Bullying to become a crime in Australia

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Bullying to become a crime in Australia

from The New Zealand Herald

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/workplace/...ectid=10717366

Bullying is set to become a crime for the first time in Australia as concern grows at the rise of abuse that has destroyed lives and driven workers and teenagers to suicide.

Victorian Attorney-General Robert Clark is expected to introduce amendments to stalking laws in the state Parliament tomorrow, placing workplace and cyber bullying under the Crimes Act.

The new legislation will provide penalties of up to 10 years' jail.

It follows the 2006 suicide of 19-year-old cafe worker Brodie Panlock, who was subjected to "merciless" bullying by four colleagues at Melbourne's Cafe Vamp.

She was abused, spat upon, had fish oil poured over her and, after one failed suicide attempt, was laughed at and advised to try rat poison before jumping from a multi-storey carpark.

Her abusers, head waiter Nicholas Smallwood and waiter Rhys MacAlpine, with chef Gabriel Toomey and cafe owner Marc Da Cruz, were fined A$337,000 ($432,337) under occupational health and safety laws in what the dead woman's father, Damian Panlock, described as a "slap on the wrist".

No criminal charges were brought because bullying is not a crime anywhere in Australia, and is instead covered by workplace, compensation, discrimination and similar legislation.

Last year a Sydney security guard was awarded a record A$1.9 million in damages after bullying that included threats of violence, financial penalties, racial and sexual abuse, and excessive and unpaid working hours.

But until Victoria's new move, governments have been reluctant to include serious bullying in criminal law, despite research estimating that one in four employees is likely to suffer from it at some stage.

Workplace bullying is also estimated to cost Australia between A$17 billion and A$36 billion a year in lost productivity, damage to mental health and staff turnover.

The new Victorian legislation will also cover cyber-bullying, another area of increasing concern, especially among teenage students.

Last year Victorian police used stalking laws to convict a 21-year-old man who hounded a teenager to suicide - but the cyber-bully was sentenced only to community service.

A three-year survey of 16,000 children by Edith Cowan University found that during the period of the study the number of victims grew from 15 to 25 per cent of respondents.

Clark said yesterday that under the new legislation - already known as "Brodie's law" - serious bullying would be treated as a crime if it could cause someone physical or mental harm.

Mr Panlock told a press conference yesterday that the new law was better late than never.

"If someone else can be protected from scum like these people, and they know that they are going to be charged, and they are going to have jail time, they might think twice," said Mr Panlock.

God bless this country.

I want to move there, now. You guys are lucky.

I wonder if minors can be charged. Usually not.

Appear this legislation is only in Victoria Australia

Good, it's about time someone take a stance against bullying. Hopefully other countries will follow Australia's example. Bullying has scarred too many people, myself included.

Same here. Couldn't have said it better myself.

+1

Its quite bad for me here in NZ. Last week our Prime Minister has been warning schools to police bullying. Things could change here too, only time will tell.

+1 for Victorian people, they have had the guts to do this first

I think this one of these good-intentioned ideas that could be very dangerous in practice.

One of the two - or by bulling we are talking about acts (like agressions) who are already crimes, and in these cases an anti-bullying law will be redundant; or we talking about acts that are not crimes per si, but will be considered crimes because of the context, and in this case the application of the law will be very subjective and prone to abuses.

Specially the so-called cyber-bullying seems a very sloppy concept - if the law will criminalize also cyber-bullying, this can be easily used in internet discussions as a way to silence oppositors (imagine two economists discussing economic policy in their respective blogs, and one says that the other is "ignorant" - the other could make charges of cyber-bullying against the first?).

It will be hard to implement in many cases.

Calling someone ignorant is not bullying. or calling someone a douche bag or whatever....

The police will have had tags on forum users if their rhetoric is noteworthy, now they will hide....

Because of electronic trail, triangulation of towers for cell/mobile phone use, any online abuse will be easy to prosecute on.

A video recording of abuse would facilitate an easy prosecution against a bully.

And, many will come forward as witnesses when the law changes, rather than saying nothing out of fear as currently the norm

The best way to deal with bullies is to confront them. When you lose your "victim" status, they no longer have power over you.

Let the victims get retribution against the bully. Best solution.

Letting a nanny state punish what it declares as "bullying" is just one step away from the "thought police."

Or, in simpler terms....

WHEN BULLYING IS OUTLAWED, THE STATE WILL BE THE ONLY REMAINING BULLY.

Exactly.

I'm not confident it will work. However, if it does then thank god!
I was bullied all through school (I guess my then undiagnosed Aspergers had something to do with it). I ended up depressed, suicidal and with an eating disorder. Luckily I'm doing okay now, but nothing was ever done to the people who tormented me.

Would I be correct in saying that the day you started getting better involved you realizing you deserved to be treated better and was willing to fight for it?

Not every one is able to fight. If a young child was being harassed it should be a crime, why not with an adult. Especially those with disabilities should be protected from nasty bully's.

I tend to view anti-bullying attempts like this as pretty much crap. The problem is that elementary school douchebags will get lumped into the same category as the people in the story the OP linked to. Another huge problem is the "potential for physical and mental harm" language. How vague can you get?? Crossing the street has potential for physical and mental harm!

I got bullied in elementary school time and time again (I was tiny, so they always thought "hey, easy target!"). I would take it and take it until they pushed too far, and then I would pretty much beat the hell out of them. No legal intervention necessary there, yet that butthead trying to kick dirt at me is going to get lumped in legally with serious abuse, and that's just dumb.