Child criminals in Victoria will be banned from hanging out with gang members under a state government crackdown on juvenile lawbreakers.
The state Labor government will on Tuesday introduce to parliament legislation giving police powers to issue "unlawful association" notices to children as young as 14.
Police Minister Lisa Neville said the new laws would help stop the spread and development of criminal networks.
The legislative push comes amid a rise in youth violence in Melbourne involving gangs with links to the city's Sudanese community.
The issue has sparked a war of words between Premier Daniel Andrews and senior federal government figures, including Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton and Law Enforcement Minister Angus Taylor.
The death of African-Australian Laa Chol, 19, during a party in a Melbourne residential tower block on Saturday has inflamed the debate, despite there being no indication so far of gang involvement.
A boy, 17, has been charged with her murder and will face a children's court on Tuesday.
Federal Greens MP for Melbourne, Adam Bandt, said he was dismayed by the proposed state laws.
"It suggests that Victorian Labor is now looking at trying to take the state down the Queensland route where it's guilt by association," he told ABC radio.
"They've been suckered into a law and order auction by the Liberals."
State Opposition leader Matthew Guy said Labor was copying a Liberal idea from 2015.
"When I introduced changes at the start of the year, the government criticised them and now they've copied them," he told reporters on Tuesday.
"Imitation is the best form of flattery."
Mr Guy also said, "anything that makes the state safer we will support".
Mr Taylor said "clearly" Melbourne had a law and order problem, particularly with Sudanese gangs.
"We clearly have a law and order problem in Melbourne. There is a hotspot here, it needs to be focused on, we shouldn't be tiptoeing around it. We should focus on the facts," Mr Taylor told Sky News.
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