Wednesday, 15 October 2025

 David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (15:50): I am saddened, but believe it is an important motion to move:

That this house condemns the Allan Labor government for failing to adequately respond to the surge in crime in retail settings in Victoria.

This is a serious motion, and it is a motion that is a sad one to move, because too many people at a retail level are afraid and worried. Too much is being stolen. There is too much grief being caused in our stores and too much grief for those in the workplace, at the coalface, in our stores, in our retail settings. It is clear that the amount of retail crime has surged massively. In my own area – this is to the end of June 2025, the crime statistics under the retail offences category from the Crime Statistics Agency – in Boroondara retail crime offences were up 29 per cent; in the City of Melbourne they were up 23 per cent; in the City of Monash they were up 24 per cent; in Port Phillip they were up 38 per cent; in Stonnington, up 16 per cent; and in Whitehorse, up 14 per cent. The significance of this – and this is a pattern reflected right across the state – is that the crime rate in our retail settings has surged and surged decisively. It has also taken a decidedly nasty turn, with violence and threats an all-too-common part of it. Sadly, I have to report to the chamber that many of our business organisations are now extremely concerned about this and are talking actively –

Members interjecting.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jeff Bourman): Order! Mr Davis, just a moment. Can we have some quiet in the chamber, please. It is usually quite easy to hear Mr Davis, but I am struggling at the moment.

David DAVIS: Thank you, Acting President. It is better with a quiet chamber rather than a chamber that is full of noise.

Master Grocers Australia have made a number of statements, which represent retailers IGA and FoodWorks, and their members have reported a dramatic rise in shoplifting incidents compared to just a few years ago. MGA chief operating officer Mikaela McKenzie said:

What’s most concerning is how brazen these offences have become …

Offenders act with little fear of consequence, and they seem to know that once they become aggressive or vocal, staff are instructed not to intervene.

This is a very difficult point for these retail outlets. Their staff are right on the coalface, and they face these threats. I think the employers are actually correct to be most concerned about their staff’s safety and security. If they are confronted by a violent offender, somebody who is threatening them, I think it is right that they step back, that they do not confront these terrible people, these shameful people, who are threatening them in the store. They call the police, they call security, and I understand why that advice is being given by large employers and small ones as well. It is not just the big boys that are affected here, this is also the small stores, the little family stores. They are being hit, they are being threatened. They are scared, they are worried.

I see Ms Terpstra shaking her head. Well, I can tell you this is very serious, Ms Terpstra. Do not underestimate what is going on here. Your government has lost control of this. It has got much worse in the last three to four years. There is no doubt that the community are very, very worried, and those on the retail coalface are very worried as well.

Woolworths has made it clear. They acknowledge that they are seeing an increased level of theft nationally, but said:

The majority of our customers do the right thing and we thank them for doing so …

Although they have spoken more broadly about what is happening in Victoria and the problems in Victoria.

Coles said:

Despite record levels of investment in technology, security guards and safety training, our team continue to experience unacceptable levels of theft, abuse and threatening behaviours – particularly in Victoria, where we see the highest proportion of organised retail crime by individuals who pay no attention to the law …

Coles chief executive Leah Weckert said shoppers no longer feel safe in supermarkets:

In Victoria, we continue to see significant upticks in threatening situations …

Data from Coles identified Victoria as the state with the most violent repeat offenders, and we have seen pictures of some of this. We have seen people in shopping centres with machetes having a machete war. Well, I do not blame the shoppers for being scared. I am very thoughtful about this too. People are worried in these shopping centres.

Sonja Terpstra interjected.

David DAVIS: Well, Ms Terpstra, I tell you what, there has got to be some serious response here. This government has sat on its hands and it has done absolutely nothing to deal with this. I say there has got to be a proper response. Your government has failed, and it deserves to be condemned roundly for its failure to deal with these issues. The Australian Retailers Association chief industry affairs officer Fleur Brown said Victoria is now a ‘hotspot’ for retail crime. It is very distressing for retail stores to have anything like a ram raid happen, but to have it happen repeatedly is a really traumatic event for those store teams. I can only agree with her. If I was in a store and there were repeated threatening incidents, I would be very worried. I think that is where our interest and our concern have got to be – with the shoppers, yes, but particularly with those store people, the retail workers. For those who are at the coalface I think we have got to have a significant response, and this government has not had a significant response. They have sat on their hands; they have let it get worse and worse. I have read out those new figures. It is time this government got off its hands and actually did something to help with this.

The weak bail laws that we have in this state, the terribly weak bail laws that were weakened by this government, are one of the key causes. They are not the only one, but they are one key cause, and it is entirely Jacinta Allan’s fault. She could have acted on this, she could have dealt with this and she could have pulled together a taskforce and actually responded on this, but she has not done anything of the sort. She has been too weak and too hopeless on this. The Super Retail Group spoke about this too. They slammed Victoria as the nation’s crime and theft capital, calling on police to crack down on the industrial-scale theft. They said that crime is out of control.

Victoria Police deputy commissioner Bob Hill has noted that the overall crime rates in Victoria are totally unacceptable. You know what, the police are the other ones who are at the coalface of this, and I stand with the policemen and the policewomen who are at the coalface here and are often threatened. In some cases, as we have seen recently, they have paid a much higher price, and that price is something that we ought to respect. I must say today I was shocked to think that the state government is trying to remove the ability to provide proper compensation for police officers. If that is even half true, that is disgraceful.

Bunnings managing director Michael Schneider said that retail crime in the past two years had climbed by 50 per cent, that the vast majority was violent and that it was a ‘significantly more challenging environment’ in Victoria than in other states. That is what he said.

Sonja Terpstra interjected.

David DAVIS: He is not making it up. Ms Terpstra, you may shrug, you may roll your eyes and you may make gestures of various types, but none of that will change the fact that this has become a big problem in Victoria. I do not believe for one second that Michael Schneider of Bunnings is actually making it up. If you believe that, that is a problem. I do not believe he is. I believe he is reflecting on what is actually happening in his stores. I have to say, they need support, they need proper action from this Parliament and they need proper action from this government.

We have put bills in here to help on a number of these things, but your government, your party, has blocked proper strengthening of the bail laws, and that is one clear example. We have seen your government strip police out of the local police stations, where they could do good local policing work in communication with retailers and centres in their particular area and with a better and deeper understanding of their local area. That is not what has happened under this government. In fact this government has pulled many of those police away to taskforces and other distant responses that have proved ineffective. That is, sadly, the truth of the matter. The SDA – and others in the team may say more about that – is an important union for retail, warehousing, fast-food workers and others. Michael Donovan their secretary said:

Our members are suffering shocking aggression and violence every day and every week. We are looking for the Victorian Government to act swiftly to address this.

