Retailers have teamed up with government, police, unions and crime experts to drill down on further measures to combat rising retail crime across the country.
This comes as the Australian Retailers Association (ARA) reported that 70 per cent of retail business owners have reported an increase in customer theft across the last financial year.
Around half reported they’ve experienced physical abuse monthly or more often, while 87 per cent of retail workers say they’ve experienced verbal abuse.
In response, the Shop Distributive Alliance (SDA), Victoria Police, and the Victorian Government joined the Australian Retailers Association (ARA) and the National Retail Association (NRA) and their members at the 2025 Retail Crime Symposium last week in Melbourne to discuss a united and consistent national action plan against retail crime and violence.
The Symposium focused on cracking down on repeat offenders, with retail leaders and experts calling for national consistency in retail crime laws and police responses, ensuring uniform penalties and enforcement across all states and territories.
Alongside this, they are calling for the adoption of best-practice protective legislation from across the country, dedicated police retail crime units in every state and territory and support for the use of technology to reduce the burden on retail teams and improve communication with police – including consideration of facial recognition, which has recently been trialled in New Zealand.
“Research shows that stricter laws positively impact retailers and communities, helping create safer working and shopping environments,” ARA CEO Chris Rodwell said. “However, police also need more resources to act effectively, and retailers must improve reporting of these incidents to authorities.
“We’ve already seen a number of strong state-based responses to the retail crime crisis, including Jack’s Law in Queensland and the Workplace Protection Orders in the Australian Capital Territory. Now it’s time for the states to work in lockstep.”
Attorney-General and Minister for Planning in Victoria, Sonya Kilkenny, was one of many who attended the Symposium. She said retail workers deserve respect and a safe workplace.
“That’s why we continue to give Victoria Police the powers they need to crack down on offenders,” Kilkenny said.
“We will introduce tougher laws against assault of retail workers by the end of the year – the Worker Protection Consultation Group has already met and begun work on potential new penalties or offences for retail worker abuse, harassment or intimidation.
“Our tough new bail laws are working to protect Victorian families from serious and repeat offending – putting community safety first in all bail decisions.”
Major retailers such as Bunnings, Woolworths Group and Coles also attended the symposium.
Woolworths Group head of acts of violence and aggression Sarah Faorlin said the alarming escalation in violent and aggressive incidents is an industry-wide challenge that needs government and industry working together to solve.
“Woolworths has been investing in a comprehensive suite of safety measures in our stores, from virtual reality training for our team, knife de-ranging, body-worn cameras and personal safety alarms across our stores.
“Woolworths also currently has 13 Workplace Protection Orders in place in the ACT, which prohibit the highest harm offenders from our stores. We urge other governments to consider similar measures to help address this significant and growing problem to protect team and customers from harm.”
Around 800,000 retail crime incidents were reported across Australia in the past year, according a media release by the ARA, which also noted that the top 10 per cent of offenders are responsible for around 60 per cent of total harm.
Over 50 per cent of retail workers are women, and more than a third are aged 15–24 years.
SDA national secretary-treasurer Gerard Dwyer added that customer abuse and aggression are a worsening epidemic threatening the safety of retail and fast food workers. This comes after SDA released industry campaigns to help shift the culture from ‘the customer is always right’ to its ‘No One Deserves A Serve’ campaign.
“Working together through industry round tables and now, the Retail Employee Safety Council are all positive steps towards safer workplaces for retail and fast-food workers,” Dwyer said. “Every worker has a right to be safe at work, and these frontline workers need their union and their employer to be able to ban repeat offenders, including through workplace protection orders that are enforceable.”
“Dangerous goods need to be controlled – knives and machetes cannot be allowed to be carried around stores. Improving incident reporting systems, policies and responses will result in better recognition of customer abuse as a workplace hazard – and Australian workplace safety laws need to keep up with these hazards.”