Tuesday, 2 December 2025

 Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (14:14): I rise to contribute to the debate on the Crimes Amendment (Retail, Fast Food, Hospitality and Transport Worker Harm) Bill 2025. This bill comes before Parliament at a time when Victorians are acutely aware that our state faces serious and growing crime challenges. While crime is everywhere under this government, it is most visible in our retail sector. People see it across Victoria, people see it in news reports, on their Instagram feed and in firsthand accounts given by friends, family members and colleagues, and retail crime in Victoria has become a defining feature of the broader law and order landscape. Locally in my electorate not a day goes by without a report of a machete melee or incident at Broadmeadows Central or incident at Northland shopping centre where people are coming into food stores and ransacking the place, or incidents at Craigieburn Central or Craigieburn Plaza. It is not new and it is not isolated. It has not emerged suddenly. It has been gathering pace for several years. We see the severity and scale of it are now impossible to ignore, even for this tired decade-old Labor government.

Every day across our state people who work in retail, fast food, hospitality and transport go to work and face situations that should never form part of anyone’s workplace experience. Staff are abused, threatened, intimidated and at times physically assaulted. Many feel unsafe at work and many do not feel properly supported by the system that is meant to protect them. That reality is why the Liberals and Nationals have consistently called for action on retail crime. We have been calling for stronger measures for a very long time. When the Premier made a commitment in May last year to act, the opposition – the Liberals and Nationals – although sceptical, based on past performance, nonetheless took the government at its word. We believed the government would respond decisively because the levels of offending across Victoria demand more than speeches and press conferences. They demand real action delivered with urgency, and the most recent data demonstrates how urgent the situation really is. In the year to June there were 99,114 offences in retail store settings. This represents an almost 20 per cent increase in only 12 months. These numbers should alarm any responsible government – sadly, it seems not this one. They also highlight the failure to deliver on the commitment made 18 months ago. While the government delayed, the offences went up by tens of thousands. The Crime Statistics Agency also reported retail theft increased by 26 per cent and retail assaults increased by 21 per cent in the same period. A 21 per cent increase in assaults is not just a minor shift. A 26 per cent increase in theft is not just a statistical blip. These are signs of a system under real pressure and a sector in which people no longer feel protected.

These retail figures sit within a broader landscape of the rising crime rate in Victoria. In addition to the nearly 100,000 retail offences recorded in the year to June, there were 638,000 criminal offences in 2024–25. That is roughly 200,000 more offences than when Labor was first elected. Think about that. That is an increase of about one-third. Total offences have increased by 47 per cent, crimes against the person have increased by 63 per cent and property and deception offences have increased by 38 per cent. These are not small movements; they reflect a significant deterioration in community safety. The government cannot credibly claim that the retail crime problem caught it by surprise. For years and years, as I have stated, there have been high-profile cases that have shocked the Victorian community.

Anyone who speaks with staff members of retail stores, supermarkets, hospitality venues and service stations, which I have done, knows the extent of the problem. It is something that has been a consistent feature in the northern suburbs and particularly in the outer northern suburbs. I speak to many service station workers and owners but also particular retail stores near my own electorate office in Meadow Heights and also in Roxburgh Park and Craigieburn, where there has been an absolutely significant uptick in retail crime. We have deep empathy for them as well.

I was subjected to and also witnessed several incidents back when I worked at Woolies, which was then called Safeway. No-one would wish it upon their worst enemy, to be caught up in a situation as frightening as many, many young people but also our migrant communities are going through in our communities. I assume any member of Parliament worth their salt would be hearing the same thing from their communities about the uptick in retail crime and how this has really affected many, many workers. I know I have chatted to and had the shadow minister out to the IGA in Thomastown, which has been subject to frequent attacks and incidents, particularly around the shopping strip as well.

The largest retailers in the country have been drawing attention to the issue. They have said clearly that Victoria has a unique and serious issue with the retail crime problem. The CEO of Coles, Leah Weckert, said:

… it is definitely the case that in Victoria, retail crime is escalating more than … we are seeing in other states.

The chief executive of Rebel Sports said:

We’ve seen a disproportionate increase in Victorian stores. No doubt about that.

Reece CEO Peter Wilson has been reported as saying that Victoria is the toughest place in the country to do business. The co-founder of Seek Paul Bassat said:

Whenever something that is done in this country that’s anti-business, the reality is there’s a good chance it is being done in Victoria.

These are not minor comments from fringe commentators, they are the most senior executives of major national companies, who have a close understanding of retail trends and are responsible for the safety of thousands of staff. The message has been consistent. They have been calling for real action that would provide genuine protection to deter offending.

Unfortunately, this bill does not deliver the change that the sector needs. At its heart any bill that is introduced to address a problem should be assessed on whether it actually solves the problem. The Liberals and Nationals will not be opposing this legislation, but we certainly want it recorded that this bill will not fix the retail crime crisis in Victoria, and anyone who thinks it will is kidding themselves. We want it stated plainly on the record that, after 18 months of waiting, what has arrived in this bill does not create meaningful change and does not go to the heart of this issue. To make matters worse, an essential component of any effective response is missing entirely, and that is workplace protection orders, which should form a central part of a package to protect workers. They are nowhere to be found in this bill. The government has announced these orders and then backflipped and then suggested again that they might be needed. Which one is it? They have failed to include them in this legislation. It is extraordinary that such a key reform was omitted. For that reason, I notify the house of opposition amendments that have been drafted, and I ask for them to be circulated.

