Wednesday, 26 August 2026

 Renee HEATH (Eastern Victoria) (18:17): I rise tonight to speak on the Workplace Protection Orders Bill 2026, a bill that has been a very long time coming and which addresses protections that Victorian workers should already have available to them. The history here matters. It was nearly 300 days ago that the Liberals and Nationals sought to establish workplace protection orders through amendments to similar legislation, with the member for Caulfield in the other place doing an enormous amount of work to develop those amendments. More recently we again sought to establish a workplace protection regime through a private members bill. Now, after all that opposition and delay, the government has finally arrived at a position that we advocated for almost a year ago. We welcome the fact that they eventually recognised the need for workplace protection orders, and we will not be opposing this bill, but the delay has mattered because there have been real consequences for Victorian workers because of it.

When a problem exists, particularly one involving violence and threats against people doing their jobs, government has an obligation to respond with urgency. Over the past year there have been around 5000 incidents involving crime against people in Victorian workplaces, including assaults and other serious offences. That means that thousands of Victorians have potentially gone without a form of protection that could have been available to them had the government supported our proposed plan nearly 300 days ago. We cannot know precisely how many incidents could have been prevented, but it is reasonable to say that workplace protection orders would have provided another tool to at least some of those thousands of workers.

The government will no doubt say that they have been consulting, considering and working through the detail, but when workers are being assaulted, threatened, stalked and intimidated, taking almost a year to decide something needs to be done is simply too long. We have seen how quickly this government can act when there is something that is important to them, and they have not done so in this instance. It is also difficult to understand what has changed. Previously the government, under the former Premier, rejected these measures. Yet almost immediately after the change of Premier, we suddenly have this legislation before us here in the Parliament. Perhaps there was an internal disagreement within Labor about whether workplace protection orders should proceed. Perhaps the arrival of the Premier from a different faction finally broke that deadlock. Whatever happened internally, Victorian workers should not have to wait for Labor to sort out their own issues and to work out their position. Perhaps it was the new Premier’s inspirational reading. We have heard that his favourite book is Where the Light Gets In, with its promise of ‘simple, playful and profound perspective shifts to change your life’. Well, we certainly have seen a profound change in perspective, a huge shift from this Labor government. After twice voting against workplace protection orders, they have now decided to lead them and support them.

Unfortunately, while the government’s position has shifted, the bill before us still does not get that detail right. The Liberals and Nationals will not oppose this legislation because we have been calling for workplace protection orders for a long time, but we will seek to amend it because there are significant weaknesses that should be addressed if this regime is going to provide workers with the protections that they deserve and the protections that they need. Nobody working behind a counter, in a supermarket, on public transport or anywhere should have to accept violence and intimidation as part of their job. This is why major employers have been calling for action. Coles chief executive Leah Weckert warned that ‘retail crime is escalating’, and other senior figures across the sector have argued for similar stronger protections and that they need the laws strengthened so they can have the help that they need.

There was a clear problem and there was a clear need to act, yet despite finally accepting the principle of workplace protection orders, the government has produced legislation containing four significant flaws that the Liberals and Nationals will seek to address through our amendments. The first is the extraordinary delay before the regime actually begins. After taking 265 days to come around to the idea, the government now proposes a regime that will not commence until July next year. In other words, after workers have already waited almost a year since we first proposed these protections, the government wants them to wait almost another year before they can actually use them. I believe that is indefensible, because we are talking about around 5000 crimes against people in workplace settings over the course of just one year. An 11-month delay potentially means thousands more incidents occurring before workplace protection orders become available to them. The government might argue that July is merely the default commencement date, but during the briefing on this legislation it was confirmed that July next year is its intended commencement. Why should retail workers facing threats today have to wait another 11 months? Why should a transport worker being repeatedly harassed have to wait? Why, after the government has already delayed these reforms for so long, is another year required? Governments are perfectly capable of acting quickly when they want to. We have seen legislation rushed through this Parliament on countless occasions when it has suited the government and their political agenda. When the issue is protecting somebody from violence or threats in their workplace, an 11-month delay cannot simply be waved away as an administrative necessity.

Our first amendment will therefore seek to bring the commencement of the regime forward. I hope members of the crossbench and in the other place will look closely at the proposal, because workers should not be forced to wait any longer than necessary for protections that should already exist. Now would be a good time to circulate them. The second major issue is around victim consent. Under the government’s bill the person supposedly being protected does not have a general right to consent to an application being made.