Well, I can only agree with him. Enver Erdogan is nodding, and we can see the importance. I do not actually see this personally as a deeply party-political thing. This is a matter where the state government has not got there, and we all need to work together to kick forward and actually help retailers, help retail workers and make sure that the environment is safer.

Sonja Terpstra interjected.

David DAVIS: Do you disagree with that, Ms Terpstra? I do not really think at a deep level, even in your heart, you could find it to disagree with what I have just said there. I think those workers deserve safety, they deserve security, and you should just get over your political self and recognise that there is a problem and deal with this directly. I shudder when you get into this particular mode, I really do.

Members interjecting.

David DAVIS: I am just saying that those retail workers would be shaking their heads at your behaviour just now. They would be saying, ‘Why on earth is this Labor MP not prepared to stand up and work with everyone in the chamber to find some solutions for this sort of problem?’ This is a declarative motion, it is not a detailed motion that is going to have 17 dot points or something like that. It is a motion where the chamber makes a clear point that there is a big problem, a developing problem, and the community need a response. And I say those retail workers, I say the retail sector, I say the small employers, the small shops and the large shops too, all deserve a response. Further on this, the cost of all this is sheeted home to consumers. So there is not only a threatening aspect to this, but there is also a cost aspect. Who pays? We all pay. We pay in higher prices, and we pay in a society where we feel less free and less able to move around, and that is completely unacceptable. And for those who work in the sector, my goodness, they deserve a much better shake than this.

As I said, the Crime Statistics Agency has put out some very significant figures: increases of up to 58 per cent in the number of victims in eight of 16 crime categories, including kidnapping, abduction, motor vehicle theft, armed robbery and retail crime. People do not feel safe in their homes, their businesses, taking public transport and, as I say in this motion, even in the shops. Labor’s weakened bail laws leave the community at risk – there is no question of that. Labor’s soft-on-crime approach allows repeat offenders to walk free while innocent Victorians live in fear. It is time for the government to put community safety first. People do deserve to feel safe.

I have been working in the City of Monash a lot recently, and I am going to use this as a case study. Crime is up 23 per cent in the city compared to last year. Total criminal offences went from 13,687 to 15,609. Aggravated robbery increased by 63 per cent. Retail crime is up by 25 per cent in the City of Monash. Carjackings have increased by 49 per cent. I know that actually tonight Neighbourhood Watch in Monash has a forum, and Neighbourhood Watch can play a very important role. It is important that Neighbourhood Watch is a body that stands independent and firm. We do not need Neighbourhood Watch bodies that are not strong and independent, Neighbourhood Watch bodies that are too close to government or too close to individual districts, Neighbourhood Watch bodies that are not doing their full job. They should be doing that work of putting information across to the police, so matters are seen and information comes to people. It should be passed on appropriately to the police to give them that additional source of information coming directly out of the community. Our Neighbourhood Watch groups can play a very important role. They can also play an important role in disseminating information to help the community and in teaching people techniques, teaching people ways of protecting themselves and their community, or their business in this case. That is a very important role as well. It seems the state government has cut a number of the crime prevention programs, and this is deeply false economy. Cutting crime prevention policies and support at times of a crime crisis is a silly idea.

Ms Terpstra asked me what we would do. Well, we would reverse some of these cuts to crime prevention programs. We do not think the crime prevention programs should be cut at this time. We think there should be stronger bail laws, and we think there should be deeper support for Neighbourhood Watch. All of those steps are important.

Richard Welch interjected.

David DAVIS: Jack’s Law is a very important way too, to deal with the issues around knives. The police should be in the position to be able to intervene and check whether people are carrying knives in certain zones. I do not think that is as controversial today as it once was, and it is certainly not as controversial in a time of rising crime. You can see, in areas of the City of Monash, that might be very appropriate. This is not an election policy, as it were, Ms Terpstra; this is something the state government could action today. They would have the support in this Parliament to do it today. We would support them if they brought through Jack’s Law today. We would say, ‘Good on you. That’s a matter that we can cross the Parliament with and work together to get some changes on.’ If they brought through proper bail laws, we could also support all of those. These are the sorts of steps that can be taken. If the police had the additional resources that they needed, that could be a big and significant step too.

These are a number of steps that I am recommending here, but the point of this motion is to highlight the plight of our businesses, our retailers across the state – our large retailers, our small retailers, the family businesses – and to highlight particularly the position of the staff. The workers, the employees in those businesses should not be subject to threats and violence. They should not be, and we should not tolerate this, not for one moment. I am very content to leave this as it is at the moment, because I note the support of a number of people in the chamber, and I would hope that even the government would recognise that they have dropped the ball on this matter. They need to reach out across the aisle and look for ways to strengthen our response to retail crime, to protect businesses but to protect the workers in those businesses.

 Sonja TERPSTRA (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (16:08): I rise to make a contribution on this motion in Mr Davis’s name that calls for the house to condemn the Allan Labor government for failing to adequately respond to the surge in crime in retail settings in Victoria. It should come as no surprise to anyone in this chamber that the government will be opposing this motion.

The thing is, I have had the benefit of listening to Mr Davis’s contribution, and nowhere in his contribution did he actually talk about the things that the government has done, because it is not in his interest to talk about the things that the government has actually done. In fact we have taken some very strong steps, which I am going to go through in great detail in a moment. Any of those people who may be playing along at home would be thinking this government has done nothing, but again, Mr Davis is not interested in facts, he is interested in perpetuating misinformation. There has been some work done. I am going to talk about the retail sector, but I am going to leave a lot of that to Mr Galea, because I know Mr Galea has very salient, real-world life experience in the retail sector and will be able to give a lot more force to that than I will, especially having worked for the Shop, Distributive & Allied Employees’ Association, the union that represents retail workers. I might also say my daughter was a retail worker. She has talked to me about her experiences working in the retail sector as well, so I have a little bit of an understanding of that.

I think what I might do is basically give a broad overview of the sorts of things that our government has in fact done. Again, if you were listening to Mr Davis’s contribution, you would think that we have done absolutely nothing, so I will go to addressing some of the points in a broad sense and then focus in on some of the specifics. In terms of our police, we have made a record investment of $4.5 billion to ensure our police are equipped with the resources and the powers that they need. More than 3600 new police officers are on the beat to help keep Victorians safe, and there is $1 billion to deliver new and upgraded police stations across our states. Contrary to what Mr Davis said, there have been no cuts to Victoria Police’s budget. That is again a blatant mistruth.

David Davis interjected.

Sonja TERPSTRA: The interjection was that we made cuts – we have not. That is untrue. As I said, we have made no cuts to Victoria Police’s budget, and we work with Victoria Police, not against them, to deliver the tools and the resources they need to keep all Victorians safe. Unlike those opposite, who cut $100 million from the Victoria Police budget and failed to fund a single additional officer, we will always back Victoria Police to keep Victorians safe. That is a very stark contrast, and Mr Davis knows it as he is going to walk out and leave the chamber. I want to talk about our Victoria Police officers who work hard each and every day to keep Victorians safe, because all those opposite want to do is talk down Victoria and our hardworking police officers. I know police are in fact making record numbers of arrests. They have made over 77,000 arrests in the last 12 months alone. If you listen to Mr Davis, we are doing nothing and we are not resourcing our police appropriately. If you listen to Mr Davis, there is nothing happening.