Our amendments do two things. First, they increase the penalties associated with offending against customer-facing workers. Second, they introduce a workplace protection order scheme for Victoria. Before turning to those amendments it is important to outline exactly what the bill contains and why those measures fall well short of what is required.

The bill is relatively simple. It includes new offences for assaulting or threatening workers in the retail, fast-food, hospitality and transport sectors. It also introduces measures relating to ram raids by placing them within the definition of ‘aggravated burglary’. Those appear to be positive steps. However, a closer reading reveals that these offences already exist in Victorian law, so this is largely performative. The Law Institute of Victoria has assessed the bill. I thank the institute for undertaking the assessment in extremely limited time. Normally experts would have at least 14 days to consider a bill and provide informed feedback. The law institute said the amendments:

… may unnecessarily overcomplicate the Crimes Act as the proposed offending conduct is already captured through other offences within that Act.

The institute went on to say:

… a judicial officer is already empowered to consider the specific circumstances of such offending when evaluating an application for bail or handing down a sentence.

The institute also observed that certain clauses in the bill:

… may inadvertently create gaps in the framework by only criminalising abuse directed at those in a ‘customer facing role’ …

for example, but exclude accountants, bank tellers, therapists, policy experts et cetera. In other words, the bill attempts to create offences that already exist while potentially excluding groups of workers who do not have face-to-face customer interactions. The core criticism is simple. The offence of assault already exists. Assault under common law carries a maximum sentence of five years, the same maximum penalty in the new offence that is created by this bill. The government has repeatedly claimed that this bill establishes a new assault offence with a maximum sentence of five years. Again, it already exists. Nothing in this bill strengthens the offence, nothing adds new powers or new deterrents and nothing provides a higher maximum penalty than the existing law. The same is true for the ramraiding provision. The law institute has explained:

… the offence of Aggravated Burglary … would likely already capture a ‘ram-raid’ in certain circumstances. For example, where the offender commits a ‘ram-raid’ during business hours when there are staff, or there is reason to believe there are likely staff, in the building.

Once again, what this bill presents is a new measure that is in fact a duplication or restatement of an offence that already exists. This is why these measures will not address the retail crime crisis. They do not change the legal landscape in any way.

The Criminal Bar Association reached similar concerns. It is worth noting the association informed the member for Brighton that his engagement with them was the first time anyone in Parliament had approached them for feedback on these kinds of proposals – certainly not the government. The government did not consult with them, and that omission is telling. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the government knew what the experts would say and wanted to avoid hearing it. The Criminal Bar Association has described the indictable offence created by the bill as of little utility and one that would otherwise be captured by the existing offence of common-law assault. The association said:

Were a ‘customer-facing worker’ to be physically assaulted (or even threatened) in connection to their employment without the introduction of thie new offence, there would be no impediment to the laying of a charge of common-law assault. Given this, it is difficult to see what the introduction of this new offence will achieve.

These are the views of legal experts who deal with criminal offences daily. They are not political views; they are observations about what the law already provides.

The bill does, however, give the government the chance to claim a promise has been fulfilled. It allows a press release to be issued and a social media graphic to be posted. It allows those Labor MPs who are worried about retail crime in their seats to feel a little bit calmer. For MPs who get up and talk about it in the party room, it allows for the ministers to pat them on the head, saying, ‘It’s going to be okay. We’ve just introduced this bill which introduces new offences that already exist. Yes!’ They can go back to the Shop, Distributive & Allied Employees’ Association and say, ‘We got a win for you.’ They say they are for workers but are introducing laws into this place that do nothing for them. That is not leadership for the people who are coming home to their parents in tears about what happened to them at work that day or on the increasing examples of retail crime we are seeing go through the roof. The government has introduced a bill that will not deal with this issue.

I have been here long enough to remember when the government was raising the age of criminal responsibility and when the government weakened our bail laws. On our concerns about crime and specific concerns about retail crime I was told by those opposite that I was just seeking a Herald Sun headline or a 3AW interview. That is what that side of the chamber said in response to our serious concerns from constituents about this issue. Now they rush to the chamber with basically a press release saying they are doing something. But they are doing something that already exists, and it is not going to solve the problem of retail crime here in this state. For that reason, they should be condemned for that.

The opposition has drafted amendments that strengthen penalties. Our amendments introduce a three-tier system that actually reflects the seriousness of the assault. If an assault does not cause physical injury, the maximum penalty will be four years. If an assault causes physical injury but not serious injury, the maximum penalty will be six years, and if an assault results in serious injury, the maximum penalty will be 11 years. These provisions are modelled on the New South Wales approach, which has been shown to be effective. They ensure penalties have real force rather than symbolic value. The opposition has also drafted amendments to introduce workplace protection orders, which are essential. The workplace protection orders have been called for by industry, by unions and by frontline workers. The Shop, Distributive & Allied Employees’ Association, an organisation with many friends in this place, has said:

If the government is serious about addressing the retail crime epidemic, introducing WPOs is a no brainer.

And still we are seeing no real action to address this – the only real action is from the opposition. The government wants to introduce performative acts that take place inside of a bill but do not actually fix the problem at hand. It wants to announce in a press release that it is addressing the issue and then take months and months and months and months and months and months to actually get a bill here. That is not good enough, as we have seen in that intervening period huge increases in retail crime. People are left to suffer while the Labor Party dithers.

