Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Jason Stockill: Woolworths Retail and Franchise Director on new retail crime changes

Transcript

Jason Stockill: Woolworths Retail and Franchise Director on new retail crime changes · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

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  Speaker 1: Are getting harsher penalties for theft and new fines for shoplifting.
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  Speaker 1: Changes these are proposed at the stage include infringement fines
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  Speaker 1: of five hundred bucks if the value of the stolen
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  Speaker 1: goods was below five hundred dollars, or up to one
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  Speaker 1: thousand dollars if the stolen goods worth more than five
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  Speaker 1: hundred bucks. For theft, maximum penalty will be one year
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  Speaker 1: in prison if the value is two thousand or less,
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  Speaker 1: up to seven years in prison if goods were valued
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  Speaker 1: at more than two thousand dollars. Jason Stockel is wil Worst,
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  Speaker 1: director of Retail with me this morning. Hey Jason, morning,
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  Speaker 1: How are you good? Thank you? Do you think this
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  Speaker 1: is going? I mean, if somebody is stealing stuff, they're
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  Speaker 1: probably not massively well off. We'll a fine deter them,
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  Speaker 1: do you think.
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  Speaker 2: Ryan, it'd be a nice to see how that system works.
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  Speaker 2: But from our point of view, we're just pleased that
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  Speaker 2: we've had the announcements. It's a positive step forward and
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  Speaker 2: we're happy to look at any initiative that's going to
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  Speaker 2: make our stores safer for our team and our customers.
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  Speaker 1: How does it work? If you want to issue it
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  Speaker 1: on the spot, fine, it's the cops that do it,
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  Speaker 1: So you have to wait till the cops arrive to
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  Speaker 1: do that. What happens if the offender leaves in the interim, You're.
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  Speaker 2: Right from what the detail we're looking at is, the
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  Speaker 2: police will obviously shoe those fines on the spot, and
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  Speaker 2: if they have left, they've left, we'll obviously do our
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  Speaker 2: normal reports who are on our CCTV reporting to hopefully
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  Speaker 2: that they can track them down. But again, as you said,
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  Speaker 2: it all depends on what the value is that we'll
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  Speaker 2: report everything where we can to the police.
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  Speaker 1: So you're not you're not going to change your practice
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  Speaker 1: of not because at the moment you know you'd always
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  Speaker 1: you don't let your staff hold the trolley or hold
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  Speaker 1: the person. Your security guards are told not to do
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  Speaker 1: that as well. Is that correct?
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  Speaker 2: If we can't restrain anybody, we can approach if we've
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  Speaker 2: had our team trained correctly to approach the offender or
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  Speaker 2: the thief. But the main aim for us is to
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  Speaker 2: keep our team and customers safe.
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  Speaker 1: Would you like the authority to restrain people?
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  Speaker 2: It'd be an interesting concept, and when we've talked about
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  Speaker 2: the citizens' arrest yesterday, actually it'll be interesting but again
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  Speaker 2: we've got to have some real type time framework around
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  Speaker 2: that because you put your team or your customers in
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  Speaker 2: the way of a cistans arrest, you don't know what
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  Speaker 2: the outcome is going to be, particularly when we've got
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  Speaker 2: knife threatening and abuse from theft at sixty five percent
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  Speaker 2: increase on last year, so you just don't know what
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  Speaker 2: they're carrying nowadays. So again for me, it's about how
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  Speaker 2: do we keep our team safe. But we'll watch this
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  Speaker 2: space with what the government come out with.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, but if it wasn't your staff but security guards,
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  Speaker 1: if they were able to do it, would you be
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  Speaker 1: open to then?
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  Speaker 2: Look again, probably would be. But again we've got to
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  Speaker 2: make sure that the training is right. Ryan. We've got
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  Speaker 2: to make sure that is third party security company that
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  Speaker 2: get involved in citizens arrest, particularly if they're in a public,
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  Speaker 2: open area, which our supermarkets are, we've got to make
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  Speaker 2: sure that they've got exactly the right training to keep
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  Speaker 2: them safe and the customers around them.
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  Speaker 1: Should anyone have a taser because that's one of the
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  Speaker 1: things that were going to recommen was taser training for
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  Speaker 1: security guards.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, again, I won't go down that path. I've seen
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  Speaker 2: it happen our stores though, but it wasn't the security
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  Speaker 2: guards at the police. But again we've got to watch
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  Speaker 2: what that looks like and see what the government recommend.
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  Speaker 1: Jason appreciate your time this morning. Jason Stockholm, world Worst
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  Speaker 1: director of Retail. For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge,
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