Knife Laws

The Hon. J.E. HANSON (15:01): My question is to the Attorney-General. Will the Attorney-General update the council on the latest results of the government's nation-leading knife reforms?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Deputy Premier, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector, Special Minister of State) (15:02): I thank the honourable member for his interest and his question. I am very pleased that we have by far and away the most strict and toughest knife laws anywhere in the country. This stands in stark contrast to the ambition the opposition has had in relation to this important community safety area—stark ambition. We all have put forward extensive—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Sit down. I would actually like to hear the answer, and I can't with the noise coming from this side of the chamber.

The Hon. H.M. Girolamo interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Ms Girolamo, I just asked for a bit of silence from you.

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: Thank you, sir, and I appreciate the protection which you afford me in this chamber. As I was saying, we passed the toughest knife laws in the country and, by way of comparison, it stands in stark contrast to what we have heard from the opposition in the past. The opposition, after the government put out a discussion paper, took one small part of it to put forward the sum total of their ambition in this area, which was to raise the age for buying knives from 16 to 18, but including that many exemptions you could drive a truck through it. That is all the opposition thought was worthy to do.

As a government, we are more ambitious for South Australia than that. We want to see South Australia better protected than that—much, much better protected than what the member for Bragg, Jack Berry, came up with. We are much more interested in protecting South Australians than—

The PRESIDENT: Just sit down. Rewind and refer to the member for Bragg as Jack Batty, not Jack Berry. Come on!

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: Sorry, sir. I am pleased to provide the council, as the honourable member asked, with an update on the latest success of this government's nation-leading knife law reform. As the honourable member who asked the question will know, earlier this year we introduced and passed nation-leading reform that saw a sensible, holistic approach to cracking down on knife crime and intervening before we saw some of the excesses of knife laws in the Eastern States.

Extensive new search powers have been given to South Australia Police through these laws and the police commissioner has now declared 11 locations as declared shopping precincts for the purposes of their new wanding search powers. SAPOL's operations in declared shopping precincts have already proven effective with, I understand to date, nine knives already being found. These same powers also allow SAPOL to declare any public transport hub or public transport vehicle in order to conduct metal detector wand searches as well as an ability to order a person or group posing a risk to public safety to leave that declared precinct for 24 hours.

If the person re-enters or attempts to re-enter, there is a penalty of up to $1,250. Further to the new search powers and declared places, these nation-leading knife reforms have banned machetes and swords, and, under the three-month surrender period that ended recently, proved incredibly effective.

I am pleased to report that 3,508 weapons were handed back across South Australia at police stations between 1 July and 30 September, an average of some 38 weapons every day, and 1,653 machetes and 1,170 swords were surrendered to police totalling, in just swords and machetes, 2,823 weapons that have been in the community that have now been surrendered. As well as swords and machetes, surrendered weapons also include batons, bayonets, nunchakus, star knives, ninja stars and even a morning star, a medieval weapon that I didn't know existed before the hand back, consisting of a shaft with a spiked ball.

I would like to thank all South Australians who have handed in these dangerous weapons to their local police station and heeded the message, and have done the right thing to keep the community safe. The final stages of these nation-leading reforms commence next year when retailers selling any potentially dangerous knives will be preparing for securely storing or tethering those knives so they cannot be taken off the shelf and used by those who seek to do harm. As I have said, we thank the South Australian community for backing up these important legal changes during the surrender period, and handing in so many weapons.