An employer or union can potentially seek an order based on information involving a victim without the victim agreeing to it. This raises some fairly serious concerns. Imagine an employee confides in a colleague about something deeply personal. It might involve family violence, stalking or another traumatic situation occurring outside of the workplace. That information could potentially become the basis for a workplace protection order application without the victim controlling whether the application proceeds. That could expose information the victim never intended to become known more broadly and potentially alert the other party to the fact that the information has been disclosed. This is something that I think, from what we know from the statistics about when things are disclosed, could really place somebody in danger. A workplace protection order is supposedly about protecting the victim, so surely the victim should have some autonomy over that process. Victim consent should therefore be an important part of this regime, subject of course to appropriately drafted exceptions where the circumstances genuinely require them. Victims should have autonomy over their circumstances and their story, particularly where deeply personal information may be involved. Yet this bill does not properly recognise that principle. Our second amendment therefore seeks to address victim consent.

The third problem is the government’s unnecessarily narrow definition of the workers who can access these protections. This bill covers certain retail and transport workers, but the definition applying to retail creates an absurd distinction between workers selling goods and workers providing services. Here is one example that my colleague Mr Mulholland spoke to me about when we were chatting about this legislation. He said, ‘Take Broadmeadows Central, just down the road from my Meadow Heights electorate office. There are retail workers serving food and selling goods who will be covered by this regime, yet somebody working at the Hoyts cinema in the same centre may not receive the same protections because they are providing a service rather than selling a good.’ It is very interesting, and it could be something that, through our amendments, can be resolved so workers have equality around what protections are offered to them. It is amazing that you could literally have two workers metres apart in the same shopping complex, both dealing with customers, both exposed to the same aggressive behaviour, both performing what any Victorian would understand to be retail work, yet one is protected by this legislation and one is not. That does not make sense, and that is a loophole that we hope will be closed.

This government’s response is that it may consider expanding the definition after the legislation has been operating and when it is reviewed after three years. Three years is quite frankly just not acceptable. Why should a worker selling a service wait three years for a government to consider whether they deserve the same protections as somebody working next door to them selling a product? Violence does not distinguish between goods and services. Threatening behaviour does not become less serious because an employee on the receiving end happens to work in a cinema, a service business or another workplace outside the government’s narrow definition. This distinction is arbitrary and should be fixed now, rather than leaving workers outside of the scheme and promising to reconsider their situation three years down the track. That is simply not okay. Our third amendment therefore seeks to expand the definition of workers covered by this legislation.

The fourth amendment relates to Victoria Police. As drafted, this legislation does not allow police to apply for a workplace protection order. We are certainly not suggesting that police should become the primary applicant in every case. In most circumstances it might be entirely appropriate for an employee or another authorised party to lead the application. But police should at least have the power to apply where the circumstances justify it. We are dealing with situations involving threats, violence, stalking and criminal behaviour. Police will frequently already be involved with the people and incidents concerned. There are many circumstances where police have dealt repeatedly with particular offenders and believe that the risk is so serious that a workplace protection order may be necessary. It makes little sense to deliberately deny them the capacity to therefore seek one. Our amendment would therefore empower police to apply for an order where appropriate. It would not require them to lead every application or impose an unnecessary burden on police, but it would ensure that the power exists when it is needed.

These are our four amendments: (1) to bring the regime into operation sooner, (2) to give victims the appropriate right of consent, (3) to ensure workers providing services are not arbitrarily excluded from protection and (4) to allow police to seek an order where circumstances warrant it. The Liberals and Nationals have consistently supported the establishment of workplace protection orders, which is why we will not be opposing this bill. But supporting the principle of the bill does not mean ignoring the obvious weaknesses in its drafting. Victorian workers deserve a regime that actually works that will actually protect them.

The question of consent is particularly important, I believe. Across our justice system we recognise the importance of treating victims with dignity while allowing them to have appropriate control over deeply personal information and experiences. A workplace protection order could involve extraordinarily sensitive circumstances. It could arise from family violence. It could arise from stalking. It could arise from threats or behaviour that somebody has disclosed privately to a colleague or an employer. The system is designed to protect victims, and it should not inadvertently strip them of control over the information about their own lives and their own experience. That is why we believe that the government really needs to reconsider its position before this legislation completes its passage through this Parliament.

The same applies to the definition of ‘workers’. It is difficult to explain to any Victorian why two people working a few metres apart should have different rights simply because one sells goods and the other is providing a service. Both face the same risk. They should have access to the same protections. It is that simple. There is equally no compelling reason to prevent police from applying for an order if it is appropriate in that case. Police deal directly with criminal offending and dangerous individuals every single day. Giving them the capacity to seek an order where they believe it is necessary not only is sensible but protects the people who protect us.

