Multiple teens have been arrested after a wild machete brawl in the heart of a city, while another boy has been charged over a “cowardly” stabbing near a regional train station.
Shocked commuters were forced to run for cover after a group of youths – some armed with machetes – brawled at Melbourne’s Flinders Street Station concourse on Saturday night.
Protective Services Officers converged on the station, boarding a train where four boys were arrested and machetes seized.
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Another pair was arrested near the precinct.
A 17-year-old boy who was injured during the brawl was taken to hospital with a laceration to his arm.
Police charged a 22-year-old man with affray, reckless cause injury, assault with a weapon and possessing a prohibited weapon, who was bailed to appear Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on November 27.
The remaining five, aged 13, 14, 15 and two 16-year-olds, were released.
It comes as a 16-year-old boy from Greater Bendigo was charged over an “extremely cowardly” stabbing attack on a homeless man.
The teen was arrested by PSOs at Bendigo Railway Station on Saturday evening, three days after the 41-year-old victim was attacked by a group of youths in nearby Bath Lane.
The injured man collapsed outside the Sporting Globe Bar and Grill before he was taken to Bendigo Hospital in a serious but stable condition with upper body injuries and suspected stab wounds.
“Their behaviour is extremely cowardly,” Detective Acting Sergeant Justin Ludeman said of the attackers.
The boy has been charged with intentionally causing injury, affray, assault with a weapon and committing an indictable offence while on bail and remanded in custody and will face a children’s court.
Premier Jacinta Allan called the stabbing “absolutely horrifying”, but rejected claims officers were powerless to tackle repeat offenders.
A 16-year-old boy was also arrested and charged after allegedly holding a machete to the neck of a woman in an attempted carjacking over the weekend.
The teenager allegedly approached the woman from behind as she got out of her car to take her washing to a laundromat in Delahey, in Melbourne’s northwest on Friday night.
The Ballarat teen allegedly demanded the 44-year-old victim hand over her car keys and other items before he jumped in the vehicle and unsuccessfully tried to start the car.
Two good Samaritans intervened and the boy ran off before he was arrested by police nearby.
Government minister Harriet Shing said changes to bail laws, post-and-boast laws, violence reduction unit and machete laws were starting to show in dropping crime statistics.
“What we are doing is working,” she told reporters on Sunday.
“There’s always more work to do, but we do know that the work that police are doing is having an impact, that the machete ban is having an impact.”
The government said about 18,000 weapons had been surrendered or seized and 17,000 machetes taken off shelves since the 2025 amnesty but the opposition said knife attacks continued to escalate.
“You’ve got teenagers that are literally putting the finger at the government because they know there’s no consequences,” opposition spokesman David Southwick said.
“Victorians want response, they want consequences, and it’s clear that the machete policies of the government had simply have not worked.”
