In short:
SafeWork SA has issued Westfield improvement notices for its response to last month’s public disturbance at the Marion Shopping Centre which triggered a lockdown.
The shop employees’ union has called on the centre management to increase the training of security guards.
What’s next?
A review by South Australian Police into the incident is also underway.
Management of Westfield Marion is facing calls to upskill and increase security at the Adelaide shopping complex after South Australia’s workplace safety watchdog examined its response to last month’s public disturbance.
SafeWork SA met with the centre’s management and issued several statutory notices, which Westfield has up till August 12 to comply with.
It instructed Westfield to improve its emergency management response, “in particular the effectiveness of their communications system to alert workers and customers in the shopping centre”.
The meeting came after a lockdown at the shopping centre last month, triggered by a group of youth fighting with expandable batons.
Many criticised Westfield’s response to the incident as “confusing” in the wake of six stabbing deaths at the Bondi Junction complex in April.
The Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees’ Association’s (SDA) secretary Josh Peak said the centre’s response wasn’t clear enough to people within the centre.
“The warning and alert system wasn’t working properly in many parts of the shopping centre,” Mr Peak said.
“It was muffled, it couldn’t be heard and that added to the confusion and chaos that has been so well reported.”
Centre management told the ABC its team “followed our emergency procedures in response to this incident, including escalation to police”.
SA Premier Peter Malinauskas held back on criticising Westfield, saying the balance would be tough to achieve in a stressful environment.
“Westfield understandably have heightened their response, and it’s always easy to say in hindsight that people panicked or were too quick to raise an alarm, but of course if the opposite were true, they’d be facing even more severe criticism,” he said.
“It’s all about getting the balance right in the circumstances we saw post-Bondi.”
The premier also said a second review into the incident by SA Police was ongoing, and would not rush that report to completion.
“We would always, in these types of circumstances, prioritise accuracy over a rush to make findings,” he said.
Union flags security as issue for next major incident
Mr Peak said SDA members have expressed concerns over the calibre of security at the Marion centre, in the case of a more serious incident.
He has called on Westfield to increase its security in two capacities: the number of guards, and the level of their training.
“Even though there might be security on at a particular time, [our members] feel that the security guards aren’t trained or don’t have the skills to actually do anything when something goes wrong,” Mr Peak said.
The union secretary said the stall owners at shopping centres like Marion have asked for guards with training at a higher level, which would give them the power to detain people.
He said this calibre of skill would improve the centre’s response to an incident similar to last month’s.
“In many cases security are really reluctant to intervene, quite rightly, because they may not have the skills or training to do that,” he said.
The premier said upskilling the guards at public centres would be a good idea.
“We don’t want security guards panicking at the very time you don’t want them to rush to make judgement, and training always assists in that regard,” he said.
“[Westfield] have made a number of changes post-Bondi, I suspect they’ll make a number of changes post-this incident.”