The boss of a major independent supermarket chain is considering closing down stores in Victoria, warning retail workers are facing unprecedented levels of violence and aggressive behaviour on an almost daily basis.<\/p>\n
Ritchies IGA CEO Fred Harrison said retail crime in Victoria had reached “crisis point”, and managing a small business while trying to keep staff and customers safe was almost impossible.<\/p>\n
“It’s getting to a point now where [at] a number of our stores, you’ve got to question when leases come up, do we want to remain in this area? Do we want to remain in this store?” Mr Harrison told 7.30.<\/p>\n
“Is it all round more profitable, safer if we just close and walk away?”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ritchies IGA CEO Fred Harrison says retail crime in Victoria has reached “crisis point”. (ABC News: Kyle Harley)<\/p>\n
Mr Harrison said post-COVID, armed thieves had become more brazen, targeting stores during daylight hours often armed with weapons such as knives and undeterred by workers trying to stop them.<\/p>\n
He said the crime wave and questions around store viability were not limited to his supermarkets.<\/p>\n
“That’s happening in not just supermarket retail, but that’s happening in general retail at the moment,” he said.<\/p>\n
“People are making decisions to exit the business because there’s that much theft that it is impacting their bottom line, and you can’t expect retailers to remain trading and lose money.”<\/p>\n
There are 85 Ritchies IGA stores across Australia, with 52 in Victoria. Mr Harrison said Victoria was by far the worst state: “I’d say 95 per cent of the issues that we are having today as a business are all in Victoria.”<\/p>\n
Body-worn cameras introduced<\/p>\n
Bunnings employee Olivia says the introduction of body-worn cameras and tactical guards had acted as a disincentive to thieves. (ABC News)<\/p>\n
For Bunnings store manager Olivia, a seemingly normal workday involved her being spat at, verbally abused or threatened by an aggressive customer.<\/p>\n
She has worked at Bunnings for more than two decades. She said since the pandemic there had been a rise in cases involving organised crime gangs targeting her Melbourne store.<\/p>\n
“We had a point where we had local gangs coming into the store. They would enter through different entry and exit points,” she said.<\/p>\n
“We could see that it was very organised retail crime. They would come on a very regular basis as well with weapons and just walk straight out of our store with lawnmowers, barbecues, hot water services.”<\/p>\n
Olivia said 12 months ago, attacks on staff were becoming so frequent her family was questioning her safety at work, and she was becoming increasingly worried about her staff.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Olivia says there’s been a rise in crime at Bunnings since the pandemic. (ABC News: Billy Cooper)<\/p>\n
“I’ve got mothers-to-be, I’ve got grandfathers, dads, mums, wives, daughters, and for me, I’ve got that responsibility to make sure that they’re all going home safe to their family,” she said.<\/p>\n
For Olivia, the breakthrough came when Bunnings introduced body-worn cameras for staff and tactical guards.<\/p>\n
She said the measures acted as a disincentive to would-be thieves, resulting in fewer violent and aggressive incidents, and a safer store.<\/p>\n
“These are guards that can actually physically apprehend anyone that is aggressive towards our team or customers and remove them from the store,” she said.<\/p>\n
“Whilst we have put these measures in place that have made our store the safest it’s ever been, we shouldn’t have to do that. That’s not fair. That’s not fair in our team and our customers that we have had to put tactical security guards in place to keep everyone safe.”<\/p>\n
‘An escalating issue’<\/p>\n
Sarah Faorlin is the head of a unit called Acts of Violence and Aggression at Woolworths. (ABC News: Shaun Kingma)<\/p>\n
Cases of aggression, violence and intimidation have become so common it has prompted Woolworths to set up a new department dedicated to investigating such incidents.<\/p>\n
Woolworths head of Acts of Violence and Aggression, Sarah Faorlin, said her role was introduced in February last year in response to a significant increase in violence, post-COVID.<\/p>\n
“Our Woolworths team members have reported over 6,000 incidents last year and that’s a 26 per cent increase on the year prior,” Ms Faorlin said.<\/p>\n
“So it’s an escalating issue, one that we see right across the country.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A sign at Woolworths telling customers “police may be notified” if “your behaviour makes anyone feel unsafe”. (ABC News: Shaun Kingma)<\/p>\n
She said like Bunnings, Woolworths staff have been offered body cameras to wear as a security precaution, as well as personal safety alarms.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Staff have also been offered “de-escalation training” using virtual reality headsets.<\/p>\n
But she said the onus to keep stores safe should not be on frontline workers.<\/p>\n
“I think it is completely unacceptable that a retail worker would need to do anything more than what they’re doing today in performing their job,” she said.<\/p>\n
“Like you and I coming to work, we would expect that we are kept safe. That is what we expect for retail workers on the front line when they’re dealing in customer service.”<\/p>\n
Theft at 21-year high<\/p>\n
Victoria has had the biggest rise in retail crime. (ABC News: Shaun Kingma)<\/p>\n
Recent crime data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics has confirmed retail crime is on the rise across Australia, and Victoria is the worst-offending state.<\/p>\n
According to the ABS, theft reached a national 21-year high last year, with 595,660 victims of personal and retail theft recorded by police \u2014 a six per cent increase from the previous year.<\/p>\n
Almost half of those thefts \u2013 45 per cent \u2013 occurred at a retail location.<\/p>\n
In Victoria, there were 169,673 victims of personal and retail theft in 2024 \u2014 a rise of 29 per cent from the previous year. Tasmania followed with an uptick of 11 per cent.<\/p>\n
The latest data released by retail crime reporting software company Auror paints an even bleaker picture of Victoria.<\/p>\n
According to Auror, Victoria saw a rise of 52 per cent in threatening crime and a 38 per cent jump in violent events towards retailers in 2024, compared to the previous year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
NSW recorded increases of just over 30 per cent for both threatening crime and violent events in a retail setting.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Australian Retailers Association CEO Chris Rodwell says “we’re deeply concerned about retail crime”. (ABC News: Craig Hansen)<\/p>\n
Australian Retailers Association CEO Chris Rodwell said the data confirmed what retailers see every day: “We’re deeply concerned about retail crime across Australia. There’s been 800,000 incidents in the past year and that’s rising and in some states it’s surging.”<\/p>\n
He said it was most concerning for smaller retailers.<\/p>\n
“Their trading volumes are down. And so this theft, for some of them, gets them to a point where it’s very hard to conceive for them how they can continue in business,” Mr Rodwell said.<\/p>\n
The ARA is calling for the nationwide introduction of workplace protection orders, which have already led to a fall in retail crime in the ACT.<\/p>\n
Mr Rodwell said the orders worked in the same way as intervention orders and “effectively stop repeat offenders from returning to a store and continuing to commit levels of crime”.<\/p>\n
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