I am yet to hear any single policy offering from the Liberals other than condemning our government for doing nothing. Again, I am going to go through this methodically and point out all the things that we are doing. I am yet to hear any single policy offering from the Liberals. So let us go through it. In terms of retail crime, we are going to be introducing tougher laws. I am going to leave that to Mr Galea to talk about in more detail. Retail crime remains a key operational priority for Victoria Police, with dedicated efforts underway to disrupt offending, hold perpetrators to account and support impacted businesses. Victoria Police continues to work closely with shopping centres and retail outlets to implement effective crime prevention strategies and high-visibility police operations.

One of the shopping centres where there was a recent incident – it was a while back now – involving machetes is a place where I go quite frequently. I do get concerned when I hear the constant talking down and saying that certain shopping centres and precincts are unsafe, because it does cause greater fear in the community. What I can say is at this place where I go quite frequently I have seen – and it has always been the case at this shopping centre – there has always been a police presence and there has always been a really decent security presence as well. People have returned to that shopping centre, but the constant talking down and scaremongering by those opposite about what is happening in our shopping centres does have an impact. Those comments are the very thing that impacts on businesses being able to make retail sales. Whilst Mr Davis wants to blame this government, I also ask them to take a hard look at themselves about what they are doing in terms of fanning the flames of fear and frightening community members about when they can return to the shops and shop in a manner that feels safe.

Victoria Police are continuing to work with shopping centres. Like I said, they have increased security presence and police presence. There is also an improvement in crime prevention through environmental design and review audits, online communications and priority patrol location meetings. Of course technology helps with a lot of these things, where there are increased numbers of cameras and surveillance operations and the like. Also Victoria Police have commenced Operation STAND, which is a dedicated team of police who work with Melbourne central business district and Yarra retailers to identify thieves who use aggression, intimidation and violence towards retail staff. This team alone has made more than 130 arrests and laid more than 1100 charges in relation to thefts exceeding $400,000, but if you listen to Mr Davis, we are doing absolutely nothing. If you look at the last initiative alone, that is an initiative that has come from businesses working with Victoria Police to design solutions that work for them. And it is working – as I said, 130 arrests and more than 1100 charges laid in relation to thefts exceeding $400,000.

Regional police are also undertaking intelligence assessments to identify and target prolific offenders, including collaborating with Crime Stoppers to identify wanted persons of interest linked to retail offending. Crime reduction teams have also been established across all regions to support persons of interest with pathways out of offending, and retail operations are working with the National Retail Association to promote best-practice approaches to target hardening and environmental design strategies.

I was heartened to see our new Chief Commissioner of Police the other day talking about having a refreshed Victoria Police but also noting that there needs to be significant work done in prevention, which is also a key ingredient to driving crime down. But if you listen to those opposite, it is just ‘Lock ’em up,’ and that is not going to fix everything. We need to have a holistic approach to driving down crime.

There is lots more happening. We have announced our machete amnesty, which is a $13 million investment by our government. But again, if you listened to Mrs Werner in the other place, it was all about – what was it – Ferraris and the cost of Ferraris and the rest of it. She completely got wrong the cost of what we are actually rolling out and the components of it but got promoted to the front bench on the basis of that – wow. That is a really significant promotion for her, but she knew nothing about the actual cost of the program.

Since the start of the amnesty period over 5000 knives have been surrendered by members of the public and over 3000 by a major retailer. So again, those opposite said it would not work, but it clearly is working. We are seeing that people are returning machetes to those machete bins. The machete safe disposal scheme is continuing to get thousands of knives off our streets, with more than 2000 surrendered in the last fortnight. Again, Mr Davis said we were doing nothing, and I am just talking about what we are doing. But we just get condemned for it over there because we are not doing enough – never enough, never good enough. But we are taking real action, because it shows.

In regard to knife crime, again, we know that too many young people are carrying knives. One of the things we have done is expanded the stop-and-search powers for Victoria Police, and we have seen a record 12,000 dangerous knives taken off our streets this year through intelligence-led operations. Mr Davis would not know anything about that, because all this motion has been about is condemning the government. He knows nothing about the detail that we have actually embarked upon and the various mechanisms that we are using to focus on crime.

Mr Davis, I go back to the interjections that I was making during your speech. I am yet to hear any policy offerings from you and your lot. I am yet to see any policy offerings. Again, I have outlined in quite a lot of detail all those things that we are doing. I know Mr Galea is also going to go to quite a level of detail when he speaks about the sorts of things that retailers are doing to keep their workers safe as well. In doing that, we will be opposing this motion, but I thank Victoria Police each and every day for the work that they do keeping Victorians safe.

 David ETTERSHANK (Western Metropolitan) (16:18): I rise to speak on motion 1094 in Mr Davis’s name, condemning the Allan Labor government for its failure to adequately respond to the surge in crime against workers in the retail settings across Victoria. Before I get into this, I would just like to focus on the plight of workers rather than turning this debate into a proxy for ‘Who is the toughest on crime?’ The statistics when we look at this sector are clearly gobsmacking. As Mr Davis alluded to, the data from the Crime Statistics Agency suggests that there were 41,000 incidents of theft from retail stores in 2024–25, an increase of 27.6 per cent, and that is in the past year alone. Food theft has risen by over 80 per cent – there is obviously a whole story there about social conditions and poverty – and cigarette and alcohol theft by has risen by 58.6 per cent. Shoplifting is one thing, but the rise in abuse and violence towards retail staff is beyond the pale. According to the state secretary of the Victorian Shop, Distributive & Allied Employees’ Association – I will also put my hand up to say that my first job was in Coles New World in Southport, and I was a member for four years and even offered a trainee managership, where I was told that I would also get the shop steward’s position at the same time – Michael Donovan, their workers, their members, are being:

… screamed at … spat on or shoved … dragged across the counters … slashed or stabbed …

Every worker has the right to feel safe at work. It should be a given. But an increasing number of retail workers are regularly confronting harassment and abuse. It is a tough gig. Many of our members in Legalise Cannabis work in the retail sector. In fact during the recent Werribee by-election I got chatting to a couple of our wonderful volunteers who were on the early voting centres, lovely people who worked at Target, and they told me of the verbal abuse that they had to cop from aggressive shoppers. This sort of ugly behaviour seems to be becoming more and more common. As workers routinely face abuse, intimidation and violence, retailers are finding it more and more difficult to attract and retain staff – hardly surprising.

