For a long time, retail ran on one rule: the customer is always right. In Queensland, the rule that now carries legal weight is somewhat different.
Put bluntly, abuse from a customer is a workplace hazard. The business has to manage it as it does for any other risk to health and safety.
That message hasn't reached every register. One Queensland retail worker, quoted anonymously in the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees' Association's 2025 research, described the attitude they still encounter: 'unfortunately, we are just meant to get over it.'
In other words, the expectation can still be that workers should simply tolerate abuse from customers.
The change has been building for years. In 2019, a NSW trial involving insurer icare, The Reject Shop, KFC, the SDA and Griffith University took aim at the ‘customer is always right’ mentality, recognising that customer abuse needed to be treated as a workplace issue.
Four years later, Queensland brought customer aggression squarely within its workplace health and safety rules.
How Common Is Customer Abuse in Retail?
In the SDA's own surveys, it is very common, with physical violence rising fastest. The 2025 survey of 2,592 retail and fast food members nationally found a staggering 88% had been verbally abused by a customer in the past year.
A quarter of those members had experienced physical violence from a customer, double the 2023 figure.
Source: SDA, Customer Abuse & Violence final report, December 2025. Fieldwork ran from 22 September to 9 November 2025. It is an open online survey of union members, and the report notes it may carry self-selection bias. The figures describe members who responded, not every retail worker.
The same report found 34% of members did not feel safe at work, up from 26% in 2023.
Workers' compensation data points the same way. Safe Work Australia's 2024 report on workplace violence found serious claims for assault and exposure to workplace violence rose 56% nationally from 2017-18 to 2021-22.
That is more than triple the growth in serious claims.
Queensland's workplace safety regulator has its own retail figure, although it is a few years out of date. A 2021 guide from Workplace Health and Safety Queensland says retail claims for work-related violence and aggression rose by 114% in the five years to January 2021.
Across all industries in Queensland, over the same period, the rise was 81%.
What Changed: Customer Abuse Is Now a Recognised Hazard Under Queensland's Safety Rules
Since 1 April 2023, Queensland businesses have been legally required to manage psychosocial hazards. For retail workers, that includes the risk of verbal abuse, threats and other aggressive behaviour from customers.
The underlying duty is older. The Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (Qld) requires a business to ensure its workers' health and safety, so far as is reasonably practicable (s 19). The Act defines 'health' as 'physical and psychological health' (sch 5).
The change implemented in 2023 was essentially to add a level of clarification. The Work Health and Safety Regulation 2011 (Qld) defines a psychosocial hazard as 'workplace interactions or behaviours' that may cause psychological harm (s 55A).
Businesses must manage those risks (s 55C). In choosing controls, they must consider workplace interactions and behaviours, and the training and supervision workers receive (s 55D).
The Managing the risk of psychosocial hazards at work Code of Practice 2022 also commenced on 1 April 2023, and an updated version took effect on 1 September 2026. It lists 'cashiers, retail and hospitality workers' among those most at risk of violence and aggression.
Three details in the Code matter most on the shop floor:
- Verbal abuse counts. Examples include 'verbal abuse and threats including intimidation, insults, shouting, or swearing', alongside spitting and armed robbery.
- The source of the abuse does not remove the employer's duty. A business's duty extends to protecting workers from third parties, including 'members of the public in retail or hospitality establishments'.
- It carries weight in court. An approved code is admissible in a prosecution under the Act. A court may rely on it to decide what was reasonably practicable (s 275).
In plain terms, a store can no longer treat abuse as a customer service problem for staff to absorb. It is a risk to be assessed, controlled and reviewed.
How to Deal With an Aggressive Customer in Retail
Queensland's Code sets out what a workplace response procedure can require staff to do when a customer becomes aggressive.
Important: If anyone is in immediate danger, call 000. Otherwise:
- Stay calm and de-escalate. Use calm verbal and non-verbal communication, as well as de-escalation and distraction techniques.
- Don't handle it alone. Get support from the people you work with.
- Ask the person to leave. The Code lists asking the aggressor to leave the premises as one of the responses.
- Raise the alarm. Know when to set off a duress alarm, or how else to signal that you need help.
- Get to a safe place. Retreat to a safe location rather than staying within reach.
The biggest shift sits in the Code's list of controls. It includes 'empowering workers to restrict, refuse or suspend service' when people don't meet the expected standard of behaviour.
The regulator's retail guide is blunter. Its controls include refusing service to customers who expose workers to violence and aggression.
The guide also names several common flashpoints:
- Too few or untrained staff
- Stock shortages
- Long waiting times
- Refunds and returns
- Processing delays
- Distressed, angry or intoxicated customers
Surprisingly, for some retailers, the biggest flashpoint can simply be refusing the customer. 'With alcohol retail, it all centres around refusal of sale confrontations or theft,' one Queensland line manager told the SDA's 2025 survey.
Under s 84 of the Act, a worker may cease or refuse work on a reasonable concern of serious risk from an immediate or imminent hazard. That is, downing tools won’t result in punishment or dismissal.
They must tell the business as soon as practicable and stay available for suitable alternative work (s 86).
