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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-11-28 Daily Xml
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BRODIE'S LAW

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS (14:45): I seek leave to make a brief explanation on the topic of workplace bullying laws, specifically Brodie's Law, before addressing a question on this topic to the Minister for Industrial Relations.

Leave granted.

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS: As the minister is no doubt aware, on 31 May this year the federal Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Bill Shorten MP, asked the House Standing Committee on Education and Employment to inquire into and report on workplace bullying. On Monday of this week the committee tabled its report entitled 'Workplace Bullying: We just want it to stop'.

As members would know, workplace bullying can cause great distress and serious psychological injury to victims and their families, as well as affecting the wider community, resulting in the reduction of productivity and contributing to increased workers compensation claims and associated costs. Indeed, the Productivity Commission estimates that the total cost of workplace bullying in Australia is somewhere between $6 billion and $36 billion annually.

In the case of 19 year old Vamp Cafe waitress Brodie Panlock, it cost her her life. In her workplace Brodie had food thrown at her, she was spat on and she was held down by two co-workers while another poured cooking oil and beer over her. When her workmates found out that she had made a suicide attempt she was mocked and offered rat poison. What was done to this young woman was intolerable, insidious and, for Brodie, unbearable.

Desperately depressed she jumped to her death from a tall building. Cafe owner Marc Luis Da Cruz, manager Nicholas Smallwood, waiter Rhys MacAlpine and chef Gabriel Toomey were later convicted under that state's occupational health and safety laws, which only allowed for fines to be imposed. A resultant amendment to the Victorian Crimes Act is now known colloquially as 'Brodie's Law'.

Under Brodie's Law anyone found guilty of causing physical or mental harm to the victim, including self harm, can now face up to 10 years in gaol in that jurisdiction. Throughout the house inquiry the committee heard calls for a national criminal law based on Brodie's Law, expressly prohibiting workplace bullying. However, the committee has noted in its findings that:

Constitutional limitations mean that it is not possible for the Commonwealth to make law criminalising any bullying or anti-social behaviour other than that which is typical of cyber bullying. This is because the Commonwealth's powers in this regard are restricted to the use of carriage service, such as the internet or telephones, to menace or harass another person.

Therefore, my question to the minister is: what action or response does the minister plan to enact with regard to this report and, in particular, to recommendation 22 which states:

The committee recommends that, through the Standing Council on Law and Justice, the Commonwealth Government [will]:

encourage all state and territory governments to coordinate and collaborate to ensure that their criminal laws are as extensive as Brodie's law; and

encourage state and territory governments to consider greater enforcement of their criminal laws in cases of serious workplace bullying, regardless of whether work health and safety laws are being enforced.

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY (Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for State/Local Government Relations) (14:48): I thank the member for her very important question. The events and circumstances surrounding this whole issue are quite tragic. The committee report was handed down this week. SafeWork will be going through the report and will be giving me a full briefing, and will then make a determination on where we will go from there. This government takes very seriously workplace bullying, so you can be assured that appropriate action will be taken.

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