It is a particularly dangerous time to work in retail if you are a woman. Women represent most of the retail workforce, with more than a third of them being young women between the ages of 15 and 24, often in their first job. That is certainly consistent with the young women I was speaking to on the early voting centres. It seems to me that it is only a matter of time before a fatality occurs. This is another instance of the Victorian government failing to protect our young people, yet they are concurrently happy to criminalise them.

Yesterday the government ruled out decriminalising cannabis, a decision that disproportionately impacts and has a lifelong consequence for young people. We have all heard the evidence about the irreversible harm caused by contact with the criminal justice system and being left with a criminal record. Young people from Aboriginal and other marginalised communities in particular bear the brunt of the government’s regressive policies on cannabis regulation. The Premier announced back in May of last year – that is a year and a half ago – that there were plans to change the laws to better protect customer-facing workers from abuse and assault. But we are yet to see anything, and that is disgraceful. Maybe the Premier or the Minister for Police should go and work a few shifts in Woolies or Coles and learn what it is actually like to be in those frontline positions, because it is bloody tough.

Michael Galea: Jacinta was a shoppie. She used to work at Coles.

David ETTERSHANK: She did used to work at Coles? Okay, that is interesting. It seems only a matter of time before a fatality occurs. While this government fail to act on the epidemic of retail crime across the state, putting young, often inexperienced people on the frontline, they continue to waste valuable police resources on an offence, namely personal use of cannabis, which 80 per cent of Victorians agree should not even exist.

As I said, every worker has the right to feel safe at work. If this government are so concerned about crime, so threatened by the prospect of a ‘tough on crime’ election, maybe they should direct our police resources to preventing crimes which affect and traumatise Victorians, and particularly Victorian retail workers, instead of policing a victimless crime like cannabis possession and use. Retail workers deserve better, as we saw during the COVID outbreak. But how quickly the community, and in particular the government, seems to have forgotten this fact. They were the saints. They were the saviours. They were out there doing their jobs day and night.

Michael Galea interjected.

David ETTERSHANK: And they are – thank you, Mr Galea. They continue to do that, and yet now obviously they are not in the headlines. They are not so worthy, apparently, of this government pulling its finger out and putting in place some regulation and some programs to address the threats that they face. While I utterly repudiate Mr Davis’s position on bail, the government’s response is simply shameful. Legalise Cannabis Victoria will be supporting this motion.

 Bev McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (16:25): I rise to support Mr Davis’s motion. I cannot believe that those on the opposite side seem to be against the workers. I do not know where they have gone astray in this. This motion is about protecting the workers and –

Michael Galea: We’re very much on their side, Mrs McArthur.

Bev McARTHUR: No, you are not. You cannot be, or you would be absolutely wholly behind this motion which condemns the Allan Labor government for failing to adequately respond to the surge in crime in retail settings in Victoria. Of course you should be supporting this motion. Retail theft is not just a line in a police report; it is a daily reality for small business owners across Victoria. Figures from the Crime Statistics Agency show that total recorded offences have surged by 15.7 per cent in the past year – the highest level since reporting began – driven by a 22 per cent rise in theft and a 47 per cent rise in retail theft.

Nowhere are the consequences clearer than in the CBD in Geelong in my electorate. Total crime across the region has risen 12.5 per cent compared with the previous year. Theft alone has soared from 5530 cases to 7281. Almost half of all crimes, 48 per cent, remain unsolved. These are not just abstract statistics; they are the daily experiences of thousands of residents, small business owners and families in Victoria’s biggest regional city. For me, the worst figure is the victimisation rate – that is, the number of Victorians directly affected by crime. It has risen almost 17 per cent. Behind those numbers are real people, real losses and a growing sense that the rule of law no longer protects the honest and hardworking.

That is why, the week before last, I spent a day in Geelong with our Shadow Minister for Police and Corrections, David Southwick. The main focus of our visit was the surge in retail theft that is devastating local traders and driving honest business owners to despair. We heard the stories behind the statistics and of the frustration, the anger, the fear and the sadness of those affected. The local traders, almost despairingly, told us they often do not even bother reporting theft anymore. There is just no point.

Talking to retail workers and small business owners, we heard some shocking stories of things which had happened in the days before our visit. At one fashion retailer on Malop Street staff said they always have to have at least two people on front of house at once, and even then they do not feel safe. The fear is not just of losing stock; it is of confrontation and of not knowing what might happen next. Next door another store had been hit just two days before we were in Geelong. A group of five young offenders hurled an energy drink through the front door and destroyed roughly $1200 worth of stock – a total mess committed by offenders who enjoy impunity.

Across the precinct, at the crime forum we held in a piano bar – many thanks to Andy Pobjoy, ‘Mr Geelong’ – we heard similar stories time and again of retail staff having to physically push people out the door when they refuse to leave or to lock themselves inside when they see known troublemakers heading their way. The saddest reflection, as I mentioned, was from residents and businesses who are not even bothering to report crime anymore. They have given up. They know there will be no follow-up, no response, no justice and no compensation for their losses. That is a damning indictment of Labor’s failure to protect the community. This motion is important because, at its heart, systematic retail theft is not merely an inconvenience, it damages social order. A functioning society requires the state to provide security and enforce the laws protecting property and person. When honest Victorians, from the shop owner struggling to pay bills to the elderly customer facing higher prices, feel the law is a hollow threat, the foundation of law and order begins to fracture. The idea that each individual theft is a small, insignificant issue is a serious mistake. Systematic theft operates on a principle similar to the broken windows theory. If minor visible disorder is ignored, it signals that no-one cares, and serious crime will inevitably follow. Unchecked, small-scale shoplifting spreads, worsens and begins to infect the community’s sense of safety and legitimacy. Moreover, we know that these offences are often a gateway to greater criminality. The individuals involved rarely stop at petty shoplifting. Many graduate from these smaller unpunished offences to organised theft, fraud and even violent crime.

The government’s duty is clear: to address this disorder now and to restore faith in the everyday rules that bind our society together. It is not just a matter of protecting stock, it is protecting people too and protecting the fabric of communities like Geelong. When theft becomes normalised and when it is easier to steal than to work, the very idea of fairness, the idea that effort should be rewarded and wrongdoing punished, begins to disintegrate.

Retail theft does not just hit the balance sheets of small business; it hits morale, it hits investment and it hits confidence in our city centres. The Geelong CBD should be a place of life, energy and opportunity. Instead, it is becoming a place of boarded-up shopfronts, locked doors and metal shutters. Another sad lesson David and I took from our trip was this: the only business apparently booming in some parts of Geelong is the one installing security grilles. When people no longer feel safe to walk down Malop Street, to browse in the shops or to leave home after dark, the consequences go far beyond retail. The decline becomes self-perpetuating – fewer visitors, less investment and less confidence. It is a vicious circle that only concerted action can break. This is the broken windows theory in action. When low-level crime is ignored, when police are under-resourced and when offenders face no consequences, decline accelerates.

