very happy to hear. I want to start my contribution by acknowledging the incredible work of Victoria Police in keeping our community safe. Each and every police officer and PSO that is on the beat every single day at all hours of the day in all weather conditions is doing their best to stop crimes and protect and serve Victorians, particularly in my local community, in my electorate of Laverton. Over the past two years we have had 500 new police officers and 50 PSOs be trained and funded on top of the 3100 additional police that our government has already put on our streets since being elected to government in 2014.
Last year I had a really great opportunity to go ahead and meet many local police that serve my community in Melbourne’s west. The Minister for Police and I visited not one police station but three – the three biggies in the west, I say: Sunshine police station, Wyndham North police station and the absolutely huge upgraded rebuild of Werribee station. It was really great to sit down and hear directly, alongside the Minister for Police, from local police, who were told to speak frankly and robustly about issues within our local community in relation to community safety and most importantly the support they needed from us to go ahead and do their jobs. I am not going to use up my time today to reiterate what was said at those meetings, but I do have to say that I found them quite insightful.
This bill before us today will play a really important role in doing exactly that: helping police stop the use and distribution of dangerous weapons in this state and in my local community. I will say that this bill is particularly important for folks in the west because, sadly, we have experienced these kinds of crimes involving machetes and knives too many times. It is never pleasant to have to stand here and speak about these kinds of things happening in my local community. Sometimes I tend to not speak about them, but I feel strongly about this one, because this bill is introducing a change that is going to be really important to help protect them. But I also want to acknowledge that these instances and incidents – tragic ones, sometimes leading to the deaths of very young people – do happen, and they do happen in my electorate of Laverton.
My office and I have had so many conversations with residents right across my electorate who have told us of all these types of crimes, like residents living near Sunshine station who have had boys knocking on their doors trying to hide from other young boys carrying machetes or where school students have been stabbed and tragically killed just trying to catch the train and go home. I have had parents out in Wyndham call my office and describe the worst kinds of home invasions where these weapons have been used. They have truly been terrified – their lives changed forever. I say this before the house because I want to acknowledge their pain and the experience that they suffered, and I do want to say to them: we hear you and we are doing something about it. That is exactly why we have introduced this bill and why we are debating it today.
Those on the other side might like to play politics with these sorts of tragedies and incidents that happen in communities like mine. I note the member for Berwick referred to me earlier today – sadly, I was not in the chamber. I do not believe we should be playing politics with these kinds of issues. They are serious, they are extremely complicated and they require serious people to address them. But all of us are grateful for the work done by our local police in Sunshine, Tarneit and Werribee, responding to crimes when they happen and then offering the support that they do indeed give to victims and families. But I also want to be very clear, and I want my community and people in this chamber to hear this: these extreme incidents and tragedies do not define our community in Melbourne’s west. The people who commit these acts and use these kinds of weapons do not represent Melbourne’s west. They do not represent Victoria or indeed the vast majority of Victorians. I mention this to highlight just how important a bill like this is for communities like mine in the west, and I know it will be the same for many members in this place and their electorates and their communities.
The bill makes a really important amendment to the Control of Weapons Act 1990 to provide absolute clarity that a machete is considered a knife and therefore is considered a controlled weapon. Under the current legislation a controlled weapon is defined as a knife other than a knife that is a prohibited weapon or another article that is prescribed as such under the regulations. As it currently stands, there are only four scheduled articles, those being spears, guns, batons, cudgels – I can only imagine what they look like – bayonets and cattle prods. What these provisions and regulations will mean for machetes is that it will be unlawful to possess, carry or use them without lawful excuse and they cannot be sold to or purchased by persons under 18. That is a very clear message to people in my community.
[Parliament Adjourned]
I am very pleased to be able to continue my contribution on this very important bill, and I am going to start where I left off. I am going to say it again and I am going to put it on Facebook, because this is what I am saying to my community: these provisions and regulations will mean for machetes that it is illegal to possess, carry or use one without lawful excuse. They cannot be sold to and cannot be purchased by a person under 18. It means that a lot of young people that we are seeing use these weapons will not be allowed to purchase them or have them sold to them. We know that a lot of the time retailers who may sell knives or other similar controlled weapons will have special technology in place to identify products that require proof-of-age cards and prevent them from inadvertently selling them to a minor. This way retailers who sell machetes as tools for legitimate activities – because, let us face it, there are legitimate activities that require a machete, such as for horticultural and agricultural purposes – can continue to do so. They just have to apply the same standards that are already in place to prevent breaches of this law to their products. If they do not – this is important – they are going to face a penalty of over $3000 for selling a controlled weapon to a person that they know is under 18.
Importantly, what it means for young people who try to get their hands on a machete illegally is that they will also face a fine for illegally purchasing one. Importantly, for young people who are illegally trying to get their hands on machetes, it means they can face penalties of up to $23,000 and a one-year jail term for carrying a machete without a lawful excuse. These penalties to some may seem harsh; I think they are pretty fair in fact. This goes a good way toward trying to stomp out the activity that has been going on in my electorate with machetes. It provides the deterrent that we need to young people looking to get their hands on these weapons to engage in serious crime, to harm innocent people in communities. It will capture only a small minority of young people who are involved in this kind of criminal behaviour – this is not the vast majority of people in Melbourne’s west doing this, and it is really important to point that out. This is a small minority of people engaged in criminal behaviour.
This is such an important bill. I will certainly run out of time before I talk about firearms and what this bill goes towards introducing – some more good steps towards preventing and removing firearms from our communities. But I do say to the people in Melbourne’s west who have contacted me: we have heard you. This bill is for you.
