Tuesday, 9 December 2025

 Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (22:07): (2227) My adjournment is for the Minister for Industrial Relations, and the action that I am seeking is for the minister to join me in calling on all Victorians to treat retail workers with respect this Christmas and new year period. Throughout the holidays, retail workers helped to make celebrating possible for families. And whilst other workers are winding down, they are ramping up. They are there to help, and it is vital that everyone treats them with dignity and the respect that they deserve. Survey data from the SDA – the union – shows that in the last 12 months, nine out of 10 workers have experienced abuse, with one in four reporting firsthand experiences of assault. This is unacceptable at any time of the year but especially so now. There is simply no excuse. That is why the government has introduced and passed new offences to crack down on violent abuse and assaults against hardworking customer-facing staff, including retail workers and fast food, hospitality, transport and allied workers as well. And I am so glad to hear that, with royal assent today, those laws will be in effect in just under 2 hours now, at midnight tonight, with new indictable offences with up to five years imprisonment for the more serious types of offending and doubling the summary offences up to six months for the lower end but still very serious offending as well.

To enforce these laws and protect workers and customers, Operation Pulse will also be deploying PSOs to busy Melbourne shopping centres ahead of the festive period and throughout it as well. We will also be seeing the Allan Labor government introduce and legislate workplace protection orders in the new year as well, and I am very excited to see a further measure to protect our hardworking essential service workers. To reiterate, the action that I am seeking is for the minister to join me in calling on all Victorians to treat retail and other service workers with the respect that they deserve this Christmas and new year period.