The banning of the sale of >20cm non-kitchen knives and machetes goes into effect at midday today in Victoria and in September it will be illegal to own them with fines of more than $47,000 or 2 years imprisonment. This is expected to include all non-kitchen knives such as camping, bushcraft, hunting and horticultural knives unless the government changes the laws between now and September.
How Victoria's machete sale ban will be enforced
Victorians who took part in the Fiskars deal or any of the other camping knife deals that are >20cm will have to surrender them when the amnesty begins or face excessively harsh penalties.
These laws will do little to stop criminals from using kitchen knives, hatchets, buying interstate, or simply making crude machetes from flat bar. It is only going to have a major impact on law abiding citizens.
As a park ranger/natural resource manager it’s common to see >20cm knives being used for hand weeding and machetes/brush hooks being used to clear brush such as kunzea when working around sound sensitive areas/animals.
Update from ABC-
The government previously said a machete was longer than 20cm, but have since said knives under that length could also come under the ban
What is a Kitchen? if I put a stove next to a banana tree plantation does that count as a kitchen.
Can my Machete now identify as a kitchen knife, I just dont like these binary concepts.