Community legal centres are concerned that the Victoria Police declaration of a vast "designated area" covering much of Melbourne's CBD, Southbank, Docklands, major shopping centres and key transport hubs is a dangerous escalation of police powers that will disproportionately harm communities already over-policed and under-protected.
From 30 November 2025 to 29 May 2026, police and Protective Service Officers (PSOs) will have extensive powers to stop, search and detain people without any reasonable suspicion. The Federation cautions that these powers will not improve safety - but will instead deepen discrimination, trauma and barriers to justice for people experiencing homelessness, fleeing family violence, living with disability or mental illness, or belonging to racialised communities.
Community legal centres see first-hand the consequences of such over-policing: people are criminalised, traumatised, fined, displaced, and further cut off from safety and support, without evidence that these practices make our communities safer.
What the new powers mean
- Across these broad areas and for a period of 6 months, police will be able to conduct pat-downs, wand searches, bag searches and vehicle searches without cause or warrant.
- Officers can order removal of outer clothing and search personal belongings, seize items they suspect may be weapons, and demand proof of identity.
- These powers apply across a vast geographic area including workplaces, medical clinics, family violence services, shopping hubs, train stations and homelessness supports.
The Federation stresses that there are particular cohorts of people in our community who rely on public space. These include rough sleepers, young people, people in crisis and people fleeing violence. These groups are far more likely to be subject to these policy encounters.
Community legal centres have long raised concerns about the discriminatory application of police powers. The latest results from the Centre Against Racial Profiling (CARP) confirm these concerns:
- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are 15 times more likely to be searched than people perceived as white.
- People perceived as African are 9 times more likely to be searched.
- Middle Eastern and Pacific Islander communities are 5 times more likely to be searched.
- Yet, racialised communities are less likely to be found with prohibited items - meaning they are subjected to more searches with less justification.
- Use-of-force disparities remain severe: police are 10 times more likely to use force against Aboriginal people, and tasers are deployed at rates up to 13 times higher for Aboriginal people than white people.
Community legal centres work with people who will be most harmed by these powers:
- people escaping family violence, often forced into the CBD to access courts, emergency accommodation or services
- people experiencing homelessness or rough sleeping, who will face repetitive police contact and displacement
- people in acute mental health distress
- people living with disability or cognitive impairment
- international students, newly arrived migrants and refugees facing language barriers, trauma histories and visa insecurities
