Victorian Police will have "almost unlimited powers" to stop-and-frisk people in designated areas, "target and harass" protestors and "continue the over-policing of racially marginalised groups" under new laws passed today, legal experts have warned.
On Wednesday, the Terrorism (Community Protection) and Control of Weapons Amendment Bill 2025 passed Parliament, classifying machetes as a "prohibited weapon".
The new laws also mean the Police Commissioner can declare a location a "designated search area" - allowing police to search people for weapons without a warrant - for up to six months, instead of the previous 12 hours.
"We'll always give police what they need to keep Victorians safe, and the passing of this bill today will immediately help Victoria Police to get more knives off our streets," Police Minister Anthony Carbines said.
Penalties of two years imprisonment or a fine of over $47,000 are in place in Victoria for being caught in possession of a "prohibited weapon".
Coming in the same week the government introduced "knee-jerk" bail reform into parliament - condemned as "Trumpian" by Indigenous, legal and human rights groups - the machete laws have been criticised as "discriminatory".
Noting the 'designated area' moniker, the Legal Director at the Human Rights Law Centre, Sarah Schwartz, said people heading into the CBD could be targeted for six months.
"People could be heading to study at the State Library and end up humiliated by Victoria Police," she said.
She said by "removing the guardrails" used to protect police abuses of power, the government was handing "Victoria Police carte-blanche powers to racially profile marginalised groups, target and harass protestors and silence dissent".
"This is a dangerous erosion of our fundamental rights."
Human Rights Law Centre First Nations Director Maggie Munn said it was "particularly egregious" the government was pushing through several laws that will "harm First Nations communities" during a time they were negotiating Treaty with the First Peoples' Assembly.
"Harsh laws that target our communities are nothing to boast about. The Allan Government needs to stop buckling to fear-mongering and prioritise real solutions that keep people out of the criminal legal system in the first place," Munn said.
Data from the Centre for Racial Profiling found Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are 11 times more likely to be searched by Victoria Police, and people perceived as African eight times more likely, than people perceived as Caucasian.
Data released under freedom of information to civil rights organisation Liberty Victoria found tens of thousands of Victorians had no weapon on them but were searched regardless in "designated areas", with weapons seized in only one per cent of all searches without a warrant or reasonable suspicion.
"The power to conduct 'no reason' searches constitutes a significant encroachment on the privacy and civil liberties of an individual," the report by the Rights Advocacy Project says.
"Such searches should be governed by strict rules that require certain criteria to be met. Concerningly, the powers to conduct 'no reason' searches seem to be expanding further and further."
Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service chief executive Nerita Waight told The Age any community-led program would be de-funded if it operated at a one per cent success rate. Instead, police were given a licence to racially profile disadvantaged people under the guise of community safety and without demonstrable results.
She had previously accused some members of the Victorian Police of "fearmongering" by anonymously talking about youth crime to some media outlets.
The Human Rights Law Centre said the new expansion of police powers was incompatible with Victoria's Charter of Human Rights, noting that "subjecting people to humiliating and intrusive police searches" is a violation of a person's right to privacy.
