Overview
- Effective from Sunday until 29 May 2026, the CBD, Docklands, Southbank, the sporting and entertainment precinct, and parts of East and South Melbourne will be designated for warrantless searches.
- Police and PSOs can conduct pat-downs or electronic wand scans, search vehicles, and require removal of outer clothing or face coverings, with offences applying for obstruction or failure to follow directions or move-on orders.
- Victoria Police describes the operations as a tool to remove weapons and confirms this is the first declaration of this duration under recent changes to the Control of Weapons Act.
- Inner Melbourne Community Legal, Liberty Victoria and the Human Rights Law Centre call the move unprecedented overreach, citing research that only about 1% of similar searches yielded illicit items and that some communities face disproportionate targeting.
- Melbourne Lord Mayor Nicholas Reece welcomed the powers as a crime circuit-breaker, while MPs David Limbrick and Lidia Thorpe warned of rights violations and profiling; police state zero tolerance for racial profiling.