I speak on the important Crimes Legislation Amendment (Assaults on Retail Workers) Bill 2023, which will amend crimes legislation to better protect and deliver justice for retail workers who face assault, threats and abuse in the workplace. Approximately 11 per cent of people in the Liverpool electorate are employed in the retail sector, which is the sixth highest proportion of retail workers of all electorates in New South Wales. Many of those workers are young, many are women, and many are from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. I highlight those factors because often those groups are less likely to feel empowered to defend themselves against poor behaviour by others and are therefore more vulnerable to various forms of abuse and its after-effects.
People from historically under-represented or marginalised groups are also less likely, for a range of reasons, to seek justice via the formal pathways available. I understand this deeply. At the age of 16, I commenced my first formal job at Woolworths Liverpool in the Westfield shopping centre. The job taught me a lot. It taught me about hard work, time management and working under pressure. It also taught me that people can behave in different ways along a spectrum. As a young worker, I observed customers verbally assaulting my colleagues. It was behaviour that sometimes escalated.
Unfortunately, a survey conducted by the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees' Association [SDA] found that 85 per cent of retail employees had been subjected to verbal abuse in the past 12 months. A whopping one in four respondents were subjected to verbal abuse every week. I understand that heightened tensions and anxiety around the global pandemic have exacerbated the situation for retail workers in the past few years. It is no excuse, but it is the sad reality for retail workers in this State. Some 70 per cent of survey respondents reported that the level of abuse and violence increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. Disgustingly, more than one in five respondents said they had been coughed on or spat on during the pandemic. Let that sink in for a moment. There are people in the community who think that is an appropriate way to respond to a situation. It is unacceptable, and I am pleased that there is multipartisan agreement in sending that message loud and clear to the broader community.
I commend the Government and the Minister for Industrial Relations, and Minister for Work Health and Safety, for taking leadership by sending a message to all those who would perpetrate violence and abuse against retail workers. The message also goes out to any retail workers who have experienced abuse or violence from customers in their workplace, as well as to their colleagues and loved ones. The Government is sending a message that it values retail workers and stands with those workers. We have their backs. During the pandemic, we said to retail workers that they are essential and that the work they do is vital to the functioning of our society—and it is. But we must also show retail workers that we value them. The bill goes to the heart of that. It shows retail workers that we care about their safety at work and that we are drawing a line in the sand on expectations of community behaviour. The bill shows retail workers that we will not allow them to be verbal or physical punching bags for others.
It is frightening that one in three respondents to the SDA survey said that they had felt threatened by a customer one or two times in the past 12 months, with almost 5 per cent reporting that customer abuse was directed to them online. That is why it is so important that the bill seeks to expand protections for retail workers to include stalking, harassing or intimidating a retail worker in the course of their duty, even when no actual bodily harm is caused to the worker. Unfortunately, there are many examples of retail workers who experience psychological harm from intimidation and threats perpetrated by customers.
As a 17-year-old, I often worked the evening closing shift, finishing up after 9.00 p.m. or 10.00 p.m. When I finished, the shopping centre was largely deserted and the parking lot was quiet. After an incident that made me fear for my safety, my father started escorting me home. He would arrive 15 minutes before I finished my shift to ensure that I made it home safely. But that cannot be the ultimate solution for everyone. The legal protections afforded by this amending bill, and the increase in penalties, are steps towards ensuring that our retail workers can travel to work, do their work and return home safely, as they rightly should be able to.
I echo the sentiments of members who have spoken previously in wanting to ensure that all retail workers feel safe at work. It is a basic right, and one that we all expect to enjoy. Social media has created a platform for the general public to better appreciate and understand the lived experience of retail workers. We now see, thanks to video evidence, the shocking depths of harmful and entitled behaviour by customers. But social media is a double-edged sword. It is deeply disturbing that sometimes horrific and traumatic incidents are shared for public commentary and ridicule.
There is an old adage that says, "The customer is always right". There is a fine balance between giving customers great customer service, maybe bending the rules a little bit to make sure that customers are happy, but some requests are unreasonable. Treating customers with kid gloves has led to a growing sense of entitlement and a power imbalance that is giving rise to situations such as verbal and physical abuse, particularly of female retail workers.
Unfortunately, we have seen that customers can also be wrong, nasty and dangerous. In March of this year, a 20‑year‑old retail worker in Darwin was fatally stabbed after denying service to a customer in the bottle shop where he worked, shortly before it was due to close. Just a few weeks before this, young Declan Laverty had been threatened with a screwdriver at work. Under the amendments proposed by this bill, the perpetrator would have faced a maximum penalty of four years in prison. I send my deepest condolences to Mr Laverty's family, his loved ones and his traumatised colleagues. I hope and pray that no family or workplace experiences such a horrific incident. I believe we should do our part to act proactively and get the balance right.
A recent survey of 1,200 members of the SDA in Queensland at the end of 2022 found that 88 per cent of respondents experienced mental health problems as a result of events in their workplaces. It is not just verbal and physical instances of harassment that are captured in the proposed amendments to the Crimes Act. Researchers at Sydney University and the Australian National University concluded that sexual harassment and abuse was rife in the retail sector, after surveying 1,160 employees and conducting in‑depth interviews. More than half of the retail workers surveyed considered customer abuse to be a problem. Women are bearing the brunt of customer‑perpetrated abuse and harassment.
Female employees are more likely to be on the receiving end of stalking, harassment and intimidation. Other speakers have described the extensive campaign run by the SDA and the hard work of the union's membership to raise awareness of this issue and push for change. I acknowledge their voice and their advocacy. I entered politics to make the world a better place, especially for those in my community. It is precisely legislative change like this that makes a difference. I think of the difference that it would have made for the 16‑year‑old me. I commend the bill to the House.