Looking interstate, ACT police have spoken about their experience with workplace protection orders, stating that in the eight months since they were introduced, police have:

… noticed a “total change in behaviour where [the offenders] have just disappeared off our screens”.

That represents real change, and the type of change Victoria desperately needs. Workplace protection orders also protect workers in a way that criminal charges alone cannot. They allow early intervention, they provide a clear and enforceable barrier between offenders and staff and they are a proven tool. The government claimed recently that it believed workplace protection orders were needed, yet the bill does not include them. The Premier’s last-minute backflip came so late that the government could not introduce these measures as part of the inclusion in this bill. I mean, parliamentary members of the SDA and parliamentary members altogether must be scratching their head and wondering what the Attorney-General and the Premier are actually doing: rule in, rule out, rule in, rule out, rule in, but ‘Oh, we can’t even attach it to the bill.’ When people are suffering and retail crime is surging massively, people must just look at the actions of the Premier and the Attorney-General and seriously shake their heads. We know that is going on over that side at the moment, but this is a clear example of incompetence – incompetence with serious consequences, because the government has failed to act.

We know that WPOs are a proven tool. The government claimed recently that they believe the workplace protection orders are needed, but again they do not include them. The amendments we have circulated give the government a real opportunity to support the introduction of WPOs. If government members vote them down, it will become clear that their statements of support were nothing more than a cynical attempt by the Premier to get through another news cycle. They all went to the back garden to announce these changes. My colleagues here were at that press conference cheering for workers – workers who are most likely behind the shopfront getting assaulted while you wait for the Premier and the Attorney-General to have another backflip and another stuff-up. They cannot even include it in this bill. They must be absolutely shaking their heads at the incompetence of their Premier and the Attorney-General.

As I said, the Liberals and Nationals will not be opposing this bill. However, our support for the bill does not indicate support for its adequacy. As I have said, the bill does not go far enough. We support the bill because some action is better than no action at all, but the bill in its current form will not solve the retail crime crisis. As legal experts have said, the new offences created by this bill already exist under Victorian law. The government has failed to include workplace protection orders despite acknowledging their importance. The penalties proposed by this bill lack the strength needed to act as a deterrent. Victorians rightly deserve a plan that fully addresses the seriousness of this problem. Retail workers deserve to go to work knowing the law is on their side and that meaningful protections are in place, and employers deserve a system that responds effectively when their staff are abused, threatened or assaulted. The community deserves a justice system that is capable of enforcing real consequences for unacceptable behaviour. The opposition amendments provide a straightforward and practical path forward. They strengthen penalties, they introduce workplace protection orders, they align Victoria with successful models used interstate by Labor governments and they address the very gaps that legal professionals and industry bodies have identified. They provide a comprehensive response that has been seriously missing from the Premier and the Attorney-General and the Minister for Police.

The government now has a choice, and members on that side of the chamber now have a choice. The government can support these amendments and demonstrate a genuine commitment to worker safety, or it can vote them down and accept responsibility for a bill that does little more than repackage existing provisions. They can either vote with us or vote with the incompetence of the Premier and the Attorney-General, who backflipped so quickly they did not even have time to include them in the bill that is before us today. I mean, how embarrassing.

How embarrassed must government members, who I understand do care deeply about this issue, be? They must be completely embarrassed and ashamed of the incompetence of both the Premier and the Attorney-General for stuffing this up so much.

I do genuinely feel for the many retail workers. There are extraordinary statistics on increases from our retail workers in our retail stores. I have spoken numerous times in this chamber about real-world examples: families that were at Northland as people were running through with machetes, residents that have come to me with concerns about what is going on at Broadmeadows Central literally every single day and what has gone on at Craigieburn Plaza, Craigieburn Central and Roxburgh Village, where we have had serious issues with retail crime. As I said, I do not come to this as a stranger to the retail setting. Back in the day for about four or five years I did work at Woolies. In fact for that entire time I was a member of the SDA.

John Berger interjected.

Evan MULHOLLAND: Don’t call me a scab. Throughout my time working for Woolies, which was then Safeway, there were several frightening incidents that I would not wish on anyone. Examples of that have increased enormously, particularly in the last few years, yet the government has seriously failed to act. It said that workplace protection orders were needed. It then said they were not needed. It then backflipped to say they are needed, but it did not put them in the bill in time for what we are dealing with today. Here today we have literally got a bill that duplicates existing provisions for assault. Yes, we do not oppose this bill – we will not get in the way of this bill – but it is literally meaningless. We urge the government to take the opportunity to support our amendments. The Victorian community expects nothing less.

 Katherine COPSEY (Southern Metropolitan) (14:42): I rise to also speak on the Crimes Amendment (Retail, Fast Food, Hospitality and Transport Worker Harm) Bill 2025. While its stated aim is to protect customer-facing workers from violence and abuse, this bill takes an approach that risks criminalising vulnerability rather than offering anything substantively new that will reduce harm for those workers, so the Greens will not be supporting it today.

