Thursday, 13 August 2026

 James NEWBURY (Brighton) (12:20): I rise to speak on the Workplace Protection Orders Bill ‍2026. Hasn’t this bill been a long time coming, a bill that has been so much in need in this state. The house will recall the debate in this place whereby the coalition sought to introduce workplace protection orders through amendments to a similar bill 265 days ago. The member for Caulfield did a power of work in relation to those amendments and should be acknowledged for doing so. And then, more recently, we sought through a private members bill to move to ensure that we had a workplace protection regime in Victoria, and on both occasions, Acting Speaker Farnham, you may not be aware that every single Labor member voted against, firstly, those amendments 265 days ago and then, more recently, the private members bill that we moved in this place. At the time, when the amendments were first moved, the government members were not even certain, and they would not even commit to introducing a regime. They were not even sure whether they supported a regime. I recall at the time some of the biggest and most senior names in the retail sector and also law enforcement calling for workplace protection orders and a scheme to be introduced in Victoria. I will speak about some of those comments earlier.

Why does the timing of when you try to fix a problem matter? Why does it matter? Because the government will stand up and say, ‘Perhaps we’ve been slow, but we’ve been consulting and we’ve been thinking and we’ve been planning,’ and all of the descriptors that they will use. Why does it matter that when there is a problem you fix it as soon as possible? Because what we do in this place stops problems in the community and helps people, especially where we are talking about law and order, from becoming victims. And we know that over the last year, on average, we have seen 5000 ‍people in workplaces who have had criminal incidents against them as persons, which you would presume primarily includes things like assault. So in the almost a year since the government voted against a regime being introduced, we have had almost 5000 victims in Victoria. I feel certain that a workplace protection order regime, had it been in place almost a year ago when we proposed it, would have helped some of those victims. We would have been able to help some of those victims.

As I say, the government will get up and say they have been thinking and talking and working. Because this bill was not moved until we saw a new Premier in the government, the only thing that I can imagine and presume is that there was a factional dispute in the government over whether or not this legislation should proceed. We have a Premier from the right rather than a Premier from the left, and presumably that played some part in why we have any legislation in this place. Or perhaps it was the new Premier’s inspirational reading. We have heard about his favourite book Where the Light Gets In. Perhaps that inspired him. I did think it was worth noting. Perhaps that is what has inspired him to bring about this legislation, a book described as:

Simple, playful and profound perspective shifts to change your life.

Isn’t the Premier a deep man? He is a deep, deep man. ‘Simple, playful and profound perspective shifts to change your life.’ That is what we are seeing today, aren’t we, from the government: simple, playful and profound perspective shifts from this government when it comes to this issue. As I said at the start of that descriptor, simple – and I pick up on that word, because despite this legislation being put to this place, when you look at the detail, the government has not got it right. We will not be opposing the legislation, but the government has not got it right in terms of what it is proposing. I suspect the reason why the bill is in the form that it is in is because there were internal disputes for so long before this bill landed in the chamber that the proposal that is now with us was all that could be agreed to by this government. The bill, unfortunately, does not do all that it should, and it certainly does not do what the coalition proposed 265 days ago, because we believe there should be a strong workplace protection order regime in Victoria.

I want to talk about a particular constituent in my community and the story she shared with me a little over a year ago. This constituent of mine, who I will not name – and I have mentioned her in debates on these issues in the past – suffered from a person threatening to assault her. She was stalked by this person in the workplace. She is a retail worker and was stalked in the workplace, and it really impacted upon me in terms of the need for a workplace protection order regime in this state, because she was not protected. She went through immense difficulty in terms of seeking an intervention order – the need for her to be pushing for the intervention order, working through the processes of seeking an intervention order, and then every time the order was breached needing to have it enforced. She came to the local member of Parliament because the intervention order was not being enforced in a way that protected her. The person who was fixated was still going to her workplace and was still following her home. The system as it stands today did not protect her. So we have needed this workplace protection order regime in this state. Those are not just my words. Obviously I have talked about the example of the constituent in my community and what she suffered, but you could see people like Leah Weckert from Coles noting that ‘retail crime is escalating’ and therefore advocating at the time for a regime. You also saw other major executives speak in the same way. There was a need, and as I said, unfortunately this regime that is being proposed does not fully acquit or will not properly address the issues that need to be covered by way of retail workers and their need to be protected in this state.

