Two boys stabbed in two days. The minister's answer is a law that stops at the school gate.
Queensland's wanding powers have never been shown to reduce violence, and the review that would have tested them was scrapped when the law went permanent.
A 17-year-old boy is in hospital with life-threatening injuries after being stabbed at the Islamic College of Brisbane on Tuesday.
A day earlier a 15-year-old was hospitalised with abdominal wounds at Trinity Bay State High in Cairns.
Both in the first week back from holidays.
Queensland's police minister says the schools are fine.
"Schools are safe, overwhelmingly safe — my kids are back at school this week," Dan Purdie told reporters on Wednesday.
Asked whether principals should get the search powers police already have, he said no.
"We don't want to start saying to principals that that's their job. If a teacher or a parent is suspicious about someone at a school, police have the power to take that action now."
The power he means is Jack's Law.
It lets police scan anyone with a handheld metal detector, no warrant and no suspicion required, in licensed premises, shopping centres, retail premises, safe night precincts, public transport and sporting or entertainment venues.
Schools are not on the list.
Named for Jack Beasley, stabbed to death in Surfers Paradise in 2019, the law was made permanent and extended last July. Purdie says the government is using it to "break the culture of young people carrying knives".
Here is what it has done.
In a little over two years of trial, Queensland police ran 116,287 scans and found 1,126 weapons. A detection rate of about 0.9 per cent. Most charges that followed were minor drug offences or knife-carrying breaches.
Griffith University reviewed the Gold Coast trial. It is the only publicly available evidence on whether wanding reduces knife violence in Queensland.
It found no reduction. Confiscated knives are easily replaced, and researchers found no evidence scanning deterred anyone from carrying.
The trial was due to expire in October 2026 with another mandatory review attached.
That review will not happen. When the law was made permanent it lost the sunset clause, the senior-officer oversight requirement, and the review of its impact on crime and civil liberties.
So the minister's answer to two stabbings is a law that has never been shown to work, will never again be tested, and does not cover the place where both boys were stabbed.
A petition for the same law was tabled in Victoria's Legislative Assembly in March. Premier Jacinta Allan is weighing it alongside the machete prohibition.
Melbourne is next in line for a law that stops where the stabbings happen.