Most importantly, however, this regime needs to begin sooner. Victorians have already waited long enough. In my own region in Pakenham young people have been told to wear body cams to work in supermarkets and cafes and places like this. How on earth has it got to this in Victoria? Imagine sending your 15-year-old to work and saying, ‘Have you got your body cam on, sweetheart?’ These things are becoming so common in the state of Victoria. We cannot afford, in my opinion, to wait until July next year when in the past year there have been around 5000 incidents. Workers in this state have waited long enough. The government had the opportunity to support workplace protection orders, and it chose not to. It had another opportunity when we introduced a private member’s bill, and again Labor voted against it. Labor voted against protecting workers in Victoria. Now that the government has finally accepted that these protections are needed, there is no justification for forcing workers to wait another 11 months before this law is enacted. The delays have already had real-world consequences. Around 5000 people in Victorian workplace settings have experienced crime against the person over the past year. Behind every statistic is a worker who went to work expecting just to do their job, and instead they experienced violence, threats or intimidation. Some will have been retail workers, some will have been transport workers and some will have been people like my constituent, trying to navigate an intervention order system while somebody continued to stalk and to threaten them.

We cannot undo what happened during the period when Labor refused to act. What we can do is make sure that, having finally established workplace protection orders, we establish the strongest and the most effective regime possible. The Liberals and Nationals have a long record of calling for workplace protection orders in the state of Victoria. We welcome the fact that the government has finally come around to supporting that principle, but after waiting this long Victorian workers should not have to settle for legislation that is unnecessarily delayed and unnecessarily limited. I really hope that the crossbench will examine our amendments carefully and support the changes necessary to make this legislation work and achieve the goals that it is intended to. Victorians deserve a workplace protection rights regime that puts the safety of workers first, respects victims and provides authorities with the tools they need to deal with dangerous behaviour. We have been waiting for it for far too long, and I hope that you will consider our amendments. I will leave it there.

 Aiv PUGLIELLI (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (18:36): I rise today to speak on behalf of my Greens colleagues and myself on the Workplace Protection Orders Bill 2026. As a starting point I want to be really clear that my Greens colleagues and I want people to be safe in their workplaces. It is entirely unacceptable to continue to hear stories of people being attacked, being abused, being threatened or being stalked while at work. These are reprehensible behaviours. In fact there are laws against these types of behaviours because they are so reprehensible, and they should be condemned in the strongest of terms. In saying that from the outset, while I appreciate the government and others’ intentions with regard to this bill, the bill itself, in the manner in which it will be applied, is not the right intervention to solve the cause of these problems. In fact it has been raised with me that this bill in its current form will have a series of negative consequences, particularly affecting some of the most vulnerable people in this state, and as such the Greens will not be supporting this bill.

The bill will introduce the ability for retail, hospitality and public transport operators to ban people from their premises for up to a year based on unacceptable conduct at some point over the previous 12 months. Again, to state what should be obvious, in our view, to all of us, we want workers to be safe in their workplaces. Physical and sexual violence, abuse and stalking are already crimes, and when people are committing these serious offences against workers or against anyone these matters should be dealt with through the appropriate processes. This bill is doing nothing to address the cause of the reprehensible behaviour that is directed towards workers and instead is risking the criminalisation of many people who are already marginalised right across our community.

We need to be investing more in community and support services to make sure that everyone has access to mental health support and to support with addiction with relevant treatment so that everyone has a safe and secure home to live in. The government needs to be investing in funding for social and health services, and it needs to be building more public homes. The risk of this bill is that it will drag more vulnerable people through the criminal justice system. We already know that First Nations people are overpoliced and overincarcerated across this nation. This bill will have a disproportionate impact on First Nations people as well as on people of colour, on disabled people and on people experiencing mental illness and experiencing addiction.

In fact I would like to read from the government’s own statement of treaty compatibility. This is an important statement. Thanks to treaty, this is now a statement wherein the government have to tell on themselves when they are introducing bad legislation with respect to how it engages with First Nations people. The statement says:

Limiting First Peoples’ access to retail premises or public transport risks significant disruption to social and economic opportunities, particularly in regional and rural settings where alternatives are limited. This may present barriers to key aspects of First Peoples’ lives including access to cultural connections and Country, employment, education, healthcare and housing and risk particular impacts on vulnerable groups such as elders, women, young people, and persons with a disability. Rights to culture and Country (articles 11, 12, 25 and 26, UNDRIP) may also be impacted; limiting First Peoples’ practical access to places of spiritual significance, cultural practices and cultural connections.