Under standing orders I wish to advise the house of amendments to this bill and request that they be circulated. The coalition will move amendments in this place and also in the other place to deal with some of those issues. I will speak to those issues with the legislation now.

Firstly, and perhaps most glaringly, after the government has waited so very long and been left wanting for so very long on this regime, the first thing that strikes you with the bill is that it does not commence as a regime until July next year. After waiting 265 days since we first sought to introduce the regime, this bill introduces a commencement of the regime in 11 months – in nearly another year. As we heard earlier, we know that there are 5000 victims of, in shorthand, personal attack in the retail setting each year. In 11 months the best part of 5000 more victims – more people, more Victorians – will become victims in the workplace and not have a workplace protection order regime available to them, because the bill has a default commencement of July next year. At times the government will say, ‘Well, that’s only the default commencement.’ The government have confirmed through the briefing on this bill that that is their intended commencement date – in another 11 months. How can it be that we have already seen this government vote against the regime twice and they are now seeking to introduce a regime in almost a year’s time? It will be two years almost in terms of introducing a regime into Victoria. It is just not good enough. That is why our first amendment seeks to bring the regime forward.

The government of course will say, ‘Things take time. We need to do things in a slow, methodical way’ – only when it suits them. We see many examples of the government introducing things immediately when it suits them. When you are dealing with protecting someone in their workplace from violence and threats of violence, an 11-month delay, frankly, is wrong. It is, frankly, wrong, and so we will be amending the legislation, both in this place and the other place. I would hope that in the other place, where the chamber can actually deal with the substance of the amendments – these are textual amendments, which means that this house will not have an opportunity to vote on them – the non-government members, the crossbench members, can see the merit. I suspect there is interest from them in certain amendments to bring this regime into place sooner, because an 11-month delay is simply wrong. We will be doing that.

Secondly, we seek to amend the bill by ensuring that a victim has a consent right. The government members, I am sure, probably are not aware of this, but under this regime, the victim has no right of consent. Let us talk that through for a moment. If a victim raises an issue with a colleague or a person in the workplace – perhaps they are talking about a family circumstance or perhaps they are talking about an incident that happened to them at home, which would be shocking and we would all be horrified in that circumstance. What this bill allows is an order to be taken in relation to the workplace on that information without that victim’s consent. The employer or union could seek an order in relation to the workplace without a victim’s consent. How can it be that the government has been so shortsighted to not ensure that a victim is a party to a protection order? The protection order is to protect them. They should be party to the order. Of course they should be party to the order.

It is not that this bill provides victim consent other than by way of exception. For example, there may be a certain circumstance that you wrote into the bill that there needs to be an exception. This bill includes no acceptance of the need for victim consent in any circumstance. Victim consent is not included in the bill in any way, full stop, so you can easily see circumstances where perverse outcomes occur. If there were a workplace protection order taken based on information that an employee perhaps had provided, you would be potentially breaching that person’s confidence and confidentiality in that their rights, the onus of the information they hold as a victim, are breached in a way that others would find out. I mentioned the example before of someone talking about a personal circumstance, perhaps against a family member, and by nature of an order being taken the other party of course would become aware of that information being breached and the order being taken.

We believe very strongly that victim consent should form the basis of an order being taken in this bill, and to be completely frank, I was aghast, in relation to the bill, that victim consent is not a consideration. I raised the issue, and did so in a bipartisan way, and sought to facilitate the government perhaps considering an amendment – not necessarily picking up all of my proposed amendments. But I did speak to the government and say, ‘I would prefer this not to become an issue. I would prefer the government to pick this amendment up before I move it and include it in the bill, and we will leave it there.’ The government said no. They simply said no to victims having a consent right. I do not think this bill can proceed, frankly, hopefully, without the government’s reconsideration of that position. I have said we will not be opposing the bill, but I am not sure how the government cannot want to ensure that victims have autonomy over their story, over their circumstance, and it is quite shocking that a right of consent is not included in the bill.

A further amendment that I am proposing to the bill is to expand the definition of workers who are captured by the legislation. This bill is very strict in its definition to include certain retail workers and certain transport workers. Let me give you an example – the example I gave to the government in the briefing on this bill. If we walk across to Collins Place, there are many retail workers working there right now. You can go and buy your lunch there, and the retail workers who are serving lunch will be covered by the new regime under this legislation. But there will also be retail workers working at the cinema, which sits directly next to the shopfront where food is being served. Because that cinema is providing a service rather than a good, those workers are not covered by the bill. So you have a cinema with retail workers working, providing a service, next door to a retail outlet serving food, a good, and only the shopfronts providing the good are covered by this bill. They are both working next to each other in the same shopping complex across the road. How can it be that the regime does not cover people, retail workers, who are providing a service rather than a good? How can that be? It makes no sense.

