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Australian Retailers Association chief executive Paul Zahra has written to Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews warning that customer aggression across the state’s retail stores has spiked over the past week and the sector is calling on the government to move into line with NSW on vaccine mandates.
“Our members have reported thousands of incidences of customer aggression including many acts of significant violence towards retail staff – such as staff being beaten up, an instance of a boiling cup of coffee being thrown over a frontline worker and a shopping trolley being thrown at another,” he writes.
Mr Zahra told The Australian Financial Review that confusion over the rules and a lack of consultation by the state government had only made matters worse.
The Victorian government allowed non-essential retail stores to reopen from October 26 but last Thursday, Mr. Andrews said the rules would change from Friday to exclude the unvaccinated, who had previously been allowed to shop.