According to police, it’ll be like a random breath test.
A “random selection of people using a thoroughfare” by foot or by car could be subjected to a pat-down search – without warrant or reasonable suspicion – at any time across inner Melbourne over the next six months.
“It matters not your ethnicity. It matters not your race. It matters not your culture, age, any demographic,” Victoria police deputy commissioner, Bob Hill, told reporters this week.
“We focus on the offending type, and we focus on preventing [certain] crimes from occurring in the first place, by a general deterrence approach.”
His comments came two days after police announced an unprecedented expansion of search powers – both in terms of length of time and geographic scope – across the CBD, Docklands, Southbank, the sporting and entertainment precinct and parts of East Melbourne and South Melbourne, until 29 May 2026.
During that time, police and protective service officers (PSOs) have the ability to randomly stop and search anyone, including by using an electronic wand or a pat-down. People may be asked to take off items of outer clothing such as headwear and jackets, and to remove items from bags or pockets. Vehicles can also be searched.
Despite police repeatedly saying no racial profiling would occur during this unprecedented action, legal and human rights groups – along with senator Lidia Thorpe – don’t believe it, based on past interactions by police.
And a new report has found Victoria police’s efforts to stamp out racial profiling in the decade since a landmark legal case have largely failed, despite the force saying it has “zero tolerance” for the practice.
The report, from the Inner Melbourne Community Legal (IMCL) centre, focused on the period since Victoria police settled a case initially brought by 19 young people of African background who alleged they were assaulted, stopped and searched by police around public housing towers between 2005 and 2009.
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The case, known as Haile-Michael after one of the plaintiffs, was settled on the condition that police reviewed training and “field contact” practices, which can involve stopping and searching people in public, and recording their personal information.
Legal and human rights groups this week said this practice is likely to occur far more in designated areas, such as the one declared for inner Melbourne until mid-2026.
‘Discretionary powers need to be limited’
The yet-to-be-released IMCL report analysed the response to the settlement and examined police data, and contains material from interviews with people who continue to live in public housing, along with youth and community workers.
“It is time for the Victorian government to accept that the police cannot be left to deal with the problem of racial profiling,” the report says.
“Their discretionary powers need to be limited and they need effective oversight and monitoring.”
The report also contains several case studies, including a 2022 incident where a man says he and a group of other “prominent professionals from African backgrounds” were chatting outside a restaurant when approached by police, who asked why they were loitering.
The report suggests the force’s attempts to reform, including by trialling a “receipting” process – in which everyone stopped by police was given a docket that explained why – had not made any meaningful difference.
It also found that two policies introduced into the Victoria Police Manual could have reduced racial profiling if they were effectively enforced, including a ban on racial profiling and restricting “targeted interactions” to when officers have “reasonable grounds” to do so.
But it said no mechanism was put in place to monitor compliance with these policies, and thatpeople from non-white backgrounds remained disproportionately targeted.
Call for police ombudsman
During Thursday’s police press conference, Hill said the declaration of inner Melbourne as a “designated area” for six months – beginning Sunday – was due to “a number of serious assaults involving edged weapons” in the CBD over the past year.
Hill said officers could be able to search up to 1,000 people in a single day, depending on pedestrian numbers in the city.
Victoria’s Control of Weapons Act used to limit the time period an area could be designated to 12 hours, but the Victorian government amended it to extend a declaration to up to six months earlier this year. Police have made previous declarations – usually lasting less than a day, and often during major protests.
“When we run these operations in the CBD over an eight hour period, we’re seizing up to 20 edged weapons on a daily basis,” Hill said. “I want to see more of those operations occurring in the CBD.”
But the chief executive of the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, Nerita Waight, said there was “no reasonable rationale” for police to expand search powers via its “designated area” declaration. She said vulnerable communities – including the homeless, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and those gathering for peaceful protests – could be targeted.
She has called for the establishment of a police ombudsman that can hold officers to account.
“Melbourne is becoming a police state, with excessive layers of control and surveillance – based on a culture of fear and in the absence of implementing effective supports and services,” Waight said.
