By Paul Gregoire and Ugur Nedim
The New South Wales Minns government introduced a bill on the last sitting day of parliament prior to the 2026 winter recess that seeks to make permanent the 2024 legislated trialling of wanding laws, or powers that allow NSW police officers to run metal detectors randomly over civilians within designated areas to scan them for potentially having a knife concealed in a public place.
Introduced on 25 June, the Law Enforcement (Powers and Responsibilities) Amendment (Knife Scanning) Bill 2026 serves to make knife scanning permanent and it increases the maximum time such operations can be underway up from 12 to 24 hours, as a statutory review of the laws and the inquest into the 2024 Bondi Junction mass stabbing recommended the regime be ongoing.
Knife wanding has “become a crucial part of police operations”, explained NSW attorney general Michael Daley, during his 25 June 2026 second reading speech on the bill. “In the scheme’s first 12 months, 285 knife wanding operations were conducted in NSW that resulted in 296 knives and other weapons being removed from people carrying them on their person in the community.”
Since wanding laws came into play in December 2024, NSW police has conducted 59,228 scans of civilians, amongst a total of 406 wanding operations across the state. Three hundred and eight weapons have been seized, 200 charges laid, 68 weapons infringement notices or diversions have been issued, and 17 people have been charged with failing to comply with a scanning operation.
But while police running wands over the outside of clothing might sound fairly unintrusive, in the field it’s an invasive practice that permits officers to approach anyone in a zone not based on any grounds, but rather their own bias, and stop, scan and briefly interact with them, all to progress a process that results in concealed weapons being found way less than 1 percent of the time.
The amending of designated area laws
Knife scanning laws sit under part 4A of the Law Enforcement (Powers and Responsibilities) Act 2022 (NSW), or the LEPRA. In terms of the knife scanning regime becoming permanent, the section 45R sunset clause stipulating that the laws under part 4A expire after 3 years of coming into effect, are to be repealed.
Currently, under section 45F of the LEPRA, a senior police officer can declare a designated area, or a zone where wanding can occur, at public transport stations, shopping precincts, sporting venues, and other public places prescribed by the regulations, including special events or those that support the nighttime economy. And as per section 45I of LEPRA, designations can last for 12 hours.
The new laws change the definition of senior police officer from “of or above the rank of assistant commissioner” to that of at least a superintendent. The period that a designated area can operate within will become 24 hours, and “major entertainment venues”, like stadiums, arenas, theatres and other event venues are being added as sites, as are the “associated areas” around such venues.
The circumstances relating to when a designated area can be declared, under section 45G of the LEPRA, will too remain the same. A declaration is permissible in an area if, within the last 12 months, at least one knife or other weapon offence or a serious indictable offence involving violence has occurred or more than one offence involving a knife or a prohibited weapon has transpired.
Changes to the knife scanning process
The NSW attorney general’s amendment bill doesn’t alter section 45K of the LEPRA, which empowers NSW police officers to “require a person in a designated area to stop and submit to the use of a hand-held scanner”, and this section also prevents this power from being used on public transport within a specific zone.
But section 45L does empower police to wand people on public transport if the designated area is a public transport station. The new bill amends this section to clarify that an officer can scan a civilian on board public transport within two stops from a “designated area station”, which is despite whether any stop occurs, and it can also take place on disembarkation at either of those two stops.
Public transport is defined as trains, light rail, buses and ferries.
The power that permits a police officer to require a person to produce the thing in their possession that may have resulted in a “hand-held scanner” indicating that “metal is, or is likely, present”, under section 45M of the LEPRA, remains unchanged by the amendment bill. This law continues to allow an officer to scan a person a second time after an object that’s triggered the device has been produced.
A number of safeguards regarding the regime contained under section 45O of the LEPRA remain, which include conducting the process in the “least invasive way” and that an officer is able to detain a person for the purpose of undertaking the procedure. However, the requirement that “if reasonably practicable”, an officer of the same sex conducts the wanding, will be removed.
The offence relating to the failure or refusal to comply with the wanding process is contained in section 45R of the LEPRA, and it carries a fine of up to $5,500.
Knife crime in its sights
NSW AG Daley explained that making the scanning regime permanent had been a recommendation of the 23 June 2026 released Statutory Review of NSW Knife Wanding Laws, which was conducted by the NSW Department of Communities and Justice, whilst NSW Coroner Teresa O’Sullivan had also suggested the reform in her report on the inquest into the 2024 Bondi Junction mass stabbing event.
The state’s chief lawmaker added that the wanding laws had been rolled out in “urgent response to several high-profile knife crime incidents, including the horrific mass stabbing at Westfield Bondi Junction, the alleged stabbing of a bishop in Wakeley and the tragic murder of Molly Ticehurst”. And these laws were also shaped by a similar set enacted in Queensland under the title of “Jack’s Law”.
Knife scanning regimes now exist right across all Australian jurisdictions, except for the Australian Capital Territory. In Queensland, beefed up wanding laws now allow for such procedures to take place anywhere in public at any time.
NSW Labor had been set on toughening knife laws prior to the three 2024 incidents cited by Daley, as prior to their perpetration, the Minns government had passed the Criminal Legislation Amendment (Knife Crimes) Bill 2023, which turned acts relating to the possession and use of knives in public places or at schools into criminal offences, rather than being summary, or lesser, offences.
These changes saw the creation of the criminal offence of custody of knives in public places or schools, contrary to section 93IB of the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW) and that of using or carrying knives in public or in schools, under section 93IC of the Act. Both offences had their penalties doubled so up to 4 years gaol time now applies, while 93IB carries a fine of $4,400 and 93IC has a fine of $11,000.
But critics, like the Aboriginal Legal Service NSW/ACT, warn that these laws work as another tool for police to target First Nations people and other marginalised groups, with the number of Aboriginal people charged by NSW police being up by 40 percent since 2019. And while ALS clients are rarely charged under the regime, scanning does lead to escalated incidents and charges under other laws.
“Giving police powers to stop and scan people without any reasonable suspicion is not improving public safety,” said Aboriginal Legal Service acting CEO Sharif Deen. “Whenever police can choose when and how to exercise their powers, we see worse outcomes for Aboriginal people.”
“Aboriginal people are more overrepresented than ever in police charges and in NSW prisons,” he added. “It’s deeply concerning that the Minns government is continuing to enact policies that risk making the situation worse and fly in the face of Closing the Gap.”
Main image from a Hills Area Command Facebook post explaining how police wanding laws work
