Until May, a South Australian retailer who barred a violent repeat offender had a trespass power that lasted 24 hours.
On May 4, that changed. The Workplace Protection (Personal Violence) Act 2025 came into force. An employer, a union or a health and safety representative can now apply to the Magistrates Court for an order barring a person from a workplace, or from within a set distance of it, for up to 12 months.
Breach it and the penalty is up to two years in prison, or five if the breach involves violence.
Woolworths lodged the first four applications.
This edition is about the instrument Australia is building state by state, why it is different from the banning lists American retailers already run, and the fact that several US states have had a version of it for years.
The map, state by state
Australia is not doing this through one federal law. It is happening jurisdiction by jurisdiction, and the designs differ:
ACT: workplace protection orders under the Personal Violence Act 2016. Employers apply, interim orders are available, and hearings are listed within two days. Local reporting counts 45 orders in 2025-26, up from 39.
South Australia: in force since May 4, 2026. Orders up to 12 months, breach up to two or five years.
Victoria: the Workplace Protection Orders Bill 2026 passed in August. Orders up to 12 months, respondents aged 14 and over, breach up to two years. No interim orders. The government's announced start date is July 26, 2027. The Australian Retail Council called it "the weakest workplace protection order model in the country."
New South Wales: the government announced on September 1 that legislation would be introduced in October. Respondents 14 and over, breach up to two years or a $5,500 fine.
Western Australia: the Retail Barring Orders Bill passed the lower house in March. Bans of up to two years for adults, up to five years' prison for serious breaches, and an explicit carve-out preserving the barred person's access to groceries and essential services.
Queensland: nothing yet.
Why a court order is not a banning list
Edition #19 looked at the shared offender lists American retailers maintain: who gets on, what evidence is required, and who checks. The answer to the last question was nobody.
A court order inverts every one of those weaknesses:
Someone independent decides. A magistrate hears the evidence, not the retailer's own investigator.
The person can respond. Due process happens before the ban, not after a complaint.
Breach is a crime. A private ban is enforced with a trespass call. A court order is enforced with a prison term.
It expires. Twelve months, then the retailer has to make the case again.
The trade-off is cost per case. Every order is a court application. That forces selectivity, which is the point: the instrument is built for the small number of people causing a disproportionate share of violent incidents, not for everyone who walks out with merchandise.
A perspective from the field
A banning list is cheap to build and expensive to defend. Nobody outside your company checked it, so everything on it is your liability.
A court order is expensive to get and cheap to defend, because a judge already did the checking. For the dozen people per region who account for the violence your staff actually fear, I would take the second one every time.
The number to be careful with
One figure is already circulating in support of these laws: Coles reported threatening incidents in South Australia down 16% over two years, against 85% increases in Victoria.
Read the dates. South Australia's orders started on May 4, 2026. Most of that two-year window ran before a single order could be issued. South Australia also raised maximum penalties for assaulting retail workers in 2022.
The 16% may be real. It cannot yet be credited to exclusion orders, and anyone who does so in a board paper is making the same mistake this brief has flagged in US data for most of its run.
The honest test is the ACT, which has run the instrument longest. Woolworths has described a sharp drop in reoffending among the people it obtained orders against there. Ask for the method before you repeat the number.
The tool you may already have
It is easy to assume nothing like this exists in the US. At least nine states let an employer petition for a workplace violence restraining order on an employee's behalf: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Georgia, Indiana, Nevada, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Utah. Colorado and North Carolina allow employers to file for comparable orders.
California's version, under Code of Civil Procedure §527.8, requires unlawful violence or a credible threat of violence against an employee at the workplace. That is precisely the population Australia is targeting.
These orders were designed with stalkers and domestic abusers in mind. I could not find published data on how often retailers use them against violent repeat offenders. That absence is the finding.
Three practical moves for the next 90 days
Check your states. For every state you operate in, ask counsel one question: can we petition for a workplace violence restraining order on behalf of a store employee, and what is the evidentiary bar?
Build a short list, not a long one. Identify the repeat offenders linked to violence or credible threats against staff in your top ten problem stores. That list, not your full banning database, is the candidate pool for a court order.
Run one case. Take the strongest file to court in a state that allows it. Measure cost, time to order, and incidents involving that person for the following year. One documented case will tell you more than any vendor deck on deterrence.
Closing note
Australia is not ahead because its retail crime problem is different. It is ahead because retailers and unions there asked for an instrument with a judge in it, instead of a bigger database.
A US version already exists in at least nine states, including California. It just was not built for you, and nobody has tried to make it fit.
If your company has ever obtained a workplace violence restraining order against a repeat offender, I would like to hear how it went. Reply with anything you can share, anonymized always.
Forward this to one LP or AP leader who should be reading it.
— Gabriel
Sources: SA Attorney-General's Department, Workplace Protection Order factsheet and release (November 25, 2025) · SA Premier, media release on first applications · SDA SA/NT (May 11, 2026) · ACT Courts, workplace protection orders · Canberra Times (June 21, 2026) · Victorian Parliament Hansard (July 30, 2026) and Premier of Victoria release (July 29, 2026) · Australian Retail Council releases (June 19 and August 28, 2026) · NSW Government release (September 1, 2026) · WA Government release (March 13, 2026) · ABC 7.30 (August 24, 2026) · WomensLaw.org, Workplace Restraining Orders (Filed by Employers) · California Code of Civil Procedure §527.8.
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