Youth Against Violence: Canberra ‘needs to help standardise knife laws’

The young founder of an anti-youth violence organisation that lobbied the NSW Government for stronger knife laws has called on Canberra to help standardise penalties across the nation.

Ouwais Menzel set up Youth Against Violence after the stabbing of a friend in Sydney in 2021 and has since pushed the group into Queensland and Victoria, rolling out education and preventive programs.

He is calling on the Federal and state governments to work together to eliminate inconsistencies in knife laws that see maximum jail penalties for carrying a blade vary between six months and four years, depending on where the offences are committed.

“Is it really sending the right message, having different penalties in each state? Probably not,” Mr Menzel said.

“There needs to be a level of cooperation from the Federal Government and for all states to sit together collectively to come up with a solution,” he said.

That could be either some form of federal legislation or an agreement between the states for uniform penalties.

The inconsistencies have come under scrutiny since the deaths of six people in a stabbing rampage at Bondi Junction shopping centre on Saturday and the attack on Christian Orthodox bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel in his western Sydney church two days later.

Mr Menzel spoke as Youth Against Violence sought a meeting with NSW Premier Chris Minns and the State’s Police Force Commissioner Karen Webb in the wake of the attacks which, he said, had “raised serious concerns about the prevalence of knife-related violence in the region”.

The group will put a series of recommendations to the NSW Government in response to the attacks, including a further increase in penalties, more funding for prevention programs and mandatory rehabilitation courses for offenders.

Mr Menzel said his group had raised the issue of the inconsistent penalties across States with the Federal Government, only to be “shut down”.

“The latest correspondence we had was that basically, this was a state issue for every state to handle,” he said.

Following the attacks, NSW is looking at further tightening its knife laws, which are already the toughest in the country after the maximum jail penalty for carrying a blade in public was doubled to four years less than a year ago.

Other States currently work with lighter penalties. In Victoria, for example, carrying a knife without a lawful reason carries a maximum jail term of one year.

In WA, the maximum penalty is two to three years, depending on whether the knife is either a “prohibited” or “controlled” weapon.

It is two years in South Australia and Tasmania.

Mr Menzel said Youth Against Violence engaged with the NSW Government last year in support of tougher penalties, arguing they were “a good first step” in helping prevent knife crime.

However, he says, increased jail terms and fines need to be accompanied by early intervention and preventive measures.

“These changes (tougher penalties) in themselves won’t fix the problem.”

Mr Menzel said increased penalties also needed to be better publicised as “the demographic that needs to know that these penalties have been toughened up aren’t really receiving the message”.

Youth Against Violence has also been trying to convince the NSW Government to adopt similar measures to Queensland, where Jack’s Law — named for 17-year-old stabbing victim Jack Beasley, who was killed on the Gold Coast in 2019 — allows police to use hand-held metal detectors to search people in all late night precincts, at public transport stations and on buses and trains without a warrant.

Since its inception, more than 500 weapons, including hammers and machetes, have been seized.

WA is among the states now considering similar measures.