Initially when I read it I thought to myself this must be a drafting error. It is not possible that you can have two shops with retail workers working next door to each other and the government is mistakenly only covering retail workers in one type of shop. That does not make sense. How could you leave out all retail workers who are selling services rather than goods? It was by design. The answer given to me by the government was that it is by design. They are open to thinking about expanding the definition in three years time, after the bill has been in operation, when a review is conducted into the bill. You are going to see across every retail setting, frankly, shops next to each other where every second shop is covered by this regime. We think that is wrong. We think in fact it is nonsensical. You cannot pick and discriminate against retail workers because they are selling a service rather than a good. You cannot pick retail workers and simply say to every retail worker who is providing a service rather than a good, ‘We don’t want you included.’ Why should they have less of a right to protection than the person working next door, 1, 2 or 3 metres away? How can that possibly be? Again, as I said earlier, I presume that there was an internal deal done in terms of the legislation that was put forward and this is all that the new government could get through internally to bring this bill forward. It is the only possible reason why you would bring a bill forward that is so obviously flawed.

As I said before, we have an 11-month delay before it commences. Why? There is no good reason. We have a mistake, in my view, of not including the concept of a victim having a consent right. So there is just no concept of consent. Then we have a system whereby, for retail workers who work side by side, you have every second shop covered because every first shop sells a service rather than a good. These are very, very significant flaws in the bill. I suspect there was an agreement issue. I am sure there was also a rush, by way of the bill, and you could see how proud the new Premier was to bring in the legislation when it was first announced, straight after he took his new role. I suspect there was also a rush. To give him some credit, perhaps he was not fully aware of how big these mistakes are. But to see two retail shop workers working next to each other and only every second shop being covered tells you there are big flaws in this bill.

The fourth amendment in relation to the legislation is allowing police to apply for an order, and what this bill does not do is enable police to do so. We are not in any way saying that police should be forced to do so – that police should be the lead on every circumstance of a workplace protection order – but we do believe that the bill should have the power for police to apply for one. It may be that they are not the lead agency and that the workplace takes the lead in terms of seeking orders. That may well be the case. But we believe it is a flaw in the legislation to not include the power for the police to ever seek one. It may be, because police often will deal with these crimes that are occurring in the workplace, and we were talking before about 5000 incidents in the last year. Police are very often involved in these incidents – not always, but very often – because we are talking about crimes occurring. Police may feel that a circumstance is so great or a perpetrator, frankly, is so bad that it would be appropriate for them to be involved in seeking an order. We are not proposing that they be the lead agency, but we are saying that when it comes to the drafting of legislation, we believe that the power should exist should it be needed, because we are talking about a regime that creates protection for people at work against, in simple speak, crimes. Who is involved in crimes in terms of protecting those workers? Police a lot of the time, so our fourth amendment relates to empowering police, should they need that power, to have that power. We believe that was another error in the drafting of the bill.

As I said more than once, we will not be opposing the legislation, but I think those four amendments, by way of a broad topic, are amendments that I hope the other place considers in detail. It seems only reasonable that the timing of the legislation be quite a focus. There is no reason, after the government proposed a piece of legislation almost a year after we first moved it in this place, to wait another year for it to commence. We feel very strongly about that, and we hope in the other place the crossbench thinks that through. From what it seems, the crossbench at the moment do not seem to be particularly happy, so hopefully they will consider it more than they normally would.

Secondly, we hope they consider the amendment in relation to consent. If you think about law and order legislation more broadly, the concept of consent is embedded into our law and order legislation. The concept of a victim having autonomy over what has happened to them and a consent right is embedded into the principle of how we care for people and how we deal with the circumstances they have unfortunately faced, whatever they may be, so a consent right not existing in this legislation is concerning. I raised earlier an example whereby consent could be misused in terms of information passed on amongst colleagues in a workplace and an order being sought without that person’s consent based on that information which would then expose that victim, because if an order was obtained on that information, the victim may be exposed for passing on that information, which of course is unreasonable. Thirdly, to reiterate, the definition of ‘industry’ has an obvious error in drafting whereby only goods, not services, workers are covered by the legislation. Finally, police should have the power, not as a lead but as a simple power, should they need to apply for an order to have the power within the legislation to do so.