The bill amends the Crimes Act 1958 and the Summary Offences Act 1966 to create a new category of applicable customer-facing workers covering retail, fast food, hospitality, transport and shopping centre workers. It purports to create new offences for assaulting, threatening, intimidating or engaging in offensive or abusive conduct towards those workers, with penalties of up to six months imprisonment, or 60 penalty units. These offences apply not only while a worker is on shift but also on breaks and while they are coming to or leaving work, provided the conduct is linked to their duties. The bill also introduces a new aggravated burglary-style offence for ram raids. It expands the definition of ‘aggravated burglary’ to include ram raids where a vehicle is used to gain entry to a building during a burglary.

No-one disputes that violence against workers is unacceptable. The problem is that this bill responds by expanding vague, subjective offences and harsh penalties, which experience tells us will fall hardest on the most marginalised people. Clause 7 in the bill is concerning, and I understand several members have raised queries about the intended scope of this clause, which creates a new summary offence for using profane, indecent, obscene, threatening, abusive or insulting language or behaviour towards a customer-facing worker, punishable by up to six months imprisonment. That is three times the current maximum for indecent language in public. It is in effect giving the state the power to jail people for swearing or using coarse language in a heated interaction in a cafe, supermarket or taxi, even where no physical harm occurs. We will have queries for the government around their intention when we come to the committee stage of this bill.

Indecent and offensive language offences are widely recognised as archaic and inconsistently applied. They are inherently subjective, and they have historically been enforced in a discriminatory way against young people, people experiencing mental illness or distress, those with a cognitive disability and people living in poverty or homelessness. Extending these offences into workplace and private settings risks replicating those same problems on a larger scale without any credible evidence that this approach will improve safety for workers.

As has been noted already in the contributions to this debate, the government’s approach in this bill is also duplicative. There are already offences in the Crimes Act and the Summary Offences Act that cover assault, threats and intimidation, regardless of who the victim is. Those provisions are available today, right now, here and now, to respond to serious abuse of retail, hospitality and transport workers. The answer lies, clearly, in proper enforcement of those existing laws but also – and that is where this bill falls down – in better workplace safety measures and investment in de-escalation training and support, not in creating duplicative offences and measures that will police everyday language and expand low-level public order policing.

The bill expands the indictable assault provision in section 31 of the Crimes Act by specifically adding customer-facing workers to the list of protected workers. The Greens do believe that this is duplicative and a bit of a performative act by the government, as all forms of assault against any person are already captured by section 31 of the Crimes Act. This bill does not create new protection beyond what is already in law, but what it may do is further criminalise people experiencing mental illness or distress or homelessness, who often come into contact with frontline staff during crisis situations. The proposed new offences are also likely to have a disproportionate impact on Aboriginal people and other communities of colour because of racism and racial profiling. Aboriginal people and people of colour already experience discrimination and overpolicing in retail and transport settings, and they live with a well-founded fear of being targeted when complaints are made about their presence or behaviour or conduct in a retail setting.

The case of Aunty Tanya Day, who died in police custody after an unnecessary escalation involving transport staff and public intoxication, shows how easily these interactions – staff interventions and police involvements – can lead to tragic, unequal and unintended outcomes. This bill gives no regard to that dynamic or to the constructive role that workers, properly supported, can play in de-escalating tensions. If the government were truly serious about this important issue of keeping customer-facing workers safe, it would start by reducing the social crises that show up at the shop counter, not by expanding criminal law. That means properly funding mental health services, crisis accommodation and long-term housing so that people are not forced to live, sleep and end up in visible crisis in public spaces. It means investing in alcohol and other drug (AOD) treatment, detox and harm reduction so that people can get help when they ask for it, instead of being turned away or left on waiting lists until things boil over – and that may be in a supermarket aisle or on a tram.

We also need models of support that de-escalate in these situations. That includes expanding outreach and co-responder teams with mental health and AOD workers who can attend incidents like this, sometimes in retail and transport settings, instead of the default response in these situations of conflict having to be police. The state could require and fund evidence-based de-escalation training and trauma-informed practice for employers and staff alongside clear guidelines that do prioritise worker safety instead of just zero-tolerance marketing slogans. And it should be talking with employers about secure employment and strong occupational health and safety standards so that workers are not left alone, under-resourced and expected to manage what are sometimes complex social problems without the backing of a properly funded support system.

In closing, I just want to say that protecting workers from violence is vital, which is why this bill, as drafted, is a disappointment. It has the potential to criminalise vulnerability. The expansion of some of the subjective offences is vague and requires further explanation of the government’s intent in committee. It risks deepening racial and social inequalities, and it is duplicative and does not actually involve an increase in protection through those offences, which are already crimes under the Crimes Act. In closing, there is more that the government could do to make workplaces safer. The Greens will not be supporting this approach today.

 Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (14:50): I am delighted to speak on the Crimes Amendment (Retail, Fast Food, Hospitality and Transport Worker Harm) Bill 2025. This legislation is close to my heart. Prior to entering this place I was proud to work for 11 years as an organiser at the SDA union, where I had the privilege of representing retail and fast-food workers with their workplace issues and concerns. Throughout that time it was very clear to see that the issue of abusive customers was as widespread as it was corrosive to the wellbeing of staff. It is an issue that I was sad as well to observe becoming all the more exacerbated in recent years in the wake of the pandemic.