The truth is that Victoria Police are not to blame. Local police are doing their best. No-one doubts that. We were grateful for an excellent briefing from a senior local police officer. But he and his officers are being stretched beyond their limits. Custody suites are full. Officers are being forced to juggle local offenders while managing overflow from Melbourne and Warrnambool because those regions are full too. The system is broken. The Allan Labor government has left police in Geelong under-resourced, understaffed and overwhelmed. Instead of wasting millions of taxpayer dollars on glossy television ads spruiking failed bail reforms, Labor should be investing in frontline police and real community safety. While crime soars, the Premier and her ministers talk about community justice strategies and restorative approaches. Meanwhile, ordinary people just want to know that when a thief walks into a store and steals they will be arrested, not excused.

Local traders we spoke to agreed on one thing: the only way to make a real difference is to get more police out on the street – not tied up in bureaucratic programs or glossy new frameworks but through genuine investment in frontline policing present in the community. That means more officers on the beat. It means fixing the resourcing crisis in Geelong’s police stations and custody facilities. It means rebuilding the public’s faith that the system works, that crime will be punished and that safety will be restored. Victoria’s retailers, especially those in regional centres like Geelong, deserve better. They deserve a government that has their back, not one that turns away while they are being robbed blind.

 Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (16:35): I rise to share a few comments on this motion as well. Many members will be aware that this is a topic that is of great importance to me. In my first speech in this place I discussed a desire and indeed advocated for tougher penalties for those people who assault retail workers. I will come back to that point a little later.

But I do as well, as Ms Terpstra mentioned, come to this debate having, prior to being in Parliament, proudly served as an organiser for the SDA union for around 11 years, covering a range of different parts of Melbourne. In that time I saw firsthand or second-hand the impact that abuse and violence can have on retail workers. There has been a long-running campaign from the SDA called No One Deserves a Serve. It is straightforward; it is to the point. People understand what it means. It resonates with retail workers, because no-one deserves to go to work and cop abuse or violence of any means on the scale just for doing their job. Many young people – or most young people – have their first job in the retail sector. Indeed, touching on my interjection to Mr Ettershank, the Premier’s first job was at a supermarket in regional Victoria, where she was in fact an SDA delegate.

In my time at the union I saw the way in which this campaign changed the narrative. The culture in far too many retail workplaces, even not much longer than five years ago and definitely 10 years ago, was ‘The customer is always right.’ In the worst such instance I represented a bright young woman who, just doing her job, had a bag full of groceries thrown at her head, for which she received a warning. That warning was of course overturned through our intervention, but it should never have been applied in the first place. We now are at a point where most retailers are much more supportive of their staff, and most will have signs that very visibly say at the front of stores, as a result of this campaign, that their workers deserve respect, and instances of customers being given gift cards, having violently abused a retail worker, are fortunately much, much less common. So I would like to acknowledge the extensive campaign.

Customer abuse and aggression comes on a spectrum. Today we are talking about the extreme end, and I will come to some more comments about that shortly, but it does not start there. No worker – and no 15-year-old boy or girl on their first shift at a retail or a fast-food setting – deserves to have anyone abusing them, but for far too many, that happens on their very first shift. Last year the Premier, Jacinta Allan, made a very significant announcement, and I was genuinely jumping out of my skin, thrilled that the policy that I had advocated for in my first speech was being announced by the Premier at the ALP state conference, and that policy was to bring in tougher laws and tougher penalties for those who violently attack retail workers. This is very, very good legislation.

I have had the privilege of working alongside Attorney-General Sonya Kilkenny over the past few months in helping to shape the formulation and the form of that legislation through the worker protection consultation group, and I would like to acknowledge all the stakeholders in that group, including the SDA; the United Workers Union; the Transport Workers’ Union; the Rail, Tram and Bus Union; the Australian Retailers Association; the pharmacy guild; as well as police and prosecutorial stakeholders. I am very much looking forward to that legislation coming into the Parliament and to seeing that acquit the government’s promise to get this into the Parliament this year. And wherever more work needs to be done I will be enthusiastically supporting that through the worker protection consultation group and beyond.

I would like to also touch on something that has come up – in fact Mrs McArthur came close to touching on this. Protecting workers is not a one-stamp-fixes-all solution. The laws which we will go into much more detail on and we will discuss in much greater detail at the time will go quite some way not only to showing retail workers and other service workers too that they are valued and that they deserve to be safe at work by implementing those tougher penalties but to the duty of care that all employers have for their employees. I would note as well that any legislation that any government makes does not absolve any employer from their duty of care in ensuring that their staff are safe and supported. That is obviously in the worst case of incidents, where employers are doing everything that they can, but it is also in the day to day. It is inadequately staffing their stores to reduce the incidence of customers blowing up. It is to provide that additional staffing so that when incidents do occur they can be responded to and those staff members have team members to rely on. That does not in any way absolve the despicable actions of those who would seek to do harm to service workers, but it is important to note that this is not a simple, ‘We can do the legislation and fix this.’ This goes to a cultural issue.

Other speakers in this debate have mentioned COVID, and one of the distressing things to see as an organiser during that very difficult time – when people themselves were stressed about all manner of things, not least of all being infected at work and the protections that were in place for them there – was a number of peaks of customer abuse and aggression. Sadly, that does not seem to have died away nearly as much as we would have hoped. That does speak to a broader culture issue, and I will take this opportunity, as well as pretty much any opportunity that I can get, to really reiterate that it is a spectrum. Most people would never go out of their way to violently assault anyone, let alone a retail worker. Most people, I do believe – I have to be optimistic – would also never seek to abuse someone who is working in a service role, but far too many do. Far too many perhaps think of themselves as too important, or their time is too important, or they are upset that they cannot get their particular brand of yoghurt or whatever else, and that the person that they should take that out on is the single mum at the check-out or the 17-year-old boy at the check-out – that they deserve the abuse.

‘No-one deserves a serve’ means no-one deserves a serve. There is no situation in which it is tolerable, and that is a conversation that we should be having as well, because our retail workers, as was mentioned by another speaker in this debate, are essential workers. We saw in the toughest of times that they were there for us. They were still there in the early days of the pandemic when we did not know what the risks were. And despite all the precautions that they were taking, that employers were taking and that unions were taking, they were putting themselves out there and going into work when so many people had the luxury of being at home. They were going out there to serve our society, and they were not the only ones too. Of course the legislation that will be coming through later this year does not just apply to retail workers. Based off the unions that I have mentioned, I am reasonably comfortable to say it will include workers in places such as hospitality; in public transport, including bus drivers who, due to the nature of their employment, can be particularly vulnerable in some situations; and other frontline workers who we rely on.