It is laid out really clearly. This bill risks significant disruption and harm to First Nations people in this state. To go on, the statement of treaty compatibility that goes along with this legislation goes on to say that:

The creation of a new civil order containing conditions that will restrict where a person may go and how they can travel may compound the unacceptable disadvantage inflicted on First Peoples by the historic wrongs and ongoing injustices of colonisation.

‘Compound the unacceptable disadvantage’ – like, what are we doing here? A lot of the points that are raised across both of these documents will also apply to young people. They will apply to disabled people. They will apply to people right across our community who are doing it incredibly tough right across this state. The risks in this bill are just too significant to ignore.

I also have significant concerns about how unacceptable conduct, as it is referred to, will be considered as part of these orders. This term ‘unacceptable’ is, to my knowledge, not a known standard when categorising conduct in Victorian law, so there is too much potential for the subjective definition of this term, which could invite applications for these bans well beyond genuinely threatening behaviour. This is of particular concern when coupled with the final element of the definition of ‘unacceptable conduct’ being:

… conduct that causes a person to experience a reasonable fear of harm.

It is unclear from whose perspective a fear is to be judged in the reasonable fear of harm, and again this creates too much ambiguity, which could lead to difficulty in actually applying the orders consistently, as well as uncertainty in the community as to when and why the bans could and would be enforced. There is a risk that these exclusion orders and potential criminal records could be applied to people who have raised their voice or to someone who is having a single bad day or is at a crisis point in their life. This is not me trying to be dramatic or flippant in any way here, but this is the ambiguity presented by this bill in its current form. These orders will restrict people’s access to essential services. They can restrict people’s freedom of movement. It is important that the definition and the threshold for use is clearly defined and set proportionately high at a high threshold, given the impact of these bans, and the bill as drafted does not do this.

I would particularly like to cover the fact that this bill permits people to be banned from public transport – from stations, trains and buses. Banning people from access to transport could have catastrophic consequences on people’s lives. As was mentioned in the statement of compatibility, rural and regional people will be most keenly impacted, along with First Nations people, people of colour and young people. People living in poverty or experiencing marginalisation in the community across the board rely more heavily on public transport to travel and to connect, and banning them not only represents risk of disproportionate impact but spells disaster. When you live in rural Victoria and when there is only one bus route or train line to get from your house to the nearby town to work, to visit friends or family, to see a doctor or to pay a bill, being banned could seriously mess up your life.

These exclusion orders will particularly impact young people. Teenagers from 14 up do not have the option to drive. They rely really heavily on public transport, and banning them from accessing their way to get around town can also have huge ripple effects. Kids need to be able to take public transport to get to school and to get to work and again to connect with family and community, play sports and see their friends. If you cut this off, you are driving people towards criminal behaviour and reoffending.

Again, to speak to the impact of these public transport bans on First Nations people, Aunty Tanya Day, a proud Yorta Yorta woman, died in custody following a V/Line conductor’s decision to report her, a decision which the coroner found was influenced by her Aboriginality. History tells us of the real-world impacts of racism across the criminal legal system and in the way that our laws are applied. We should be reflecting on the way that this state failed Aunty Tanya Day before any member of this place dares vote for this legislation. While the Greens will be opposing this bill, I should state we will also be moving amendments that remove this potential to ban people from public transport locations and services in the way the bill is currently presented. We are carving this out altogether. It is a step too far. Nowhere else in Australia have similar workplace orders gone this far to cover these essential transport settings. I ask that these amendments be circulated now.

To conclude, banning someone from a shop after they have been violent has not prevented the harm that their violence has caused. You cannot ban someone in the midst of experiencing a mental health crisis from a train station. That does nothing to support them. It does nothing to support the people around them. This bill, despite any genuinely good intentions that anyone might have, has not been properly thought through, so the Greens will be opposing it.

 John BERGER (Southern Metropolitan) (18:46): I rise to make a contribution on the Workplace Protection Orders Bill 2026, an important piece of legislation which will ensure that Victorians can stay safe at work. I would like to thank the Attorney-General for her work on this issue and her commitment to keeping workers safe. I would also like to thank the Premier for his personal championing of this issue and his deep conviction that the workplace should be a place which is free from harassment and violent and threatening behaviour.

Workplace protection orders (WPOs) are a fairly simple concept: when a person is likely to repeatedly behave in an unacceptable manner that puts workers at risk, they can be excluded from that place through a court order. Some jobs are more dangerous than others and different jobs carry different sorts of dangers. In public-facing jobs such as retail and passenger transport, workers face unique dangers from a very small minority of the public, who might behave in ways which are violent and threatening. No-one deserves to be treated like that, and nobody deserves to have to deal with harassment and stalking at work or anywhere for that matter.