The SDA has run a very successful campaign over many years now entitled No-one Deserves a Serve, aimed at targeting customer abuse from the lower level to the more extreme. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the SDA and to Victorian branch secretary Michael Donovan for his relentless advocacy in the interest of keeping workers safe through the No-one Deserves a Serve campaign and indeed through his advocacy for the legislation that is before us today. The campaign has been aimed at changing habits amongst customers and retailers themselves. At the pointy end it has led to the development of these and similar laws to combat violence against staff. This aggression exists on a spectrum, ranging from relatively minor abuse that retail staff have to endure on a near daily basis to the serious level of offending addressed by this bill.

One of the more depressing days which stands out for me was when I was undertaking a site visit to a supermarket in an affluent suburb of Melbourne. A 15-year-old was on their first shift of their very first job and in the first hour had already been abused by a customer. This was not an isolated example, and it is not something that these workers should ever have to accept as being just part of the job. We are, fortunately, moving away from the days when the mantra ‘The customer is always right’ prevailed. Many retail staff would know all too well the deflating feeling of an abusive customer being rewarded with a gift card by management to stop them complaining. In one particularly egregious case I represented a check-out cashier who had been given a warning simply because a customer had thrown a loaded bag of groceries at her head. The warning was overturned, but the message from her employer was clear. Today retailers are much more proactive in messaging to customers that the safety of their staff is paramount. I acknowledge their advocacy in this space for these reforms and thank them for it as well.

The bill that is before us today brings in tougher penalties for those who see fit to assault or violently abuse retail and other service workers, including those working in fast food, in hospitality, in public transport, including station attendants and bus drivers, and in shopping centre ancillary services, including cleaners and security staff. Also, crucially for these workers, an offence will be deemed to have been committed if it is perpetrated against one of these workers in connection with their duties, not necessarily merely in the course of the duties themselves. This means, for example, that an offender who finds a worker after their shift in the car park or at the station on the way home from their store or a railway worker coming out of the station depot who is then targeted because of their profession or from an earlier incident will be covered by this legislation.

The penalties for assaulting a worker defined under this bill will be uplifted to a maximum six months imprisonment for a summary offence and five years for a more serious indictable offence. Noting some of the misinformation that was put out by the Shadow Attorney-General, I can confirm for the house that the five-year penalty is found on page 3 of the bill, despite statements by the Shadow Attorney-General to the contrary, who apparently had not understood the bill.

This bill also bears some familiarity to laws passed by this government in a previous term which increased penalties against those who assault frontline emergency services in recognition of the work that they do. There are some differences, however – notably the provisions in the emergency worker laws relating to obstruction or hindrance are deemed not to be required as relevant in the same way in this bill. But conversely, this bill will be unique in that it will consider the intimidation of a worker as constituting an offence. This reflects the fact that retail, fast food and hospitality workers are much more likely to be younger or from vulnerable backgrounds than the general workforce, and it acknowledges the impact that this offending can have on people just getting started in the workforce.

I am also particularly pleased that the uplift to the maximum penalties in this bill both for summary and indictable offences will commence the day after royal assent, meaning that should this bill pass the chamber today, as I very much hope it will, these laws will be in place in time for Christmas this year. A further aspect of the bill, which will come into effect in March next year, will be the classification of ramraiding offences as aggravated burglaries, thereby also uplifting the maximum penalty for this type of offending to 25 years. This also reflects the significant impact such crimes can have on retail staff.

This legislation is very important to me, and indeed it was something that I advocated for in my first speech in this chamber. I have been privileged to assist with the formulation of these laws as part of the worker protection consultation group alongside the Attorney-General, who I thank for her work. With voices from workers, industry and the justice system at the table, the group was comprised of the SDA, the Shop, Distributive & Allied Employees’ Association; the RTBU, the Rail, Tram and Bus Union; the TWU, the Transport Workers Union – I note I have got a former branch secretary and former national president of the great TWU sitting next to me right now; the UWU, the United Workers Union; industry groups, including the ARA, the Australian Retailers Association, and the pharmacy guild; as well as police, DPP and the department. This working group shaped the bill before us today. In addition, I appreciated the many conversations I had with various other stakeholders, including with both Metcash and Woolworths. As well as those mentioned, I would like to particularly acknowledge Lauren Johnson from the Attorney’s office for her dedication to this bill.

This bill is a major step forward, but it is not the only step. When this bill was tabled the Premier announced the second tranche of reforms in this space to keep retail workers safe, with legislation to implement workplace protection orders to be in the Parliament by April next year. Workplace protection orders, or WPOs, operate as an instrument of the courts to keep serious and often repeat offenders out of workplaces where they can harm and cause distress to customer-facing workers. Those who breach a WPO will then face further serious consequences in the court system. They are currently in effect in the ACT, and indeed also similar laws have just passed the Parliament in South Australia. The consultation group set up for this bill will now continue its work to develop and hone the model for WPOs in Victoria and how we will most effectively be able to implement them.

WPOs are important reforms, but they need to be done properly. I do note that in response to the Premier’s announcement of WPOs in Victoria, the opposition attempted to rush out a set of amendments to incorporate them into this bill in an effort to be seen to be perhaps relevant or proactive. Rushing in amendments at the last minute to make a political point, though, is not going to achieve the aim of doing these important reforms properly. Understanding that these were first moved in the Assembly and Mr Mulholland has moved, I believe, a similar set in the Council today – and I take the opportunity to acknowledge Mr Mulholland’s former membership of the SDA union as well – I am concerned about some of the potential issues that have been discovered in the way in which these amendments have been put forward, concerning specifically in some cases the wording of some of the amendments, where an offender may turn out to be required to be convicted of an offence before a WPO can be applied, which would dramatically delay their application. I note that the Liberals’ proposal for WPOs would completely shut the union out from the process as well.

