In May 2011 the Victorian government passed what is commonly known as Brodie’s law, named after a Victorian waitress Brodie Panlock who committed suicide after prolonged and vicious workplace bullying. While legislation is needed to address workplace bullying which is a dangerous psychological hazard, Brodie’s law does little to address the workplace cultures and background that contribute to bullying. Instead, Brodie’s law expanded the existing definition of stalking in the Victorian Crimes Act to include behaviours such as making threats to a target; using offensive and abusive words in the presence of a target, performing or directing abusive or offensive acts at a target, causing physical or mental harm to a target including self-harm, and contributing to the target feeling fear and apprehension for his or her own safety.
Under Brodie’s law, If someone feels they are being targeted by these bullying behaviours, then they need to go the police and seek a Stalking Intervention Order, or from January 1 2012 a Personal Safety Intervention Order.
While trying to address workplace bullying is admirable, these changes fail to address bullying from the evidence based, occupational health and safety framework that decades of research have shown to prevent and effectively address workplace bullying. By the time this severe bullying as described in Brodie’s Law is occurring, the target has already been damaged. Brodie’s does little to prevent bullying or to address the root causes.
In my opinion an employee who is not aware of their safety rights at work is going to be very intimidated reporting bullying to the police and asking for Stalking Intervention Order because they are being bullied at work. Placing a Stalking Intervention order on one’s boss or fellow employee, with no other intervention or support for the target has the potential to only make the situation worse.
Thank you to Karl Luke, from Thompsons Lawyers for the legislative information contained in this article.