NSW Premier proposes new random search powers for police to combat knife crime

Police and PSOs would have the power to randomly search people anywhere in public with metal detectors, without needing a warrant or reasonable suspicion they have a weapon, under an election promise by Premier Ben Carroll.

Carroll will on Wednesday pledge to implement a version of “Jack’s Law” in Victoria, modelled on a law first introduced in Queensland and copied in NSW, Tasmania, Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

Named after 17-year-old Jack Beasley, who was fatally stabbed in Surfers Paradise in 2019, the law would allow police to use handheld metal detector “wands” to search anyone in a public place for knives.

The Coalition has also pushed for Jack’s Law to be implemented, meaning it is likely to be legislated in some form by whichever party wins the November 28 election.

But the expanded police powers have previously been criticised as an imposition on individual liberty that may be misused by officers to target people on the basis of their race or ethnicity.

Police currently need a warrant or a reasonable suspicion that a person has a weapon to conduct a search. The exception is when Victoria Police declares a “designated area” under the Weapons Control Act, meaning officers can stop and search anyone in that area randomly during a set period.

The Federal Court ruled in January that Victoria’s designated-area laws were invalid and unlawfully breached the state’s Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities.

Queensland Police conducted almost 200,000 searches, seized 1400 weapons and charged 2930 people with offences in the 14 months after making Jack’s Law permanent in July 2025.

Carroll said community safety was his priority. “Stop and search powers for knives is the new direction I’m delivering,” he said.

The premier said he stood with all Victorians who had had their lives destroyed by violence.

Police and protective services officers would have the power to conduct random wand searches under the law change, but existing requirements will still apply to conduct pat-down or strip searches.

Queensland introduced the law in 2021, allowing wand searches in specific entertainment precincts, and subsequently expanded it to cover any public space.

Queensland has also removed safeguards, including the need for police to obtain authorisation from a senior officer to conduct a search in licensed venues, on public transport, in retail premises, or in other designated places. Police also no longer need to provide written notice to people who are searched.

Victorian Labor will closely model its rules on the latest iteration of Queensland’s laws.

When the Queensland government sought to make permanent the powers in 2024, the Queensland Council for Civil Liberties said domestic and overseas research indicated that “police assessments of whom to search or question are often based on generalisations and negative stereotypes that are in part attributable to ethnic bias”.

Council president Michael Cope said at the time that Jack’s Law violated a fundamental principle, and that a trial had not produced evidence that the searches reduced offending.

“This proposed law, like many tough-on-crime measures, is being proposed in response to a most tragic situation. However, as is always the case, public policy has to have regard to a broad range of considerations,” he said.

The Centre Against Racial Profiling has previously obtained data through freedom-of-information laws showing that in Victoria, people perceived to be Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander were 15 times more likely to be searched by police than white people in 2024, and people perceived to be African were eight times more likely to be searched. Both groups were less likely to be found with prohibited items.

Separately, two years of data obtained by Liberty Victoria revealed just over 1 per cent of the searches conducted in designated areas resulted in any “objects or substances” being found.

Victoria’s designated-area laws were challenged in the High Court after Victoria Police declared the entire Melbourne CBD and surrounding areas for six months from November last year.

Carroll said a re-elected Labor government would work with legal experts to ensure the new rules were legally watertight.

The announcement comes just over a year since 12-year-old Chol Achiek and 15-year-old Dau Akueng were stabbed to death in Cobblebank, in Melbourne’s outer west, while walking home from a basketball match.

On Tuesday, Carroll was at the Cobblebank basketball centre, where the two boys played, to announce $23 million in new programs and grants to avert youth crime, including sports programs and homework clubs.

“Idle hands are the devil’s workshop,” he said. “If you see the kids here doing basketball … the social bonding, the community connectedness, that is so critical for their future.”

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