Given the rushed nature of these amendments as a reaction to the government’s announcement, I am not convinced that they have taken adequate consultation on them. This government will legislate WPOs, but we will do so properly.

As a further step, I am also pleased to note the policing operation over summer which will see police and PSOs deployed at select shopping centres. This is an important initiative, which will deploy frontline police and PSOs where they are needed to respond to incidents and be a visible force to provide workers and customers alike with the peace of mind that they deserve to have, especially in the busy shopping period ahead. This operation, like the bill before us today, is also about responding to the changing trends that we are seeing with crime in this state. As the nature of offending evolves, we are evolving our laws with it.

In the first speech I gave to this chamber three years ago, I remarked on my desire that the members I represented in my time at the SDA would always be front of mind in this place. Today I am proud to contribute to this bill passing and to making our workplaces safer for Victorian workers. I emphatically commend this bill to the house.

 David LIMBRICK (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (15:01): I also would like to say a few words on the Crimes Amendment (Retail, Fast Food, Hospitality and Transport Worker Harm) Bill 2025. I do not think anyone is disputing that no-one wants to see workers at their place of work being abused, assaulted and harmed by customers. I think everyone in this chamber agrees on that from what I have heard so far. The real question is how to address that.

I heard from Mr Mulholland earlier about how the Liberal Party formed the view that many of these things are effectively already covered by existing laws, and in fact that is my view as well. What we are seeing here with this bill is what I like to call a ‘double illegal’ bill, where the government need to act as if they are doing something so they make something that is illegal ‘double illegal’ so that they can tell everyone that they are doing something. But of course it has no real effect in the real world. You know, they can tell people that they are proud of the bill and that they are really happy about it and that all their union friends are happy about it, but the reality is everything that they are talking about in here is already a crime. It is already a crime to assault people. It is already a crime to break into stores. It is already a crime to ramraid stores. These are already crimes. The real problem is that the crimes are not being enforced, and if they are being enforced or found, the offenders are being let out again. That is one of the problems here.

Another problem is the incentives that are causing these crimes in the first place. I note that one of the biggest forms of crime is theft, in particular theft of tobacco products. That is a direct result of the federal government’s excise tax regime, which has caused an explosion in crime, both petty crime and organised crime, in this state. I do not wholly blame the state government for this as it is the federal government, but I will have more to say about the 14 authorised officers that are scheduled to be rolled out for the government’s tobacco licensing scheme and sent up against the entire organised crime apparatus in this state. I will be very interested to see how the government actually intends to make any impact whatsoever.

I also worked in hospitality once upon a time when I was a young man. I worked in a in a bar, and I also worked as a waiter. And yes, it is rough work. You get nasty customers. People say bad things to you, they abuse you and it is not nice. We do need to do something about it. What I would like to see is the government allowing shopping centre owners and small businesses that have these problems to be able to enforce property rights themselves. I note that recently we have had the expansion of the designated areas legislation, and the police have subsequently used that to designate the entire CBD a pat-down paradise zone for six months. They have expanded that more recently to shopping centres with PSOs, so shopping centres are also a pat-down paradise.

But what they do not allow shopping centre owners to do is have security guards that can actually do anything serious. I would really like them to enable shopping centre owners to have security guards that are at least armed with pepper spray and can do something about people that are misbehaving in their store and abusing customers and hit back against these people. I think that it is wrong that we have effectively taxpayers paying to handle the security concerns of private businesses because those private businesses are not enabled to handle those security concerns themselves. All they can do is install CCTV, and some of them have got fogging systems and stuff now. I have seen that the local supermarket near me has got a fogging system. They can have security guards that stand there and check bags and things, but they cannot stop anyone doing anything. I would like to see the government allow them to have security guards that can actually do something and stop these people, put the PSOs out doing other things that are going to be higher value and not effectively subsidise the security of shopping centres.

As we have seen with these designated areas limiting people’s rights, I know that some shopping centre managers like the idea of this. I would be interested to see what their reaction is once their customers start getting randomly searched within their premises. They might change their mind on that, because people who run shopping centres focus a lot on customer experience, they focus a lot on customer service and that sort of thing and they focus on customer safety as well. If you have got PSOs going around and randomly patting down customers and waving wands over them – and it will have to be random of course, because if it was not random, then that would be racial profiling or something – I imagine that customer experience will not be so good.

So although I agree with Mr Mulholland on many of his conclusions about this bill and its ineffectiveness, these are the exact reasons that the Libertarian Party will be opposing this bill. I said a while ago that I will not be supporting any more ‘double illegal’ bills because really they are just legislative virtue signalling; they do not actually achieve anything. I think that the right approach here is to ensure that the current laws are being enforced, to ensure that people who are brought in and do commit these crimes suffer serious penalties, which can happen under the current laws but for some reason does not seem to be happening much, and to allow businesses to enforce their property rights with more capabilities than they have got now, because they do not really have much capability at the moment. At the moment they have the cameras. They have a security guard that stands there and watches people commit crimes but cannot really do anything; they have to call the police and wait for them to turn up. I do not think that Victorians want to get patted down by PSOs when they go to the shopping centre.

