Two gangs armed with machetes have clashed at Melbourne’s Flinders Street Station, leaving at least one teen with slash wounds.
Videos of the fight and aftermath show youths of African and Asian appearance swinging machetes and being arrested by police at about 10pm on Saturday night.
Victoria Police said the gangs had fled by the time they arrived, but four males were arrested on a platform after being found with machetes by Protective Service Officers, and two more were arrested nearby.
A 17-year-old was taken to hospital with a laceration to his arm, and a 22-year-old was charged with affray, reckless cause injury, assault with a weapon and possess prohibited weapon.
He was released on bail to face court on November 27, while the other five males, aged 13, 14, 15 and two 16-year-olds, were released pending further enquiries.
Footage of the arrests was shared on social media with the caption “Anyone know what happened at Flinders Street Station tonight? There was a big police presence on the platform”.
Health Minister Harriet Shing claimed on Sunday morning that the state’s machete ban, which involved the rollout of machete bins across Melbourne and in regional centres, was working despite regular machete attacks.
“Since Australia’s first machete ban was introduced in Victoria, we’ve seen around 18,000 weapons signed and or seized and we’ve also taken 17,000 machetes off the shelves,” she said.
“We know that what we are doing is working but we also know that it is our police and our PSOs that are doing the hard yards on the ground to make sure that incidents like these can be investigated.”
She also claimed that Victoria Police was the “best resourced police force in Australia”.
The troubled force has more than 1,000 vacancies, more than 40 stations are closed to the public or only open during limited hours, and public confidence in the police is at a record low.
Header image: Left, the arrests on the platform (Facebook). Right, the brawl in the station (supplied).