With these new laws coming in soon, I am very much looking forward to having a debate. I very much look forward in fact to the entire chamber supporting it. Based off the remarks so far on this motion, I would be hopeful to presume that it would be widely, if not unanimously, supported by this chamber, because these laws will make retail workplaces safer, but they will also send an important signal to retail workers and to other service workers: you are valued, the work you do is essential work all of us rely on and you deserve to go to work. You do not deserve a serve; you deserve to be treated with respect and dignity, and that is from not just your employers but from all of your customers as well.

Whilst the Liberal Party today have come in with a two-line motion and have not offered any form of policy development or proposals, those on this side will continue to proudly work, and I will continue to proudly work, to do everything in my power in this place to advance the interests and protections for retail workers, and that includes the laws that will be debated in this place in coming weeks.

 Jeff BOURMAN (Eastern Victoria) (16:45): It is tempting to tee off on all the various things that are going wrong with crime around the state at the moment, but I am going to try and stick within the brief today. It seems that the Premier and I had a similar sort of start to life. My first job was at a supermarket called Supa Valu in Beaumaris. Whilst it clearly did not turn out to be my career, it gave me an appreciation of what goes on in the world. Back then, in the mid-1980s, it was a bit quieter, but I think burglaries were the biggest thing – the stealing of cigarettes.

As time has gone on, I have noticed the treatment of others in general has taken a dive – the treatment of retail workers in particular and frontline workers, like police and so on. But retail workers in particular seem to be taking the brunt of a very violent cohort of people that seem to think that their wants or needs or however they want to put it are worthy of threatening or abusing someone who is just there to do their job. I guess it is not something new, but it is something I am seeing more and more of. Frankly, it is not good and it is not acceptable. We need to be, as a society and as a Parliament, dealing with it.

There has been a bit of argy-bargy across here about policies and this and that. I will be very intrigued to see what this legislation coming along is like. The trespass laws in this state partially, in my view, contribute to the problem we have. They are as weak as urine – they really, really are. If someone comes into your place and is violent and you tell them to get out and they do not, notwithstanding the assault problem for them, there is not a lot you can do until the police arrive. For the police to get there – and the police are generally 2000 members down every morning before they start, about 1000 behind just on numbers and 1000 on sick leave – it can take some time. It can take a lot of time, and therefore that person probably would get bored and leave eventually before the police could get there.

Mr Galea mentioned that there is a bill coming. I hope this bill addresses this problem properly, because with these repeat violent offenders, if there is no legal way that we can keep people out of these places with a punitive outcome, what is going to happen? They are just going to keep on coming until they commit a crime that hurts someone at the retail location and gets the offender locked up. It will be interesting, and I will be watching this with a lot of interest just to see what is going on.

Mr Galea brought up something about duty of care. Duty of care is a bit of a hot topic – and I am slightly deviating here. The duty of care is to all workers. The current problem we have with the police officers is one of those things that is not actually this government’s fault right now, but I would like to think they are going to fix it ASAP, because someone is sworn, not employed. That is talking about getting into the weeds, to deny something.

I was watching the news earlier today. It is a very different retail environment, but two women at the Gotham City brothel had to fight off a violent offender. He jumped the counter. It was quite a professional-looking counter, I have got to say – more than what I expected for a brothel, but whatever –

Members interjecting.

Jeff BOURMAN: I only ever been in one as a police officer, Mr Welch, for official duties. Anyway, there was a fairly serious scuffle behind the counter, and then, lo and behold, out came a can of capsicum spray – problem solved. I would like to hope that these two brave women are not punished for merely defending themselves, because, frankly, I think they had no other option. The misbehaviour around society is just getting way out of control. Michael Donovan of the SDA has made a few comments regarding these things. I want to put them on the record because I feel that these things need to be on the record, because it is about the workers in these things, whether it is a supermarket or that clothing shop, I think was on Collins Street, where some woman was kicking her way in and all the people watching thought they would just video it instead of helping the staff. He said:

Shoppers and staff deserve to feel safe, but right now too many workers are walking into shifts expecting to be abused or threatened.

As a police officer, that comes with comes with the territory. As someone that is just trying to serve someone, that is not acceptable. He said:

The Premier made a promise to protect these workers with stronger penalties. It’s time to deliver on that promise.

I hope the delivery comes when the aforementioned legislation drops. He said:

Our members are suffering shocking aggression and violence … every week.

He said the government needs to act. Well, yes, the government does need to act. No-one goes to work wanting to be assaulted. No-one wants to go and be abused. A lot of them are kids – half the world are kids to me now as I get on a bit. But they are in first jobs and things like that, and a lot are females. I am old fashioned enough – I do not abuse anybody – but I think abusing someone that you perceive to be weaker than you physically because you think you will get away with it is just the depths of cowardice. Frankly, I have not been abused a lot during my life because I am not a small person and people know they will not get away with it. I see these people as nothing more than gutless, as cowards. To have them abusing people, throwing bags of shopping at them – you see videos of someone at the supermarket copping a punch to the head just because someone did not like something. It is not on. I will be supporting this motion, but I wait in anticipation to see what the government will deliver later. I really do hope they deliver on the promise to look after workers.

 Gaelle BROAD (Northern Victoria) (16:52): I am pleased, on behalf of the Nationals, to be supporting this motion that David Davis has put forward. It is such a significant issue, retail crime. We have heard, and Mr Davis spoke to it earlier, about some of the statistics and the larger retailers and supermarkets talking about how bad Victoria is in comparison to other states. It continues to skyrocket.

I was speaking with a business recently who was talking about some of the incidents that he is seeing, which are showing a real shift in the environment. It shows and demonstrates the urgency for reform in this space. Just recently I was speaking with a teacher who was talking about an incident in a local store in Bendigo where there were a group of students going out to buy gifts and they actually witnessed some young people going in, grabbing a heap of stuff and then exiting the store. I think it is shocking that we are in this situation now where this is happening in broad daylight in the streets in Bendigo.

I think of our situation. We are fortunate with electorate offices; we have a lot of security on our offices. My office is based right in the centre of Bendigo. I am fortunate in that way because we do have the security there. We can lock down the doors if we need to. But for the rest of the retailers in Bendigo, they do not have that. They are exposed and vulnerable. I have spoken with businesses that have had people come in, take things, swear at them, get up on the counter and abuse them. This is appalling that we are in this situation. We have had assaults in broad daylight, and a lot of people are saying, ‘What is the government doing about this situation?’ Because it is one thing to talk about big projects, but if you do not feel safe in your home, we have a major issue in this state that needs to be addressed.

Our crime rates continue to rise. Retail theft, from the data that we have had this year, was actually one of the most common offences in Bendigo. There was a huge, almost 124 per cent, increase from the previous year. I meet regularly with Bendigo police and other community leaders to talk about these issues, and they do talk about the challenges that we have in the 10- to-17-year-old age group. That has increased; that rate of youth crime has jumped by 33 per cent. That is huge. When you consider the crimes that we are seeing at the moment, it is extraordinary that in Victoria we have a crime occurring every 50 seconds. Every minute there is another crime that is happening in this state. Yet nearly half of crimes are unresolved. There is no justice. Just imagine if that was, say, your child that was affected by that incident. How would you feel if there was no-one held to account for that?

