Machetes

Mr BATTY (Bragg) (14:41): My question is to the Minister for Police. Why has the government not yet listed the machete as a prohibited weapon? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr BATTY: The opposition has been calling for the machete to be listed as a prohibited weapon—something that can be done with the stroke of a pen—since November last year. The government has failed to act, and this week we saw yet another violent machete attack in the CBD.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Treasurer, Minister for Defence and Space Industries, Minister for Police) (14:41): I thank the shadow minister for his question. Last November, the shadow minister, and I think also the leader, put out a press release asking for the government to change laws to ban the sale of knives to youths—that was it. Now, we are into the revisionism of those opposite in an effort to garner some greater attention. What we did was behave consistent with being in government: speaking with police, speaking with the community and coming up with a far more comprehensive series of reforms.

It wasn't just about banning the sale of knives to minors: it was massively increasing the powers that South Australian police have to search people, to declare precincts where they are entitled to search people, to not just declare knives and machetes as prohibited weapons—not as offensive weapons—if they are carried in public but also put in place a series of regulations and changes that would ensure that if knives are sold in a retail outlet then they have to be secured away from access, tethered if necessary, to ensure that somebody can't enter into that premises and easily get access to them, shoplift them and so on, perhaps not too dissimilar to the changes that were introduced in previous years governing access to things like spray cans.

That is the action of a government that has thought through the issue properly. We passed those laws in April this year. We are now in the process of working with SAPOL and the retail industry, preparing them for the beginning of those laws coming into effect. In the meantime, of course, the carriage of something like a machete, let alone its use in any sort of incident or assault or something more serious, remains a criminal act. Those people who have been arrested will find themselves before the courts and treated accordingly for that outrageous behaviour.

But rather than just do one simple thing, we have come up with a comprehensive series of changes to reform the law in this area, not just about restricting the sale of knives to minors, as the member for Bragg called on us to do, but making sure that police have much greater powers out in the community to search people to see if they are carrying, to restrict not only these items from sale but also to declare precincts and search people who they are suspicious of for carrying them. That is comprehensive law reform.

I realise that those opposite, given the tumult that they have had over the last four days, are desperate to put on a brave face, but we have gone so much further than the very basic, very offhand call that they put to the community in November. We have comprehensive law reform. It's passed through this parliament. Those opposite should be aware of it. We had the deputy leader regaling us with Mrs Slocombe-like tales of his cat during the discussion of the debate. It's probably only Peds who gets that reference, of those opposite, but, regardless, we passed those laws, and we are looking forward to them coming into effect.