That's not a surprising assumption, but it's not always a valid one. I've seen articles from him recently where he's said that swords have been banned in my state.
Well, they really haven't been. They are still sold openly in shops, people still have them hanging on their walls, etc.
They have been put onto the 'Prohibited Weapons' list - which I know sounds like a ban. But in practice it really isn't. We're not as legally-literal as the US seems to be. Our laws are written on the assumption that common sense will prevail.
Technically speaking, for example, the pocket knife I carry everywhere (I'm an ex-sailor, I'm used to carrying a knife) is a prohibited weapon. I wear it in a pouch on my belt so anyone who sees me knows exactly what it is. Cops see it all the time - and they don't make an issue of it, because they apply their commonsense to the situation.
The reason the knife is on the prohibited weapons list is so when they find a teenaged kid carrying one who is obviously intending to use it on someone, they have the power to take him into custody.
Swords are on the list because they've been used in some nightclub fights - being on the list means the police can grab someone they see heading into a nightclub with one they have just grabbed from their car.
Powerful laser pointers are on the list. Do you think police grab someone who is carrying a laser pointer on their keyring? No. But they can grab the kid who is standing on a bridge over the freeway shining it in drivers eyes.
Our laws really do assume that commonsense will be applied to their enforcement - and 99.9% of the time it is. This means that sometimes laws on paper can seem far worse than they actually are.
Is it a good way of doing things? Yes, and no - it makes some things easier, but it is open to abuse and that does happen occasionally. But good or bad, it's the way things are done here - and that can make it hard for someone outside our culture to understand how things work.
I mean it's hardly unreasonable for someone to assume that putting a weapon on the prohibited weapons list means it's a prohibited weapon. That makes perfect sense viewed logically. It just happens that it's not particularly true.
You are quite right, to an American, this is bizarro. Abuse of police power happens here so often, with public officials far exceeding their powers on paper, that we're also a might more paranoid when government puts it in writing with the expectation that they don't really mean it (except for those "other people"). Further, we have hordes of activist attorneys looking for just such an opportunity. Such a law would either be struck down by some activist judge before you could sneeze or would be enforced on everybody. Laws assuming selective enforcement just don't happen on the criminal side. Civil cases are another matter.
I'm glad that maybe things in practice are more common sense in Australia than a literal reading would make it seem. In America, it is generally assumed that common sense is now the exception rather than the rule, and that any regulation will be applied in a most extreme manner. Political correctness and a totalitarian mentality called "zero tolerance" have taken over our institutions. Little boys have been expelled from school for drawing pictures of guns or playing cops and robbers (drawing a picture of a gun and drawing a real gun on someone are the same thing, to our "zero tolerance" idiots). Girls have been expelled from school for having ear rings or key chains (ear rings or keys could have pointy things that could be used as weapons). Things have gotten insane. We may not have a nanny state, but we surely have a ninny state.