Evidence Grade Footage: What Melbourne Venues Need Under the New Worker Harm Offences

Victoria has tightened the law around abuse and violence towards customer facing workers. The gap that remains is evidentiary. A charge, a prosecution and any future workplace protection order all rest on being able to identify who did it, and most venue camera systems in Melbourne cannot deliver that.

What changed

The Crimes Amendment (Retail, Fast Food, Hospitality and Transport Worker Harm) Act 2025 created a new indictable offence for assaulting or threatening to assault a retail, fast food, hospitality or transport worker, carrying up to five years imprisonment. Separate summary offences cover lower level assaults and threatening or intimidating conduct, including abusive language, with penalties of up to six months. The protections cover workers while serving, delivering, stacking shelves, arriving, leaving and on breaks, and they extend to areas that are not public facing such as kitchens and storerooms.

The same reform package recognised ram raids as aggravated burglary, carrying a maximum of 25 years, and the government has signalled workplace protection orders that would protect an entire workplace rather than a single named person.

The numbers behind the change

There were 4,823 assault and related offences recorded at Victorian retail locations in the year ending March 2026. While overall criminal incidents at retail locations fell 5.7 percent across that year, incidents involving stalking, harassment and threatening behaviour rose 10.1 percent, and are up almost 35 percent since 2022.

In other words, theft volume is easing slightly and behaviour towards staff is not. That is precisely the category of incident that depends on identification rather than on stock loss reporting.

A charge needs a face, not a figure

The most common footage we review from Melbourne venues shows a person of average height in dark clothing viewed from a ceiling corner at a downward angle. It establishes that an incident occurred. It does not establish who was involved, and it will not survive a contest.

Six things that make venue footage usable

• Identification coverage at the specific points where interactions happen, framed at face height, in addition to overview coverage
• Correct exposure handling at entries where daylight sits behind the subject, which is the single most common cause of unusable footage
• Accurate and synchronised system time, because a clock that drifts undermines the sequence you are trying to prove
• Retention long enough to survive late reporting, since staff frequently report abuse days later
• A documented export process that a duty manager can perform under pressure without calling an installer
• Audio and duress capability where the risk is confrontation rather than theft, including a fixed duress point at the counter

At Rare Steakhouse in the Melbourne CBD, an ageing coax system was replaced with 24 AI enabled IP cameras including 180 degree panoramic coverage of shared laneways and delivery zones, kept visually discreet inside a premium dining room. The laneway and delivery coverage matters as much as the room itself, because that is where staff are most often alone.

Coverage that follows the risk, not the floor plan

Venue camera layouts are usually drawn to cover the room. The incidents covered by the new offences do not happen evenly across the room. They cluster at the counter, at the entrance during refusal of service, at the delivery door, in the laneway used for bin runs and staff departures, and in the storeroom corridor. Mapping the last twelve months of incidents onto a floor plan before specifying anything will change where the cameras go, and it is a fifteen minute exercise a duty manager can complete.

Where venues get caught out

Three recurring problems. Legacy coax systems that record at a resolution which was acceptable a decade ago. Retention set to seven days by default, which routinely expires before an incident is reported through a manager. And a system nobody on the floor knows how to export from, so footage is lost while access is arranged.

Frequently asked questions

How long should a Melbourne venue keep CCTV footage?

Long enough to cover realistic reporting delays for the incidents you actually experience, and no longer than the purpose you have documented. For most venues that is several weeks rather than one.

Can we record audio in the venue?

Audio recording is regulated separately and more strictly than video under Victorian surveillance law, and staff areas raise additional considerations. Get the specific configuration reviewed before you enable it.

Do we need facial recognition to identify offenders?

In most cases no. Well placed cameras at correct height with correct exposure produce identifiable footage without taking on the consent and documentation obligations that come with biometric technology.

Have your venue coverage reviewed

Forever Secure assesses hospitality and retail sites for evidentiary quality, not just coverage. Call 1300 232 152 for a free assessment. Licence 969-120-00S.