Tuesday, 2 December 2025

 Katherine COPSEY (Southern Metropolitan) (02:11): (2178) My adjournment matter is to the Minister for Police. Victoria Police have declared the CBD, Docklands, Southbank, the sports and entertainment precinct and parts of East Melbourne and South Melbourne designated areas for six months. For half a year police and PSOs will be able to stop and search anyone in those areas – no warrant required, no reasonable suspicion required, no questions asked. Community legal centres and human rights organisations and the media are ringing the alarm. Inner Melbourne Community Legal has described this as a ‘vast overreach’, and Premier Allan in enabling this has effectively turned the city into a permanent stop-and-search zone. The Federation of Community Legal Centres, Liberty Victoria, the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service and the Human Rights Law Centre have all warned that these expansions are the opposite of fair evidence-based law making, and they will entrench racial profiling, because we know from previous experience, recent experience, who is going to be targeted and searched.

In the same week that this declaration occurred, new data from the Centre Against Racial Profiling confirmed, based on Victoria Police’s own data obtained under FOI by these organisations, and the report revealed, that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were 15 times more likely to be searched than white people in 2024, despite being less likely to be found with prohibited items. In other words, communities of colour are stopped more and searched more, and police find less. This affected far more communities of colour as well, and it is textbook unreasonable, discriminatory policing. Police were 10 times more likely to use the force or threat of force against communities of colour. African, Middle Eastern and Pacific Islander communities were also disproportionately targeted, with African community members eight times more likely to be searched than white people, seven times more likely to be subjected to force and 24 times more likely to be pursued by police vehicles.

Racial profiling does not just discriminate, it creates a racially stratified community. Despite their formal ban on racial profiling since 2015, the latest search data shows that for Victoria Police this practice remains widespread, and the Allan Labor government should be ashamed that it is happening on its watch. We have also seen journalists searched over the weekend under these powers, and just today we have seen that police, due to a legal blunder, have been conducting illegal searches using their designated area powers. So the action I seek is the minister immediately revoke the six-month CBD designated area declaration, halt any further expansion of designated areas and tackle systemic racism in policing by establishing an independent police ombudsman. You need to invest in community-led safety and work with community, legal and human rights experts to end racial profiling in Victoria.