How to Protect Retail Workers From Abuse: What Employers Are Expected to Do
The Code and the retail guide describe the controls a Queensland business is expected to consider. They include:
- Limit what can be stolen. Limit cash and valuables on site, use locked drop safes, vary banking times and display 'limited cash held' signs.
- Security that works. Security staff, video surveillance and duress alarms, with alarm systems regularly maintained and tested.
- Enough people. Avoid staff working in isolation, control access when someone works alone or at night, and roster enough workers for busy periods.
- A safer layout. Counters or screens between staff and the public, clear sightlines, good lighting, nowhere a worker could be trapped, and a safe place to retreat.
- Clear expectations. Customer-facing signs saying violence and aggression won't be tolerated.
- Real training. Specific sessions that are dedicated to dealing with difficult customers, resolving conflict and de-escalating aggressive behaviour.
- Protection beyond the shift. Being advised not to wear a uniform or name tag outside work, and not naming the workplace on personal social media.
The SDA's figures suggest a rather large chasm between the list above and the shop floor. Nationally, 72% of members had received training on aggressive customers, but only 47% felt sufficiently trained.
Moreover, a gap can be seen in terms of whether employers have been consulted on safety measures at all. 45% of members said their employer had not done this. This number is somewhat shocking, given that in Queensland, consulting workers on health and safety is a legal duty, so far as is reasonably practicable (s 47 of the Act).
The use of technology might seem like an obvious step forward, but there’s been mixed results up until now. Woolworths began trialling body-worn cameras in 2021 after reported assaults doubled, and told the ABC in 2023 that the cameras had substantially reduced abuse and physical incidents.
Union members see it differently. The SDA's 2025 report found 40% of members using the cameras still felt unsafe at work, against 34% of all members.
After an Incident
Let’s break down the steps that may or may not take place following an incident.
Response procedure
Under the Code, a response procedure may include:
- checking everyone is safe
- providing first aid
- offering practical and emotional support, such as a debrief
- helping workers report the incident to police
A death, serious injury or illness, or dangerous incident must also be notified to the regulator (s 38 of the Act).
Again, based on the SDA’s own numbers, this is one of the weakest points. Of members who had reported an incident, 62% said the response wasn't satisfactory, and only 22% of all members rated their employer's post-incident support as suitable.
Under-reporting
Under-reporting only makes the problem worse. The regulator's retail guide lists several reasons why workers stay quiet:
- seeing abuse as something they are expected to tolerate
- believing that no action will be taken if they do report
- fearing they will lose shifts or work
The same guide tells businesses to review incident records when identifying the hazard. But, in reality, an incident nobody writes down is a risk the business may never see.
Compensation and support
Queensland's workers' compensation scheme covers psychological as well as physical injury where employment is a significant contributing factor.
Psychological injury has some additional exclusions. For example, an injury may not be covered if it results from reasonable management action taken in a reasonable way, under s 32 of the Workers' Compensation and Rehabilitation Act 2003 (Qld).
For support after an incident, WorkSafe Queensland lists the Workers' Psychological Support Service for Queensland workers, along with Lifeline (13 11 14) and Beyond Blue (1300 22 46 36).
If you want to read more about how reasonable management action is defined, see our guide to primary vs secondary psychological injuries.
Where Queensland Sits on the Criminal Side
Assaulting a shop worker has always been a crime. What differs between states is whether the law specifically makes assaulting a shop worker a separate offence, rather than treating it under the general laws against violence or assault.
The state of Victoria certainly does. Under laws passed in December 2025, assaulting or threatening to assault a customer-facing worker is a specific offence carrying up to five years in jail (Crimes Act 1958 (Vic) s 31(1)(bb)).
The same package created summary offences of up to six months for lower-level assaults and intimidating conduct.
Victoria's Parliament then passed the Workplace Protection Orders Act 2026 (Vic) in August 2026.
Under the Act, a Victorian magistrate will be able to bar a person from a retail workplace or certain public transport settings where they have engaged in unacceptable conduct. The scheme is due to start in mid-2027.
Queensland has neither a retail-specific offence nor protection orders for retail workers.
Assaults on shop staff are charged under general offences in the Criminal Code (Qld), such as common assault (s 335) and assault occasioning bodily harm (s 339).
Queensland's 2026 changes took a different route. Rather than creating a specific offence for abusing a shop worker, the Police Powers and Responsibilities Act 2000 (Qld) gives police additional powers in designated business and community precincts.
Police can direct people to move on or issue banning notices to keep them away from these areas. The Government says the changes are intended to protect businesses and workers in key commercial areas by giving police a way to remove or exclude people whose behaviour is causing problems.
Those powers, however, attach to an area, not a particular workplace. The SDA's Queensland branch has called on the State Government to introduce protection orders, describing Queensland in July 2026 as 'the only Australian state yet to take positive steps' towards them.
The New Normal
The legal answer to 'is this just part of the job?' became much clearer in Queensland on 1 April 2023. Customer abuse became a hazard with a duty attached, and refusing service became a recognised safety control rather than a lapse in manners.
It will take some time, though, for the shop floor to catch up. As we discussed, most SDA members who reported abuse said the response fell short, and Queensland's regulator says under-reporting points to a larger problem than its own statistics show.
The next step is making sure the legal duty is felt where it matters most: at the register, on the shop floor and in the way workers are treated when a customer crosses the line.