Workplace protection orders as a regime we have waited too long for in Victoria. The delays from this government have been unacceptable, and they have a real-world consequence, as I spoke to, with an average of 5000 people in a retail setting having a crime against the person over the last year. We know that delay has hurt thousands of workers by not having had the option of a protection order. Government delays in terms of protecting the community do have consequences, and it has been a very long and disappointing delay with this legislation, especially when you consider, as I have gone through throughout the debate, some of the quite obvious mistakes in the legislation. We do hope that by the time the bill gets to the Council perhaps the government has reconsidered some of those matters and may consider, by way of government amendment, fixing the legislation before it gets to the Council. If not, we do hope the crossbench considers those amendments closely, because I think those amendments are only fair and reasonable and are required to make sure that we see a regime that Victorians deserve and, frankly, one that the coalition has a very, very long track record of calling for.

 Daniela DE MARTINO (Monbulk) (12:50): It gives me great pleasure to rise and speak on the Workplace Protection Orders Bill 2026. Before I commence with my speech I would like to address some of the assertions raised by the member for Brighton. I note the amendments that they will seek to move here, and I would like to address some of them, actually. In terms of Victoria Police not being party to moving or to applying for a WPO, as I will refer to them from this point on, that is because of consultation with Victoria Police, who do not wish to be doing this. I do wonder if the member for Brighton has conducted consultation with Victoria Police himself that has told him otherwise, because the lengthy consultation we have undertaken, through a group, which I will get to in more detail later, did actually consult quite heavily and at length with Victoria Police. So there is a reason why they are not the ones who will be seeking to make these orders.

Members interjecting.

Daniela DE MARTINO: Through consultation with them. On other points as well –

Members interjecting.

Daniela DE MARTINO: That is a matter for Victoria Police. In terms of time, there was an assertion also made that last year somehow our government had no idea about WPOs at all. That is clearly false. That we had no plan to bring them in was –

Members interjecting.

Daniela DE MARTINO: We certainly did. I can tell you, I spoke in this chamber several times on the fact that we were introducing WPOs into this chamber this year. A stunt was pulled the other sitting week trying to introduce an opposition bill into the chamber, which I spoke on as a procedural motion. Moments after that was done, the legislation was introduced. It certainly was not conjured in a back room somewhere in 5 seconds; it was ready to go. Those opposite knew it was ready to go, and so it was done as a stunt. We have to be careful with this, and there is a reason why it is taking time. Part of that is because we are establishing a new regime, not moderating or modifying an existing one. The courts have to be prepared. Victoria Police have to be prepared. The better the consultation and the more in-depth with the union representatives and the employer associations as well – it is important that those representing employees and employers are consulted at length, and that is exactly what has been happening. My good friend Mr Galea in the other place has led that steering group, and I am incredibly proud of the work that he has done, and we now are going to see this legislation introduced.

Another thing I would like to address is about victims not having consent rights. It is because this is about the workplace. It is a workplace protection order, as opposed to an individual’s protection order. It is about the threat to the workplace and all employees in there. So it is incumbent upon either the employer or the union, if it is going in and applying for the protection order, to consider the safety of the entire workplace, which is why no equivalent regime actually has victims requiring their consent. No other equivalent regime has that. I just wanted to address that too. In terms of the definition of ‘retail’, it is up to the courts to make that decision, and they will be given time as well to determine exactly what workplaces they consider fall underneath this regime, and they will do so.

I will now get to my speech. I would like to say that the sad fact is that retail and transport workers are simply not as safe as they once were in workplaces, and that is why this is a vital piece of legislation for half a million workers across the retail and transport sector in Victoria.

James Newbury interjected.

Daniela DE MARTINO: I note the interjection from the member for Brighton about the time that this will come in, in July. That is a default date. If the parties to it, the courts and VicPol, are ready to go before then, it can commence before then. July 2027 is the latest date at which it will commence. I just want to put that on the record too, because a lot of assertions were made, so I think it is important to address them.

But this piece of legislation is key to addressing what are frankly shocking acts of violence and aggression that we have seen escalating in severity and frequency over the past few years towards crucial frontline workers, and I know it is welcomed by so many, because it is going to make a real difference to the safety of workers across these sectors. We all deserve to feel safe wherever we live, work and play. I note that we have made an announcement too of additional PSOs to be deployed across areas of concern, including shopping strips. I know that will be welcomed by many too.

