VIDEO: Victoria Police granted expanded stop-and-search powers

MICHAEL ROWLAND, REPORTER: It’s a weekend with a difference in Melbourne.

It’s Sunday in Melbourne’s CBD, the first day the expanded stop and search powers. As it happens there are two protests happening today. one an anti-mass immigration rally just down the road and here a counter protest outside the state library and in the short time we’ve been here, we’ve seen three searches conducted.

And there were more to come. Police randomly stopping people to wave electronic wands over their bodies and look through their bags. 

Melbourne’s CBD has been declared a designated search area for the next six months. During this period, police need neither a warrant nor any reasonable suspicion to pull people aside for a search.

On Sunday, not everyone was submitting willingly. 

As protestors swarmed around police, the man agreed to a body search with a wand but later tried to stop officers going through his bag. The man was eventually allowed to walk away.

Shortly afterwards, another man started running from police. After a short chase, he was caught and handcuffed

As rain started falling, police moved the man to the side of a nearby building to question him. 

PASSERBY:  Is this a movie or you really being locked up, bro?

MICHAEL ROWLAND:  A police officer then carried out a pat-down search during which he pulled what appeared to be a set of knuckledusters from the man’s jacket pocket.

Victoria Police say the expanded stop and search powers are necessary to help tackle rising crime in Melbourne’s CBD.

COMMISSIONER BOB HILL, VICTORIA POLICE (Last week):  We’ve seen in recent times a number of knife attacks, a number of assaults, vicious assaults, and Victoria Police is now adopting a more proactive approach using this legislation so we can ensure people feel safe in Melbourne’s CBD.

MICHAEL ROWLAND: Police say these were the weapons seized during a designated search operation over a weekend in the city earlier this year.

Previously the time limit for these designated search operations was 12 hours.

Nothing’s been more rattling for people in Melbourne than this CCTV footage in early October showing 36-year-old Wan Lai being stabbed as she walked to work in the city.

A 32-year-old woman has been charged over the incident.

CHIA TING:  She’s actually getting much better, so body wise we can see big progress than before, but mental wise she still afraid to go to public by herself.

MICHAEL ROWLAND:  Chia Ting is Wan Lai’s brother-in-law. Based on his family’s harrowing experience, he strongly supports the new stop and search regime.

CHIA TING:  I think that it’s needed, especially like recently we know there’s been a lot of crime issues, knife issues in Melbourne’s CBD, so it’s necessary.

MICHAEL ROWLAND:  The expanded stop and search powers in Victoria are similar to ones given to Queensland Police earlier this year. They’re now allowed to search people for weapons in public places without a warrant.

It’s known as ‘Jack’s Law’ named after 17-year-old Jack Beasley who was fatally stabbed during a night out with friends on the Gold Coast in 2019.

Gemma Cafarella, the president of civil liberties group Liberty Victoria points out searches in Queensland and elsewhere are generally limited to electronic wanding.

GEMMA CAFARELLA, LIBERTY VICTORIA:  These laws are significantly different because they allow Victorian Police to stop people and to search them by frisking if necessary or take further steps to search, and we have here a designation for a period of six months.

MICHAEL ROWLAND: Gemma Cafarella believes the new police powers are a fundamental intrusion of people’s right to privacy.

GEMMA CAFARELLA:  We see this as an unprecedented and quite alarming increase in police powers. 

There are a lot of reasons that a person would feel uncomfortable with police stopping them and searching them. People could have all kinds of things in their bags or on their person that aren’t illegal but that they don’t want to show to police and that is a really valid position for people to be in.

MICHAEL ROWLAND: Liberty Victoria also claims these type of searches simply don’t work.

A report by the group earlier this year found that of 23,000 people stopped and searched in designated areas over a three-year period, only 252, or just over 1 per cent were found to be carrying prohibited items.

GEMMA CAFARELLA:  So, what that means is that 99 per cent of the time that police are using these powers, they are using them in relation to a person who has done absolutely nothing wrong.

MICHAEL ROWLAND: There are also fears the expanded powers could be applied unfairly.

Dr Tamar Hopkins of the Centre against Racial Profiling last week produced research based on data obtained from Victoria Police under freedom of information laws.

TAMAR HOPKINS, CENTRE AGAINST RACIAL PROFILING:  We know when police engage in reasonable ground searches that they are 15 times more likely to target Aboriginal people, they’re nine times more likely to target African people, they are five times more likely to target Pacific Islanders and they are five times more likely to target people of Middle Eastern appearance. 

MICHAEL ROWLAND: Victoria Police says these assertions are not correct as officers only record information about ethnic appearance from someone they suspect has committed an offence.   

Victoria Police officially banned racial profiling in 2015, but Dr Hopkins says this means nothing without proper safeguards.

TAMAR HOPKINS: They’ve banned racial profiling, but they haven’t put in place any mechanism to monitor whether the police are complying with that ban, and really that ban is on paper only.

MICHAEL ROWLAND:  Back on the streets, opinions are mixed about the extended police powers.

VOX POP:  Look I agree with it just because it feels like crime is, it feels like it’s out of control

VOX POP 2:  No, I don’t think it’s a good move. I think it’s totally authoritarian. There’s no need for it.

VOX POP 3:  Go for it. If you’ve got nothing to hide, I think you should be searched.

MICHAEL ROWLAND:  For Chia Ting, as his sister-in-law recovers from her ordeal, it’s all about getting the balance right.

CHIA TING:  I know some people will say it’s against our human rights, it is against our privacy, but we need to keep in mind human safety is also our human right.