We have said consistently on this side of the chamber that the weakening of the bail laws back in 2023, the decision made by this government, was not the right direction for this state to go. We are seeing the consequences. Whilst they continue to talk about the toughest bail laws in the country and they keep trying to bring in bills to make the toughest bail laws tougher, I think we are seeing the implications of that, and it is having a flow-on effect. I have spoken with local police who are very frustrated because they go to a lot of effort to hold people to account, and yet they can go through the courts and be out in no time. I have spoken to victims who have had to face the courts and the frustration as they leave the court, knowing that the person has been let off while they have the experience that they have got to live with for the rest of their lives. I have had people who have opened curtains to their home to see people trying to break into their home. I had another lady that I met with whose husband was stabbed. I know a number of people whose cars have been stolen. It is just extraordinary the huge percentage of repeat offenders that we have in this state. They are actually responsible for a significant portion of the crimes and yet continue to get off.

I will say I wrote to the Minister for Police and raised protective service officers and the need for more assistance, particularly in regional areas. It was pleasing that he has agreed to meet with the council and V/Line to talk about that issue further. Just recently we held a community safety forum in Kangaroo Flat with David Southwick. He came with Wendy Lovell, and it was very good to hear from residents and give them the opportunity to talk through some of the challenges and the issues. But the statistics that we are seeing in our region are extraordinary. Neighbourhood Watch contributed to that, and they did remind people, and I think it is always important to remind people, of the need to lock, lock and lock everything up – lock your car, lock your house doors, lock your windows and lock the door that is between the garage and your house, making sure that there is no possible way for people to get in. This is the environment that we live in at the moment.

Just recently I held a community chat in Strath Village. I talked with people there, and the issue that kept coming up was crime. They were wondering: ‘Where is the government in all this? What are they doing?’ There has been a lot of talk about big projects, as I said, but when people do not feel safe in their own homes we have a massive issue. I was speaking with another business owner recently, and he was actually telling me – Mr Bourman talked earlier about self-defence – that he sleeps with a bat by his bed. This is extraordinary that we that we live in this environment now, and I certainly do not want to see it continue.

We need a fresh start in this state, and we need to stop crime before it happens. We need to put victims first. Accountability matters. Prevention and enforcement are so important. That prevention – we have talked about that. I know Mr Davis was saying we would be happy to see reforms like Jack’s Law come in in this state to get more knives off the street. We would be very supportive of moves to improve community safety and those prevention programs that we have talked about in our policy announcements. This is 12 months ahead of the election. We are being very clear about the need for reform and what that looks like, because ensuring that kids do get on the right track, are not surrounded by negative influences and have that mentoring over a 12-month period is important to ensure that there is a balance in that. Not every kid gets a great start in life, and we have a responsibility to ensure that they do not end up on the wrong track. Having that community involvement is really essential, but it is so important to have zero tolerance for repeat offending because, as I mentioned, it is having a real negative impact on our police force. At the moment we have I think it is close to 2000 vacancies, when you consider those that are on leave as well as the vacancies in the actual roles themselves. Currently we have more police leaving than we have coming in, and this is something that we should all be very concerned about. I will leave my comments there because I know that other people are keen to speak on this issue as well, but I will say that we are about 58 weeks away from the next state election, and it is time for a fresh start. We support this motion.

 John BERGER (Southern Metropolitan) (17:01): I rise to speak on the important issue of crime and how it affects our communities. Crime is an issue which can affect every part of the state, and it is something that our constituents worry about no matter where they live. I know that in the Southern Metropolitan Region many of my constituents have the recent stabbing which took place in Southbank on their minds, and I join them. My thoughts are with the victims and their families at this time.

The moral question when it comes to crime and public safety is simple: people should be safe to go out in their own communities, even at night. This is why addressing the issues of crime continues to be a top priority for the Allan Labor government. Our tough new bail laws, the toughest of anywhere in Australia, put community safety first every time and ensure that repeat offenders are subject to a much tougher bail test than first-time offenders. As a result of the changes we have made to existing laws year on year, data shows that the number of adults on remand has increased by 26 per cent and the number of young people on remand has increased by 46 per cent. When repeat offenders demonstrate that they cannot be trusted with bail and that they have not learned from their past actions, they now lose that privilege. Community safety comes first in bail decisions in Victoria because of those changes we have made.

In this state we do not tolerate the breaking of bail conditions, we do not tolerate reoffending while on bail and we will not tolerate those who put the community’s safety at risk. Between the toughest bail laws yet for repeat offenders of six serious offences and the new second-strike rule for those who commit certain crimes while on bail, we are making it harder for those who pose a genuine threat to community safety to receive bail. Further, we have changed how the system works, such that, because of our reforms, community safety is put first in every bail decision. Of course there are many complex factors that go into bail decisions, but under our reforms the consideration of the effect and risk to the community must always be placed as the number one priority. By targeting those changes to those that pose a threat to community safety we are able to prioritise our resources towards the policy objective of putting community safety first.

As a government who care deeply about community safety and the terrible, corrosive impact that crime has on our communities if it gets out of hand, we know that implementing those changes is not about slogans. That is why we have stayed focused on tackling crime and taking the steps to set up the toughest bail laws yet. Slogans do not solve crime. Yet this motion put forward by the opposition does not contain a shred of the substance of what they disagree with. The motion contains just one line, with no further elaboration or detail – just a quick jab at the Allan Labor government, with no detail. There are no quick fixes for crime. You cannot make the changes to law which we have made and expect the system to naturally adjust, but we on this side of the chamber know that by putting in the reforms and the work we can help to shift the dial towards keeping the community safer. Wasting time on unsubstantial motions does not get us any closer to tackling crime. That is why we backed in these new laws in the budget, providing the necessary funding that these new laws need: $1.6 billion in total, including $727 million in additional prison funding. We knew that changing the bail laws would not be cheap, but in a state like Victoria, where community safety comes first, our government considers this spending to be an important priority.

The tough new bail laws are not the only measures we are taking to address crime in this state. We are tackling the issue from every angle, because it is an issue which requires and deserves that level of complexity and nuance. The ban on machetes is choking the supply of these dangerous weapons, and the amnesty period for handing them back is currently underway and getting them off the streets for good. Of course, there are some members of Parliament opposite who have made some very interesting criticisms of the machete ban and who seem to think that the machete bins, which will cost roughly $2400 each to produce, are an outrageous waste of taxpayers money. The machete amnesty took more than 1300 dangerous weapons off the street in its first 10 days or so. The suggestion by some of the members in Parliament that the machete ban and amnesty is a wasteful, decadent program pandering to the luxury concerns of the elite few just goes to show how out of touch some of those opposite are with the concerns of their constituents. I do not think the victims of knife crime and their families see getting these weapons off the streets as reckless and a waste of money. Neither does the Allan Labor government. We see reducing crime and making the state safer as an important policy priority.