In May 2024 our government convened the worker protection consultation group, bringing together representatives from the retail industry, unions and Victoria Police. This group met to discuss a potential legislative agenda that would aim to keep workplaces safe. This is a matter of mutual interest between businesses and unions. Businesses have an obligation to keep their employees safe on the job, and unions naturally see keeping workplaces safe for their members as one of their most important duties.

Last year we passed the Crimes Amendment (Retail, Fast Food, Hospitality and Transport Worker Harm) Bill 2025 into law. This bill, which emerged following consultation with the worker protection consultation group, created new offences relating to assaults, threats and abuse directed towards workers in customer-facing industries. Then on 29 July, the Premier, one day after being sworn in and alongside members of the WPCG, announced that we would be introducing this bill. The Premier spoke at the time about his own career history, having gotten his first job at Kmart at the age of 14.

Many of my colleagues in this place may already know that before entering politics I was the branch secretary of the Transport Workers’ Union of Victoria and Tasmania and also the union’s national president. At the TWU we represented bus drivers working in Victoria’s public transport system. As you can probably imagine, it is tough to do any job while facing behaviour from a member of the public which is violent, threatening or abusive. I understand the Greens are proposing amendments that carve out transport workers from these essential protections. I could recite countless examples of bus drivers being subjected to threatening behaviour while on the job and performing their duties, such as hot coffee being thrown at drivers, cups filled with urine or faeces being thrown, syringes filled with blood being hurled and other vile actions. It is disgraceful that the Greens would even consider leaving out transport workers and leaving them in the cold. It goes to show how out of touch the Greens really are.

Abuse is a serious problem for bus drivers in Victoria, with a TWU survey finding nine out of 10 drivers had experienced passenger abuse. We have seen horrifying cases of bus drivers facing shocking abuse while on the job. Last year a bus driver was repeatedly beaten by a passenger in a rage, and we also saw a sickening case of someone climbing over the cab cage – while it is designed to protect the bus driver – and stomping on the driver’s head, injuring them and sending many passengers flying. I can recall a horrifying case of a bus driver being beaten mercilessly on the 902 route near Eltham and having to sound the horn after enduring the abuse to catch the attention of PSOs.

When we see these sorts of violent cases emerging, I find it astounding that the Greens would put forward an amendment like this. In light of that I would like to thank the Transport Workers’ Union for their ongoing support and advocacy for these drivers, in particular the director of transport Sam Lynch from the TWU for all his hard work. The Carroll Labor government will always have the back of transport workers across Victoria, and this bill is another critical part of delivering on that promise. I would also like to thank my friends from the SDA, including secretary Michael Donovan, as well as the Rail, Tram and Bus Union secretary Vikrant Sharma for their advocacy in this space.

It is important to remember that if a workplace protection order has been taken out, it will be ensuring the safety not only of workers but also of customers and innocent passengers. In retail, having specific protection and prohibitions implemented against individuals entering a specific workplace can also be important. When a worker has faced repeated harassment or stalking from an individual, they will often be in a position where they are working regular hours at one publicly accessible location and will have no choice but to be there because they need to pay the bills. This could leave a person feeling vulnerable and unsafe in their own workplace.

To explain how WPOs will function according to this bill, retail and transport operators or unions covering the workplace will be able to apply for a court order handing down the WPO. This can be done when a person at least 14 years of age who has a history of unacceptable conduct is judged as likely to continue to engage in unacceptable behaviour. If for some reason the employer is unwilling to apply for a WPO, the relevant union will be able to do so, provided that they notify the employer of their intention. The sorts of behaviour which are covered under WPOs include physical and sexual violence or abuse, stalking or any conduct which causes a worker to have reasonable fear of harm. This can only be done based on the behaviour which has occurred at a specific publicly accessible workplace which the application has been made for.

While the workplace protection orders are critical for keeping workers safe, there are provisions in this bill which ensure that proportionality is maintained and that someone who has a WPO against them is still able to access essential goods and services. For example, in the case of a person living in an area where there is only one supermarket, the court may take that into consideration and impose conditions on when and how the individual can access the store. Other circumstances in which the court may take account could include if the individual is a child or if they suffer from a cognitive impairment which might impact their ability to understand the order. In these cases the safety of the worker must come first, but it is also important that other considerations are taken into account.

