The New South Wales government was adamant that swift, decisive action was needed to combat a spate of knife crime across Sydney. A series of high-profile stabbings and media reports about “knife attack hotspots” had created a sense of urgency to do something about it.
“Too many people, almost exclusively young men, think that it is OK to carry a knife,” the NSW attorney general, Michael Daley, told parliament on 20 June.