Our government is also addressing other areas of crime, including cracking down on some of those causes of crime. Social media platforms have been used by individuals to post themselves committing serious crimes. The practice of posting and boasting for the purposes of clout, reputation and encouraging others to commit similar crimes can in some cases be dangerous incitement of others to commit criminal acts. That is why the new post-and-boast laws will make it an additional offence to boast about your crime, with a video on social media worth up to two years in prison on top of the existing penalty for the offence itself.

Another aspect of crime which the government is currently looking at addressing is retail crime. Unfortunately, too many retail workers in recent months have been subject to threats, harassment, intimidation and even violent assaults. Like all workers, retail workers are entitled to feel safe at work. The worker protection consultation group is currently meeting, and ministers have been consulting with major retailers to consider what kind of legislation should be introduced to help keep workers and shoppers safe in retail settings. Retail workers who face aggressive and threatening behaviour at work should know that they have an ally in the Allan Labor government and that we will be always on their side.

In some of the aspects of justice policy which I have outlined so far, I want to highlight the way in which the Allan Labor government is determined to fight crime in a way that reflects the modern realities of crime. The challenges we face are not necessarily exactly the same as what they were in previous decades, so it is important that in addressing those challenges we acknowledge that we have an understanding that is modern and up to date on how crime works these days. That is why changes like making it an offence to post and boast are important and why it is important that the offences which are targeted by the tough new bail laws and the second-strike rule are chosen based on the crime trends in recent years.

Sometimes the causes of and solutions to these problems are simple and sometimes they are complex. That is why we have undertaken a multipronged approach to getting crime down, acknowledging that one method may not work for every type of crime and in every individual circumstance. As well as introducing our tough new bail laws last year, we passed the Youth Justice Act 2024, the first piece of dedicated youth justice legislation in the state’s history. Like our new bail laws, the Youth Justice Act 2024 was about discouraging young people from committing crimes, particularly by discouraging reoffending. By targeting one demographic which is more likely to offend in the future – those who have offended in the past – with practices such as victim-centred restorative justice, we are offering youth offenders an alternative pathway through the system. Other achievements of the bill were to create diversionary pathways which help prevent young people from falling into the criminal lifestyle and helping them better themselves so that they can be better, law-abiding citizens. Further, the bill introduced better powers for police to warn and caution young people, allowing them to deal with antisocial behaviour and prevent it from escalating to the point where community safety is put at risk, because the best response to crime is to prevent it from happening in the first place.

The reason why I have spoken at length about both the tough new bail laws and the Youth Justice Act is because I want to highlight the way the Allan Labor government takes the issue of crime incredibly seriously. That is why we acknowledge that what works in some cases may not work in other cases. The Youth Justice Act will keep young people away from a life of crime and help them make better choices in their lives. But those who pose genuine risks to community safety and repeat offending will not be tolerated. They will be subject to the toughest bail yet. What we have done in these areas has been with the goal of keeping our community safe. Keeping our community safe means preventing crime before it happens and when it happens, ensuring that it does not happen again. That is the priority and that is what the Allan Labor government is focusing on. I will conclude my comments there.

 Richard WELCH (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (17:10): I am pleased to rise on Mr Davis’s motion regarding retail crime and the threats to those who serve us in the community. As many speakers have already noted, crime is an epidemic locally. In my electorate, in the cities of Monash and Whitehorse, retail theft alone is up 18 per cent in each of those municipalities, and that is not from a low base, that is from a high base. That is multiple crimes a day. We also know that these crimes are massively under-reported, and I know this because as I go around and speak to businesses. Businesses tell me they no longer report petty theft, crime, harassment and assaults because there are not police there to attend to it in any timely way – not through the fault of the police, but because there are a thousand vacancies and a thousand on long-term leave. They know that 50 per cent of crimes will not be solved anyway, and they do not get their stock back. It is unacceptable.

We had a conversation earlier today about burning the flag and how it is a cultural change that people find that acceptable. There has been a cultural change that abusing shop workers and people who work in retail has somehow become normalised and acceptable in our society. Well, it is terrible; it is wrong. In the shopping strip near me, something like 12 out of 24 shops have had had crimes or attacks or abuse. There are certain shopping malls that I know families in my circle do not let their kids go to for fear of crime. That is obviously bad for business, it is bad for those young people, but most particularly it is bad for those people behind the counter. How many shops do you go into now where there is a strip of photographs behind the counter of people who have come in and abused or stolen from or assaulted the people serving them? There are young people working in McDonald’s who get drinks thrown at them. There are people working in clothes stores who have people grabbing clothes and being violent towards them. It is all appalling. Violence and theft – I get phone calls and emails to my office every day about this. It is significantly under-reported.

There is a husband-and-wife couple who run a business in my area. They love their business. They have been there for many years; they have been there for over 10 years. This year, out of 10 years, for the first time the wife no longer feels safe working in that store alone. The husband used to go out and do certain deliveries and errands and she would maintain the store, but she no longer can do that. She does not feel safe. It is very sad, in fact. And what we have is a government that simply has not responded to this. If they cared about this community, they would have done something and they would have adjusted their plans. When they saw that their plans were not working, when they saw that whatever changes they were making were not working, they should have done more. The opportunity is still there to do more.

I spoke to the national president of the SDA, Michael Donovan, and he is certainly very clear on where he feels the reforms should go. In the ACT they have a very interesting concept of the workplace protection order. That means, a bit like a personal protection order, workplaces, including retail stores, can actually put a prevention order against an individual – they cannot come back. So no matter who happens to be serving that day, they do not have to be harassed. I think that is a very interesting concept in the ACT. I know that South Australia are also contemplating policy like this. That is something we should certainly be looking at in Victoria.

We also have things like Jack’s Law that have been suggested. Machete bins do not have legs – they do not run and chase after people; they do not constructively prevent crime. However, Jack’s Law would, because it would allow police to have the authority to get knives off the streets where they are the problem. At the moment all we have is people getting old knives, rusty knives, out of the back of their garages and dutifully following the law and handing them in. Obviously people who carry knives in the street do not care about the law. Prevention would be necessary.

We also have the fact that we have school programs and early intervention programs that have been cut or whittled back drastically. We are not preventing the crimes. When the crimes are committed, we do not have the police resources necessary to solve the crimes, and it is our retail workers right there in the middle who are vulnerable and unprotected. It is our business owners who have to front up to this every day and bear the cost of it who are not protected. I absolutely endorse the comments of the other speakers in support of this motion and call upon the government, on behalf of our community, to do more – change, address it.

Council divided on motion: