‘Lock up the parents’

Minister says letting kids on street with a knife is not on

A senior federal Labor minister says parents who let their children possess knives should “have the book thrown at them” as the country debates how to move forward after this week’s dual stabbing attacks.

In the wake of the Bondi Junction massacre, which claimed the lives of six people and injured 12 more, and the Wakeley alleged terrorist attack, which injured a bishop and a priest, NSW Police has reportedly asked for tougher knife-crime penalties.

According to the Nine Newspapers, the state’s police force has asked for sanctions for parents who allow their children to possess knives.

NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb said “everyone has a role”.

“Parents have a role, if they can influence their children of course,” she said.

Education Minister Jason Clare backed the call, saying any parents who “knowingly let their children out the door with a deadly weapon should have the book thrown at them”.

“I think every parent would stop their child leaving the house if they knew they had a knife. But if they do, they should have the book thrown at them,” he said on Friday.

“Premier Chris Minns has made it clear he is looking at this as well as whatever else is needed to help make sure our community is safe.”

There’s also calls for Mr Minns to follow Queensland’s lead in allowing police with metal detectors to search people without a warrant.

NDIS Minister Bill Shorten said Australia needed “nationally consistent laws”.

“It should be, if you’re carrying a knife and you use it, that’s aggravated. And you need to have tougher penalties,” he said.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, however, said there needed to be a realistic approach to the issue.

“There are different approaches for different police forces … I think we’ve got to be realistic about what you can do,” he said.

“I think the other really important point here is the warning signs early on … Just people taking more notice, caring and alerting the authorities if they think that somebody has a real issue or an obsession with knives and guns.

“The thought that we can take every knife off the street is a nice one, but we’ve got to be realistic.”

Ms Webb said if the government strengthened knife laws “we’ll welcome that”, but the laws as they stood were “very effective”.

“We do run knife operations every day. Police are seizing knives. Last week, we ran Operation Foil, which seized 51 knives just in one operation across a few days,” she said. “So that’s 51 too many knives on our streets, people carrying a knife in public that have no entitlement to carry. So we’ve got to find a way for people to understand it’s illegal to carry a knife in public.”