Premier Ben Carroll will give police sweeping powers to stop and search anyone in public if Labor is re-elected, the ABC reports — borrowing another opposition policy the government had previously resisted. With the Coalition having promised the same reform in September last year, "Jack's Law" is now coming to Victoria regardless of who wins in November.
Under Labor's commitment, police would receive 1,200 extra handheld metal-detecting wands to use on any person in a public place from early next year. "Stop-and-search powers for deadly blades, anywhere, any time, to get these knives off our streets," Police Minister Paul Edbrooke said. It follows Labor's earlier adoption of the Coalition's machete ban — and it is a reversal of the position the party held under former leader Jacinta Allan, with Mr Carroll signalling a focus on crime from the moment he took the leadership in July.
The law is named after Jack Beasley, a teenager fatally stabbed while out with friends on the Gold Coast in 2019. His parents Brett and Belinda have campaigned for the powers since, and several states have modelled legislation on Queensland's response. "I stand with parents like Brett and Belinda, just like I stand with all Victorians who have had their lives destroyed by violence," Mr Carroll said. Brett Beasley's reaction, on 774 ABC Melbourne, was blunt: "It's about bloody time as far as I'm concerned. I've been pushing for Jack's Law to be introduced down there for some time now, so it's great news." And later: "We're so proud of Jack's Law. We're proud of the way it works around the country and it will work in Victoria as well."
The evidence question
The criminologists are less convinced. Swinburne University's Joel McGregor said he understood the appeal but doubted the powers would reduce knife crime. "Potentially, wanding will take some knives out of the community," Dr McGregor said. "But it's really not addressing these underlying drivers of violence within our community." A 2022 Griffith University review of Queensland's initial 12-month trial found "no evidence" that wanding deterred knife carrying or reduced violent offending — though the laws passed Queensland's parliament anyway in June 2025, and that state's police minister, Dan Purdie, said in July the measures were "saving lives across Queensland". "Every weapon seized is a potential tragedy prevented," he said.
Jesuit Social Services' David Murray told 774 ABC Melbourne that expanded stop-and-search powers were "intuitively appealing at a political level, they're not actually evidence-based". "In a pre-election environment ... both sides I think are looking to simple ideas that appeal popularly," he said. Dr McGregor's alternative: "It's about taking a public health approach to reducing violence, rather than thinking that we can just simply police our way out."
The rights question
Victorian police can already search people at random inside declared "designated areas" — a shopping centre, a sports precinct or entire suburbs, for up to six months at a time, with no warrant and no requirement for suspicion. This year the Federal Court found that designating all of Melbourne's CBD and surrounds for six months was invalid and breached the human rights charter. In Queensland, data covering July 2025 to June this year showed more than one in 10 people searched for weapons identified as First Nations.
Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service chief executive Nerita Waight said the "copycat policy" would not improve community safety but would harm vulnerable young First Nations people. "Importing models that lack evidence, that will cause harm and further criminalisation and won't achieve a reduction in violent crime, all whilst limiting our human rights, is ludicrous," she said. Data previously obtained under freedom of information laws by the Centre for Racial Profiling Network found First Nations people and those perceived to be African were more likely to be searched, and two years of Liberty Victoria data showed just over 1 per cent of designated-area searches found any "objects or substances". Victoria Police has always maintained the force has zero tolerance for racial profiling.
Between the majors, the argument is over: Jack's Law is coming to Victoria whoever governs, with Labor promising its 1,200 wands from early next year. Between a grieving family's certainty and the researchers' data, the argument has barely started.