This work we are getting on with is about protecting workplaces, as I said just before. It is about protecting them from offenders returning to commit acts of violence and aggression. That is key to achieving our obligation to keep workplaces as safe as possible. This is a really personal bill for me. I have spoken in here before about my years working in retail. I was eight years old when I started working in my parents’ video libraries. I was 12 when I was allowed to serve on my own at Alchester Village video store in Boronia.

Cindy McLeish interjected.

Daniela DE MARTINO: When it is a family business it is completely legal, member for Eildon. I then worked for the Shop, Distributive & Allied Employees’ Association (SDA) as a national industrial officer, and I worked hard, along with all my colleagues there, to defend and protect retail workers and their working conditions. Then I became a shop owner myself. I owned a grocery store. Over the nearly seven years my husband and I owned that store, not only did we work in there, our children did and 100 different employees we employed over time, including in the cafe that we opened as well. So it is deeply personal.

I know the violence and aggression that can happen, but even with what I experienced – and I copped some terrible stuff coming my way and so did my staff, especially during 2020 and 2021 – it is worse now out there, and that is a real concern. These workplace protection orders are vital; they are fundamental to being able to bar and ban someone from coming. I could say to people, ‘I will not let you come and cross the threshold of my store.’ While I was there, I could look out for them. There were some where I had to just say, ‘You are not allowed to come back here, and if you do try, it’s trespass.’ That is all I could then say to them. There were some people who threatened my store and threatened me. The aggression, this entitlement out there from some people who think that it is okay to attack what is predominantly a female workforce as well in retail – and I know this goes to transport as well but clearly I am focusing on retail as I know it best – is obscene. To see how some people think they can treat others is atrocious. That is why we need this regime to come into our state of Victoria, because these people need to be banned from doing what they are doing and the harm they are causing, because we all deserve to go to work and feel safe in our workplace. We deserve to come home from work in the condition we went in.

I spoke last year about a couple of examples of terrible, terrible violence and aggression against retail workers. Unfortunately, because I was dealing with some assertions from those opposite I have lost a bit of time on the clock, but before I do anything else I really do want to commend the Attorney-General and her team and everyone involved in bringing this legislation into the Parliament. I would like to particularly thank Michael Donovan, who is the secretary of the Victorian branch of the SDA, for his absolute commitment to advocating for retail workers and seeing this come in, for championing this legislation. As I mentioned before, Mr Galea has done an exceptional job chairing the worker protection consultation group, which contributed to the development of the bill. That group was comprised of unions and employer associations, Victoria Police and the Office of Public Prosecutions. I really want to thank them all for the work they did, because there are people like Shefali, who I spoke of last year in the chamber when I was saying we would introduce this legislation this year. I met her, and she was a great worker at her Woolworths. There was a guy at the check-out, and security had approached him. He brandished a knife, and she felt the blade go across her belly. It did not cut her, but it was the end of her career in retail. She moved into child care after that because she could not deal with it. She had only just recently witnessed two others being attacked in a fight in the store. No-one deserves that at work. No-one deserves anything like that at work.

That is why this Workplace Protection Orders Bill is crucial to making sure that employers are going to be able to say, ‘You can’t come back here ever again, because what you’ve done is beyond unreasonable.’ It is not about me having to go out and take a personal intervention order against a person, it is a workplace that says, ‘We will protect all of you within here, all of you.’ That is what people deserve, nothing less than that. Unfortunately, Shefali’s story is not an isolated one, and we are seeing more of it, as I have said before.

We brought in legislation last year. We have built on the Crimes Amendment (Retail, Fast Food, Hospitality and Transport Worker Harm) Act 2025, which we passed to create tougher criminal penalties for those who assault and threaten workers. We have to do everything we can in this chamber for the people of Victoria, and that is what we are getting on with doing. I am incredibly proud of the work that has been done. I look forward to this coming in, and I look forward to it having a tangible effect on the working conditions for people across retail and transport to ensure that none of them – none of them – have to deal with this kind of abuse ever again. That is what this bill goes towards the heart of: keeping them protected. It is our duty to do so. I commend the bill to the house.

Sitting suspended 1:00 pm until 2:02 pm.

Business interrupted under standing orders.