Officers will be able to stop and search people for six months without a warrant in a major city, as critics raise fears of racial profiling and civil liberty infringements.
Police have declared Melbourne's CBD, Docklands, Southbank, the sporting precinct, and parts of East and South Melbourne a "designated area" from Sunday until May 29, 2026.
It will allow officers to search a person or vehicle without a warrant, including asking someone to remove outer clothing or take items out of their pockets.
Police can also carry out searches using an electronic wand, or pat down.
The move has sparked concern from human rights and legal groups that it could violate civil liberties and freedoms of people visiting the city.
Searches without reasonable suspicion could lead to stigmatic shaming, said Liberty Victoria president Gemma Cafarella.
"We have the entire CBD of the capital city of the state being declared to be an area where people don't have fundamental rights that they would otherwise have," she told AAP.
The increased powers would disproportionately be used against First Nations people and other people of colour, Ms Cafarella said.
"Technically there's been a ban on racial profiling by police for some time, but that isn't effective at addressing both conscious and unconscious bias."
Research from the Centre Against Racial Profiling found Aboriginal, African, Middle Eastern and Pacific Island communities are disproportionately targeted in searches.
Officers are more than 15 times more likely to search Aboriginal Victorians than those perceived as white, according to the research published on Monday.
Despite the data suggesting otherwise, Victoria Police said it had a zero tolerance towards racial profiling.
"Our officers are well trained to police in response to a person's behaviour, not their background," a force spokesperson said.
"If you aren’t carrying a weapon, you don’t have anything to worry about."
Police said the powers would assist offices with removing weapons from the streets, with recent operations in the CBD leading to the seizure of a significant number of edged weapons.
However, Freedom of Information data analysed by Liberty Victoria showed only 252 objects or substances were found across nearly 24,000 "designated area" searches between January 2021 and January 2023.
"This equates to a hit rate of just over one per cent," Ms Cafarella said.
"We don't believe that such a very significant infringement on people's civil liberties and human rights can be justified in circumstances where they are almost always used against people who have done nothing wrong."
Independent Victorian senator Lidia Thorpe said racial profiling was a massive problem in the state and the declaration wasn't about protecting the community.
"It seems that if you have black or brown skin in Victoria that is seen to be a weapon," Senator Thorpe told ABC Radio.
Premier Jacinta Allan insisted people travelling into the CBD for work or pleasure had a right to be safe and played down concerns of racial profiling.
"Any allegation of racial profiling is a very serious one," Ms Allan said.
"Which is why there are strict oversight measures and also investigative bodies who have the authority to investigate allegations of that kind."
She argued the move was "entirely consistent" with Chief Commissioner Mike Bush’s push to get more officers on the beat to drive down state crime rates after criminal incidents soared 18.3 per cent in the 12 months to mid-2025.
