MELBOURNE — The Victorian Government has confirmed its machete ban remains highly effective against all citizens who were already unlikely to bring a machete to a fight, despite reports that more than 40 public knife fights have occurred in the year since the policy was announced.
Officials defended the ban after critics described it as an “absolute failure”, saying the policy had successfully prevented thousands of accountants, nurses, retirees, office workers, parents, librarians and people waiting quietly for trams from carrying machetes in public.
“That is a significant public safety achievement”, said Community Safety Minister Jayne Richards. “Every day, millions of Victorians continue not to walk around with large blades and the ban sends a strong message to those law-abiding citizens that their existing behaviour is now government policy”.
Asked whether the ban had deterred people actually inclined to participate in public knife fights, Richards said the government was “taking a holistic view of compliance”.
“We never claimed this would stop every machete-related incident,” she said. “We claimed it would create a regulatory framework under which machete-related incidents could occur in a more clearly prohibited environment”.
Police sources said the legislation had given officers “additional tools”, mostly in the form of paperwork after someone had already produced a blade near a shopping centre.
“It’s important to understand that a ban is not a force field,” one senior officer said. “It is a legal position the government adopts before reality arrives carrying sharpened agricultural equipment”.
The government has announced a new campaign titled Pretty Please Don’t Bring A Blade, aimed at ensuring the remaining people involved in machete fights understand the conduct is “not aligned with Victoria’s values”.