Finally, workplace protection orders will be civil matters. Breaching them will be criminal matters. Individuals who breach a WPO can be imprisoned for up to two years or fined up to $50,000. These punishments are important because we need to ensure that the WPOs are respected. We need to ensure that those who find themselves with a WPO being taken out against them understand the seriousness with which the law is treating this situation. We cannot have these be toothless and symbolic, because the sort of person who would treat retail and transport workers in an abusive, threatening or violent manner would not be likely to respect a purely symbolic order. Ideally these punishments would function as purely as a deterrent, ensuring those with a WPO against them do not approach the workplace from which they are banned. However, in the event that they do re-enter the place without authorisation, it is important that our legal system is able to take action against them and punish that behaviour.

By changing the law in this way, implementing workplace protection orders, we are giving businesses and unions the access to legal protections to which they need to keep workers safe on the job. When people feel unsafe at work and when they are denied the dignity that comes with being treated respectfully, they may be, quite understandably, far less focused on their work. At the same time, they may be far more inclined to quit and to find another job. In some cases they may feel inclined to quit and withdraw from the workplace altogether. This is bad for them personally, and it is bad for the economy generally. Having a strong economy requires workers to believe that work is worth it. To achieve that they need to believe that they have been paid a fair wage, that they will be treated with the respect they deserve in the workplace and that the work itself carries with it a certain level of dignity. This bill helps to protect that dignity through ensuring that workers who face unacceptable behaviour can have the confidence to know that the powerful legal mechanisms in place can protect them.

Another reason why workplace protection orders matter relates not just to purely pragmatic concerns but to our core principles of social justice. It is unfortunately the case that it is often those who are on the lower end of the income spectrum who are faced with the worst behaviour from customers in the workplace. This bill sends a clear message that it does not matter how much a person makes in a year, it does not matter how young they are, and in fact it does not matter who they are at all, if they are working in a customer-facing job, they are entitled to be treated with respect. They are entitled to the protection of the law in their workplace. The introduction of workplace protection orders, along with the new offences which we introduced last year to protect workers, shows what we can achieve when the government listens to workers about the problems they are facing. It shows what can be achieved when governments work together with unions and businesses to create better workplaces, which benefits everyone.

These are, however, not the only measures which we have taken to keep workers in retail settings and customer-facing industries safe. Take, for instance, Operation Pulse, the initiative to put PSOs in major shopping centres, helping to keep these environments safe for workers and shoppers alike. This initiative has been a success, with over 1700 arrests made and 3500 charges laid since the operation began. The success of Operation Pulse is the reason why the Premier recently announced that it would be extended and expanded. From Operation Pulse workplace protection orders to the new offences protecting customer-facing workers, the Carroll Labor government is ensuring that public retail spaces are safe for workers and safe for everybody.

This has included introducing the toughest bail test of any jurisdiction in Australia to ensure those who commit violent crimes are not given the chance to reoffend while on bail. This has included placing community safety as the single most important consideration in any bail decision. This has included introducing adult time for violent crime, which will see young people charged with serious violent crimes tried in adult courts, where they are most likely to face incarceration and more likely to face longer sentences. This has included a bail test uplift, making the bail test even more difficult for crimes which are committed while already on bail for another crime. This has included new laws to ban post-and-boast crimes, creating new offences for people who post videos online of themselves committing crimes. This has included introducing life sentences for those who recruit children into committing serious offences on behalf of gangs and organised crime groups. This has included getting dangerous weapons off the streets with Australia’s first machete ban, with 18,000 knives surrendered by the public and 17,000 seized by the police.

This has included providing our justice system and our corrections system with the additional funding that they need to accommodate these changes to law. It has also included early intervention measures to ensure that we can stop crime before it starts, that we can help at-risk young people to make better decisions and set themselves on a better path in life. The violence reduction unit is coordinating crime prevention across government, connecting at-risk youth with mentors who have experience in the justice system and putting early intervention officers in schools. The VRU is based off a successful model which has worked in Scotland and in London, and it will keep young people safe and keep people from going down the wrong path.

With a wide range of measures, the Carroll Labor government is taking the steps necessary to keep Victorians safe at work, at home and in the community. We are doing this because upholding public safety is the key to maintaining the high quality of life which we enjoy here in Victoria. That quality of life will be put at risk if violent crime is allowed to run rampant and nobody has the peace of mind of knowing that they can feel safe when leaving their house, going to work and going about their business.