 Rachel PAYNE (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (15:08): I rise to speak on the Crimes Amendment (Retail, Fast Food, Hospitality and Transport Worker Harm) Bill 2025 on behalf of Legalise Cannabis Victoria. This bill amends the Crimes Act 1958 and the Summary Offences Act 1966 to protect workers in customer-facing retail, fast-food, hospitality and passenger transport industries from harm. As my colleague David Ettershank has previously raised in this place, the Allan Labor government has failed to adequately respond to a surge in crime in retail settings in Victoria. According to data from the Crime Statistics Agency, there were over 41,000 incidents of theft from retail stores in the 2024–25 period, an increase of 27.6 per cent in the past year alone. Food theft has risen by over 80 per cent, and cigarette and alcohol theft by 58.6 per cent.

While these statistics are gobsmacking, increased rates of shoplifting are symptomatic of a cost-of-living crisis in this state. It is concerning that this rise in abuse and violence towards retail staff is what we are seeing. According to the Victorian Shop, Distributive & Allied Employees’ Association, or SDA, state secretary Michael Donovan, workers are being screamed at, spat on, shoved, dragged across counters, slashed and stabbed. That is just appalling. Data from the Australian Retailers Association shows that 51 per cent of workers experience physical abuse monthly or more often and 87 per cent of retail workers experience verbal abuse.

In my former professional life, before becoming a member of Parliament, I actually represented retail industry workers. I represented adult industry workers. I always like to reflect on my time there, because, interestingly, those businesses were more often than not self-regulating in this space around safety. Things like duress alarms, security cameras, internal training mechanisms and safety precautions were all part of the business model that the adult industry reflected upon, because everyone deserves to feel safe at work, no matter what they are selling or what kind of work they are offering. But increasingly, retail workers are confronted with violent harassment and abuse. It is not an easy job, but for many, it is often their first job. More than a third of the workforce is made up of young women between the ages of 15 and 24. We are deeply concerned that it is only a matter of time before a fatality occurs, particularly as we head towards the Christmas season, when demand on retail workers is at an all-time high.

Turning now to the details of this bill, it will introduce three new offences. This includes a new indictable offence for assaulting or threatening to assault an applicable worker in connection with the performance of the worker’s duties. The maximum penalty for this offence will be five years imprisonment. This is modelled on an existing offence, but it will be easier to prove as it does not require an accused to have an intent to commit an indictable offence. Secondly, this bill will introduce a new summary offence for lower level assaults for applicable customer-facing workers in connection with the performance of their duties. The maximum penalty for this offence will be 60 penalty units or six months imprisonment. This is intended to be used in place of the existing common assault offence that it is modelled on, allowing for a doubling of the penalty.

Thirdly, this bill will introduce a new summary offence of without lawful excuse using language that is profane, indecent, obscene, threatening, abusive or insulting or otherwise engaging in conduct that is threatening, indecent, offensive or insulting towards a protected worker in connection with the performance of the worker’s duties. The maximum penalty for this offence will be 25 penalty units or six months imprisonment. This offence also builds on an existing offence but will not require the conduct to have occurred in a public place and will triple the existing maximum penalty of two months imprisonment.

Another notable element of this bill is that it will provide that the offence of aggravated burglary will apply when a person commits a burglary and uses a vehicle to cause damage to the building for the purpose of gaining entry to that building. This will ensure that ram raids are taken seriously when it comes to sentencing, recognising that a car is effectively being used as a weapon.

The final notable component of this bill is the requirement that it be subject to a statutory review within two years of commencement. It is particularly important to us that this legislation be reviewed, as it is nowhere near perfect. We have heard from legal stakeholders that a lot of what is in this bill seeks to merely duplicate offences and adds further unnecessary complexity. Statutory review will be essential to understanding whether these new offences end up being used at all and if there are any unintended consequences. We also want to make sure that the offence in this bill for language that is profane, indecent, obscene, threatening, abusive or insulting does not end up capturing people who are frustrated and may have dropped a swearword or two. We will raise this and other issues during the committee stage of this bill.

We are also deeply concerned that the impacts of this bill will not be felt equally. Data from the Racial Profiling Data Monitoring Project has again showed that Aboriginal people are overpoliced. Aboriginal people are 15 times more likely to be searched by Victoria Police officers than non-Aboriginal people and are 10 times more likely to have force used against them. This is despite Victoria Police claiming they banned racial profiling in 2015. We expect that if a statutory review shows that these new offences are not keeping workers safe and are instead targeting marginalised communities, these laws will be repealed. I reiterate: every person has the right to feel safe at work; no-one should be intimidated or threatened or harassed or harmed when they are in their workplace. But amid an epidemic of retail crime across this state, often young, inexperienced people are the ones who are put on the front lines, and they deserve better.

 David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (15:15): I am pleased to make a contribution to this bill, which has been too long coming to this chamber. Just a few weeks ago we moved a motion calling for greater attention on what was happening with retail and hospitality workers, and the government voted against that motion. You have got to ask yourself how heartless, how thoughtless, how odd it is to vote against a motion that called for action on these matters. Now, finally, the government is pushing forward with a bill, desperately wanting to respond to what is a crisis in our community.

