Recent events in NSW warrant tougher powers for law enforcement to combat knife crime.
The NSW Opposition is calling for legislation to grant the NSW Police Force powers to use metal-detecting wands to enhance community safety.
Given the recent tragedy at Bondi Junction Westfield and the alleged terrorist event at Wakeley, the powers should be designed in the interests of public safety and to protect people who are lawfully going about their everyday lives. There are many circumstances where these powers would enhance public safety.
We already have a large range of public activities that are routinely accompanied by non-invasive searches of the kind that the NSW Opposition supports.
The activities where searches currently take place go beyond airport or transport facilities and include sporting events, concerts and even the Royal Easter Show.
The legislation proposed by the Opposition is a natural extension of the contemporary trend towards non-invasive searches to support public safety.
Our proposal would go further than legislation that began operating in Queensland in March of 2023, which allows police to conduct non-invasive metal detector searches of people without a warrant in transport and safe night precincts. In the first nine months of its operation, the Queensland law saw 400 weapons seized by the police.
The NSW Opposition offers to work with the NSW Government in a bi-partisan manner to urgently legislate broad wanding measures to support public safety.
The NSW Opposition notes that there is widespread support for these powers from a range of organisations, including the Police Association and a range of public service trade unions, which support an expansion of police search powers to include the use of metal detecting wands.
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