Reaching the end of my remarks, I would like to take the chance of paying tribute to Victoria Police for the work that they do. There is no community safety agenda which the government can roll out that does not involve police. Without police, any bill which passed through this chamber to address violent crime would be meaningless. The work they do, often potentially dangerous, means that our communities can be safe places for people to live. Ultimately, we are taking these measures to keep people safe because it is what the Victorian public expect and deserve from their government. The Carroll Labor government’s public safety agenda did not begin with this bill, and neither will it end with this bill, but delivering a workplace protection order is an important step forward in ensuring that all Victorian workers can be safe and protected on the job. I commend the bill to the chamber.

 Sonja TERPSTRA (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (19:00): I rise to make a contribution on this very important bill, the Workplace Protection Orders Bill 2026. This bill is important because what it will do is it will help to protect retail and transport workers. The government committed to introducing this scheme as a next step in our response to violence against retail and transport workers, and unfortunately what we are seeing is a rise in violence against retail and transport workers. We often see these things either splashed across the 6 o’clock news or on social media, and it is sad to say that these things seem to be increasing. It was important that the government committed to this, and this bill is making good on that commitment.

The bill will create a new workplace protection order scheme to protect, as I said, retail and transport workers. The orders are flexible and can be used to ban people from a workplace or impose any other condition the court considers appropriate to protect the worker. These additional conditions could, for example, include a requirement that a person not contact the worker, not access a particular shopping centre or parking lot, not come within a specific distance of a workplace and not engage in threatening behaviour at a particular location. The breach of an order will be a criminal offence and will attract up to two years imprisonment or a fine of up to $50,000. The scheme offers real protection for these workers. It offers real penalties as well, because violence is never acceptable to workers who are just doing their jobs.

Applications can be made by employers and unions to the Magistrates’ Court, or to the Children’s Court where a respondent is aged between 14 and 17 years old, on behalf of impacted workers. The orders will apply for up to 12 months, but they cannot be obtained against people younger than 14 years old and cannot be obtained against another staff member at that workplace. The threshold for courts to make an order is that (1) unacceptable conduct has occurred against the worker at their workplace in the last 12 months and (2) unacceptable conduct is likely to occur again, and an order is appropriate in all of the circumstances. ‘Unacceptable conduct’ means physical violence or abuse, sexual violence or abuse, stalking or anything that causes a reasonable fear of harm. Importantly, when deciding whether to make an order and any conditions that might apply to that order, the court must consider a range of matters. These things include hardship and whether conditions would limit someone’s ability to obtain essential goods or services. There will also be a statutory review of the scheme three years after it has commenced to make sure it is working well and it is working as intended.

The stakeholder positions in regard to this are that both the industry and unions strongly advocated for this bill. It is good to see industry and unions on the same page. It does not often happen in industrial relations, but it is good to see that it happened in this case. They lobbied the government on this policy through the development process to expand the scope of the scheme, and this bill reflects their requirements.

Conversely, social services and legal groups have significant concerns about the likely disproportionate impacts of the scheme on already marginalised and disadvantaged community members. The First Peoples’ Assembly has significant concerns about the impact on Aboriginal people in particular, and there are adjacent industries and workforces that may be critical of not being included under the scheme. These things are apparent, and I know Mr Berger went to this in some of his comments about how if you are living in a location where there is only one supermarket, for example, where else do you go to get your essential goods? I would like to think that perhaps if you are going to the supermarket, you are going there to pick up your groceries, not assault a retail worker. It is pretty simple in one regard, that going to a shop should not include violence. So it is sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy, really – if someone is going to commit an act of violence, then there are going to be consequences for them. So it is probably a good idea just to go to the shops to get your groceries, not commit acts of violence against workers.

It is a scheme that, sadly, we need, because as I said earlier, there are increasing acts of violence that we see. I note also Mr Berger, having represented the Transport Workers’ Union in another life, talked about the impacts that bus drivers or tram drivers face when they are out on the road. Some of the unspeakable acts of violence and the aggression that gets committed against bus drivers are just unfathomable – it is terrible. At least this scheme will give real teeth and real protection for workers who work in those industries. Nobody wants to go to work to be attacked, to be hit, to be spat on, to be assaulted or to be humiliated. Nobody wants to do that. You are just going to work to do a job, and that is what it should involve. Every family of a worker should be able to expect that their partner, husband, mother, son or daughter comes home from work in the same way that they left, which is fit and healthy. This is a tool, and the government agrees with the retail workers and transport workers that this is necessary.

