Australia is experiencing an explosion in retail crime and violence amid an unprecedented increase in immigration.
Since Covid, and an influx of about 1.5 million immigrants, Australia’s largest retail chains have reported a substantial rise in retail theft and a soaring number of attacks, assaults and abuse of workers, with some chains seeing a 700% increase in these incidents since the pandemic.
The increase in crime has led to calls from the country’s main retail groups for a greater response from authorities, and increased protection for frontline workers.
Chief executives from 22 of Australia’s largest retail chains, including Coles, Woolworths and Kmart, united last week to call for a nationwide roll-out of stronger workplace laws to better protect retail workers, the Herald Sun reported.
Woolworths CEO Amanda Bardwell said the country’s crime crisis was not a “challenge we can solve alone, and our engagement with police and state governments is critical”.
“We are strongly advocating for new Workplace Protection Order laws to protect retail workers,” Ms Bardwell said.
The supermarket supremo added that the rise in aggressive behaviour against employees was “unacceptable”, and that the daily reports and footage of incidents she sees is “often shocking”.
Australian Retailers Association chief executive Chris Rodwell said that there were 800,000 retail-crime incidents lodged last year, with over half the country’s frontline workers stating that they suffered physically abuse on at least a monthly basis.
The financial effect of the incidents on the country is significant, causing an annual loss to the industry of over $9 billion, insider sources told The Age.
The Australian Financial Review reported similar trends in retail theft and violence, noting that security incidents at Woolworths had resulted in stores being locked down 45 times during the first six months of this year nationwide, usually while customers were still inside.
The supermarket giant added that they had seen a 26% surge in violent incidents over the past year, with the company deploying earpieces and offering body cameras to staff as a security measure in over 350 of its stores nationwide.
Other industries are equally affected, with the CEO of Sigma Healthcare, Vikesh Ramsunder, noting that retail crime was up industry-wide and across Australia.
Ramsunder said there had been 450 “major crime incidents” reported in Chemist Warehouse stores, with the organisation rolling out cameras across its stores to help stem losses from shoplifting.
Although retail crime is up across the country, Victoria is by far the worst affected state. Data from the Crime Statistics Agency shows that retail crime has skyrocketed, with Victoria seeing a rise of almost 40% in retail theft to record a total of 41,000 offences in the year to March.
This compares to a 4% rise and 28,000 retail-thefts in New South Wales over the same period, according to the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research.
Half the 26% rise in violent incidents Woolworth saw in its 1,100 Australian stores this past year came solely from the company’s 280 Victorian stores.
Retail platform Auror also noted that around a third of the 800,000 thefts they tracked last year originated in Victoria, while the number of “threatening events” in Victoria has surged by 52% year-on-year, and incidents involving weapons are up by 66% nationwide.
Victoria has also seen the presence of organised crime syndicates, including alleged retail-theft ring composed mainly of Indian nationals on student and other temporary visas who allegedly stole $10 million worth of products from outlets across Melbourne.
The state has also seen similar networks stealing steak and other types of meat from supermarkets in order to on-sell the products to third parties, including restaurants.
The crime crisis in Victoria and Australia has led the country’s main retail body to warn that the nation’s shopping centres could become “ghost towns” without a serious national response, as companies lose billions of dollars in theft each year and workers face ongoing threats to their safety.
Header image: Left, a member of an alleged Indian immigrant theft ring is arrested (Victoria Police). Right, a gang of Africans allegedly rob an IGA supermarket in Deer Park, Melbourne, earlier this year (7 News).
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