Mr Limbrick and others have spoken, and the points they made were right. There is agreement across the chamber that those in these hospitality and retail areas ought not be targeted by thuggish people, that they ought to be able to go to work safely, that they ought to have a pleasant work environment and that there should be protections for that, and we strongly support that. That is why we moved in the way we did. That is why we called for protection of retail workers. That is why we moved a motion in this chamber. But the government, the Premier, the Minister for Police, were very weak on these matters until their sort of conversion experience just a week or two ago where they realised that they were losing the battle in the community and the community had formed the view that the government did not care about crime, did not care about the epidemic of crime, did not care about the carjackings, did not care about the home invasions, did not care about the violence that was landing on people. And do you know what, they did not care about retail workers either.

When we moved that motion, Mr Welch, in his then new portfolio of industrial relations, spoke to the shop distributive union and had a very good conversation with them. I do not think he would mind me saying that he found that instructive. The fact is that those unions understand that the government has been slow, it has been incompetent and it has not been up to it. So we say yes, bring forward these changes. There are some amendments which will seek to improve the flaws in this hurried bill.

Michael Galea interjected.

David DAVIS: Mr Galea tried to say the amendments were hurried, but the bill is hurried. I mean, that is the truth. The government has flapped around on this bill and has got no idea what it is doing. It has been slow. It has been absolutely sloth-like.

Members interjecting.

David DAVIS: It has been slow to get to the point where it thought it had better do something. Then just a week or two ago it realised, ‘Oh, my goodness, we’re in deep trouble on crime.’ Clearly some polling came into Jacinta Allan’s office and she flipped. She then thought, ‘I’d better start doing something.’ Then there was this flurry of bills, many of them ill thought through, many of them not sharply focused and many of them too late in the day to have the best effect and to get the best result. So the bill is hurried, but it was very slow in its early genesis. It was very, very slow, but it is hurried in this later phase.

I have to say that the opposition see ways to improve this bill, and we will seek to improve it. But we will do so with the focus on helping those in the community and helping those in the retail sector and the hospitality sector in particular. I say that transport workers also deserve proper protection. Indeed we brought bills to this chamber in an earlier cycle to try and strengthen penalties, and there was no support out of the government at that point. There was no support out of the government when we sought to strengthen the penalties for those who were assaulted or threatened whilst going about their work as transport employees in a number of key areas. Bus drivers, train drivers, train staff – all of those workers deserve to have a safe and pleasant work environment. They do not deserve the threats that have become too much a part of these points.

Yes, the government has brought this bill. Yes, it was very slow in getting to the point where it thought it had better do something on these matters. As I say, it was only about a month ago that we had a motion in this chamber that the government voted down, shamefully.

Michael Galea interjected.

David DAVIS: It was attacking you because you were not doing anything. That is the problem. You did not seem to care and nor did anyone over that side of the chamber. All of the Labor people over that side of the chamber did not care. That is the truth of the matter.

You did not care. I have to say that the Labor Party were in a position where they were not listening to the union movement, not listening to the community, not listening to the workers and not listening to the wave of people in the community saying, ‘Enough is enough. We don’t need more violence. We don’t need more threats. We don’t need more hostilities, more home invasions, more carjackings.’ I quoted a number of the retailers when I moved the motion. The major retailers are going off their tree on this. The major supermarkets, all of them, are going crazy about the fact that the government would not take the proper steps.

If the government had have listened a year ago, six months ago, three years ago, there would have been a better outcome here. Mr Galea then wants to say, ‘You’ll have to wait for a system of orders. You’re going to have to wait longer and longer for a system of orders.’ The attack on the government is that they did not do this previously. They had to be dragged to it by the community, who said to Jacinta Allan, ‘Enough is enough. We see that you don’t understand what’s going on in the community. We see that you don’t understand the threats and the violence that are in the community. We see that you have been dismissive of that for so long.’ They weakened the bail laws – that is a big part of it. The weakening of the bail laws by this government is a big part of what has gone wrong. The government has got to face up to its errors, its faults, its mistakes.

Nick McGowan: We’ve got a part-time police minister. He’s too busy at the races.

David DAVIS: He is probably one of the better ones, actually. He is actually trying to do something, but he has been stymied by the left of the Labor Party, who have blocked him at every possible turn.

Leaving that aside, we will not be opposing this bill. We will be seeking to amend it. We will be seeking to introduce a system of orders. As I said, Mr Galea said they have been done too quickly. It is the government that has rushed this legislation at the last minute after it has panicked. I say it is not good enough. The community knows that this is a political response by the government, a political response at the last minute and a response that is not driven by the genuine care and concern for the community that should be driving it.

 Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (15:23): I rise to speak to the Crimes Amendment (Retail, Fast Food, Hospitality and Transport Worker Harm) Bill 2025. I have just been listening to Mr Davis’s contribution, and he is quite right. About a month ago we were discussing this very issue of what is happening in our community and how the community feels, especially around retail workers, who have been let down by this government for far too long. What has been happening right across our community and across the state is a crime crisis that has escalated to a point where the vision has just been so appalling of what is happening in shopping centres, in our communities, in our streets, in our homes and – to the point of this bill – to the retail workers, the thuggish behaviour and the very aggressive behaviour that has accumulated.

I want to also place on record the work of my colleague David Southwick in prosecuting this case over many, many months – and others. As Mr Davis said, Mr Welch really brought to the fore a number of excellent points around retail crime. If you look at the stats, the stats tell a story and paint a picture about what is happening in Victoria on this very issue. Those leaders of corporations and businesses have spoken out against the government.

[The Legislative Council report is being published progressively.]