Victorian law says that if you injure an emergency worker on duty, the court must impose a minimum jail term. Thirteen groups of workers are named. Only one of them mentions hospitals, and it covers people providing "emergency treatment", and only while they are actually providing it.
So a protective services officer standing on a suburban railway platform is protected the whole time he is on duty. A midwife assaulted in a birthing suite is not. Neither is a nurse punched on a general ward, a mental health nurse dragged down a corridor in an acute unit, an aged care nurse kicked during personal care, or a community nurse threatened alone in a client's home after dark.
New South Wales fixed its wording in 2022. Victoria has not.
Since June 2025 we have been pressing both sides of Victorian politics to fix it. Here is what we have done, what we have been told, and what is still owed to you before the state election on 28 November.
None of this came from a policy paper. It came from our survey, The Real Emergency: Violence in Our Hospitals, and from members who wrote to us directly.
Of those who answered: 74% supported a trial of hospital-based police officers, with a further 19% open to it. More than half had experienced or witnessed violence or aggression daily or weekly. Around 40% reported physical assault. Around 30% did not report the incident at all. Where members did report, the most common description of what happened next was one word: nothing.
"Actual zero tolerance. Not lip service." Registered Nurse, South West Healthcare, Warrnambool
"I was nearly killed one night by a patient and I had no warning about him. I did not report it." Registered Nurse, Royal Melbourne Hospital
"The incident would just be assigned to the patient being too unwell to behave appropriately. NO action would follow." Registered Nurse, West Gippsland Healthcare Group
"It is terrible. I am planning on leaving nursing after 10 years now." Registered Nurse, Victorian public hospital
Those words have gone to a Premier, two Health Ministers, a Police Minister, an Attorney-General, a Leader of the Opposition and a Department Secretary. Not paraphrased. Quoted.
On 27 June 2025 we wrote to the then Health Minister Mary-Anne Thomas, Police Minister Anthony Carbines, Shadow Health Minister Georgie Crozier and the Secretary of the Department of Health. We asked for four things: safe and affordable staff parking, a hospital-based police officer pilot, monthly public reporting of violent incidents, and real authority for hospital security staff. We asked for a response in 14 days.
→ See our letter from 27 June
The Minister's reply pointed to more than $47 million invested since 2015, the $40 million Health Service Violence Prevention Fund, de-escalation training delivered to over 1,000 healthcare workers, and the Safewards model. On parking, it said arrangements are a matter for individual health services. On reporting, it said services have reported occupational violence data in their annual reports since 2015-16, and that under-reporting is being addressed by improving reporting culture.
Read that next to what members told us. We asked for monthly public figures and were pointed to an annual report. We asked for security officers with power to act and were pointed to training guidance. We asked who is responsible for a nurse walking to her car at 11pm and were told it depends on the hospital.
On 19 August 2026 we wrote to Premier Ben Carroll and Health Minister Ingrid Stitt, copied to the Police Minister, the Attorney-General, the Leader of the Opposition and the Shadow Health Minister. This time we put the law itself on the table.
We set out two gaps. The first is the wording in section 10AA of the Sentencing Act 1991, which leaves most nurses and midwives outside the emergency worker protections. The second is that the person who answers your duress alarm has roughly the same powers as any member of the public. A protective services officer can arrest on reasonable belief, search for weapons, seize them and move people on. A hospital security officer can do none of that.
We backed it with the evidence, all of it public and checkable:
We asked for a written response in 14 days, and we said we would publish what both sides sent back.
→ See our letter to the Premier and Health Minister, 19 August 2026
We said we would publish both responses. Here they are.
The Opposition. Leader of the Opposition Jess Wilson wrote back on 10 September 2026. She confirmed the Liberals and Nationals have announced a two-year pilot deploying 70 protective services officers across seven major hospitals, and a commitment to close the "on duty" loophole in Victoria's emergency worker laws so frontline workers are protected for their whole shift. She noted our proposal to broaden which health workers are covered, including community health workers and hospital security staff, and our calls for monthly publication of violence data, consistent statewide safety standards, safer access to and from work, and an Auditor-General follow-up. She has asked Shadow Health Minister Georgie Crozier and Shadow Police Minister Brad Battin to keep working through the rest before the election.
That is movement. It is not yet a commitment on the wording that leaves ward, mental health, maternity, aged care and community nurses out, and we have said so.
→ See Leader of the Opposition response, 10 September 2026
The Government. We have an acknowledgement and nothing more. No response on the section 10AA wording. No response on hospital-based police or protective services officers. No response on monthly public reporting. No response on enforceable statewide minimum standards. The 14 days we asked for expired on 2 September.
Parliament expires on 3 November. We will keep asking, publicly, until the Government answers or the election does.
Tell us what happened to you. Every figure in these letters started as a survey response or an email from a member, and every quote we publish is de-identified. Your candidate will be at your door between now and 28 November. Ask them two questions: will you fix the loopholes that mean Zero Tolerance is actually Total tolerance in reality.
If you have been assaulted at work and your report has gone nowhere, contact us. That is not a complaint we file away. That is the evidence.
NPAA represents nurses and midwives across Australia on issues exactly like this one. If you're not yet a member, contact NPAA to find out how membership can support you at work.
Call the NPAA hotline on 1300 263 374 or email hotline@npaa.asn.au.