Under the scheme, a person who engages in unacceptable conduct against a retail or transport worker at the workplace can now be banned from that workplace, and because the safety of workers is non-negotiable, breaching any condition of a workplace protection order, as I said earlier, carries penalties of two years imprisonment and a fine of over $50,000. I like this aspect; I like it a lot. Not only can employers make an application for these orders, but so can unions. Unions can make the applications on behalf of impacted workers. I think that is really important, because unions are a really strong voice and advocate for their members. It also gives some control to unions on behalf of their members. Sometimes, for example, an employer may not believe their claims or whatever, and this gives the worker another avenue to be able to advance their requests for a workplace protection order. So I like that a lot. One of the things about this is that the burden of protecting workers at their workplace should not fall on individual workers who have been subjected to unacceptable conduct. Unacceptable conduct, as I spoke about earlier, means physical violence or abuse, sexual violence or abuse, stalking or anything that causes a reasonable fear.

There are safeguards as well in regard to the scheme. At the same time we are making sure that these orders are accessible and effective to protect workers from unacceptable conduct, we have also carefully designed them to make sure that the courts take into account the specific context and circumstances of each situation. I like that too. It gives the courts the ability to weigh and consider things in an appropriate manner and then make the appropriate order in all of the circumstances. As I said earlier, this does allow the courts to take into account hardship and whether conditions would limit someone’s ability to obtain essential goods or services. For example, if you have only got one bus in and out of your town where you live and you have got to go and access medical treatment, that might cause hardship to you, and the courts can take into account all those circumstances, weigh and consider them carefully and decide whether a workplace protection order is necessary. There is latitude there for them to take it further or not so far depending on the individual circumstances. The courts cannot impose a condition that would limit someone’s ability to obtain goods and services unless satisfied the person has another way to obtain those things. The court would have to go into a lot of detail about an individual’s circumstances, and I think that is appropriate in the circumstances. The scheme is about protecting workers, but we have also got to weigh and consider the impact on the individual that the order is being sought against as well, so it allows a really good balancing process to take place there. It is appropriate for the courts to do that. Courts are interested in facts, not stories, and so it is important that those facts can be weighed and applied to the circumstances.

The scheme covers workers at retail and transport workplaces. Retail workers include all workers in workplaces that are primarily retail businesses – for example, their business is primarily selling things. I love a very simple definition, and ‘selling things’ is really clear and easy to understand. This would include retail in the traditional sense, but it may also include something like a restaurant, which is primarily selling food and/or drink to customers. If you are working at a servo and you are selling chocolate bars, whatnot and everything else, that is a point of retail. I know some supermarkets also double as petrol stations. For example, if you go to your local servo, there could be a Coles shop there as well. There are lots of ways in which things can be retailed these days, so this is a very simple definition but a very effective one.

Then transport workers include workers on passenger trains, trams or buses, those who work in valid ticket areas and those who work where tickets are sold. Again, if you are a transport worker, your workplace can include your vehicle. If you are driving a bus, that is your workplace. You have got passengers on your bus. That is really important as well. Of course, a train – that is obvious: you are a train driver; you have got a train full of people that is part of your workplace. Again, we have worked really closely with stakeholders to ensure that the scheme can commence soon, and this is necessary to provide the minimum amount of time for agencies to be ready to operationalise this novel new scheme. This is going to take time to happen, and that is okay. We want to get it right. We want to make sure that the agencies involved, who will be responsible for administering the scheme, are ready to do so. This will include Victoria Police, and they will be ready to assist with enforcement of orders once they are made. Also the courts will be ready to hear applications, to make these new orders, to ensure that criminal processes which might be running alongside are not jeopardised and to ensure that the justice system is ready to make full use of the scheme and to work their way through it.

Importantly, these reforms follow the Victorian Labor government’s introduction of new offences for abusing, threatening, intimidating or assaulting workers in November 2025. These reforms made it clear that if you abuse a shop assistant, if you punch a fast-food worker, if you threaten your rideshare driver or Uber Eats delivery driver, if you throw a coffee over your waiter, you will face serious consequences. I do not know what is wrong with people these days that that is something they think they would do, but it clearly is something that people do, sadly. We have introduced a new indictable offence of assaulting or threatening to assault one of these workers, with a penalty of up to five years in jail. Separate summary offences for lower level assaults and for conduct that threatens and intimidates the worker, such as with profane or obscene or insulting language, carry a penalty of up to six months in jail. The summary offences have a substantially lower threshold and are easy to prove, giving police a range of options to protect workers depending on the circumstances. Sadly, it is a scheme that is necessary, but on the plus side, this is an important commitment that the Labor government has given to retail and transport workers. It is an important scheme that we are standing up through this bill, and I commend the bill to the house.

 Lee TARLAMIS (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (19:13): I move:

That debate on this bill be adjourned until the next day of meeting.

Motion agreed to and debate adjourned until next day of meeting.