Threatening incidents at Coles in Victoria rise by 85%
In the Australian state of Victoria, the number of threatening incidents involving employees of the Coles supermarket chain has increased by 85% over the past two years. Surveillance cameras recorded cases of aggressive behaviour by shoppers towards staff and other store visitors, ABC News Australia reports.
In one video, a shopper with a hammer threatened an employee as the worker was leaving the store. In another incident, a shopper threw a security guard onto a cash register. These recordings were made over the past four months.
Rise in incidents
Coles Chief Operating Officer for Supply Matt Swindells said there had been a sharp increase in cases of violence and threats against staff in Victoria. According to him, the company includes verbal assaults, physical altercations and incidents in which goods are used as weapons — such as bottles of wine or cans of tomatoes — in this category.
According to Coles, the number of such incidents across Australia increased by 65% over the same two-year period. South Australia was the only jurisdiction where the figure declined — by 16%.
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Coles employee Ruth Sumner, who has worked for the company for 30 years, said she regularly faces verbal or physical violence and worries about her safety before starting a shift. In a union survey of about 3,000 retail workers in Australia last year, 88% of respondents reported verbal abuse, while one in four reported a physical attack.
Safety and protection orders
At Coles stores in Victoria, employees wear body cameras, while cameras with motion sensors have been installed in the aisles. Security guards patrol the stores but intervene in violent situations only when it is safe to do so.
Since March, Victoria Police have doubled the number of officers patrolling high-risk areas in central Melbourne. Assistant Commissioner Jo Stafford said that since then, law enforcement officers have made 260 arrests in cases involving theft, assault and public order offences.
Victoria Premier Ben Carroll last month promised that Workplace Protection Orders would be introduced in the state by July 2027 — court bans that would restrict repeat offenders who resort to violence from accessing stores for a specified period. Such a mechanism is already in force in the Australian Capital Territory and South Australia.
