Brodie’s Law is the name given to a 2011 change to Victorian law that made serious bullying a criminal offence carrying up to ten years in prison. It is named after Brodie Panlock, a 19-year-old Melbourne woman who took her own life in 2006 after sustained bullying at work. More than a decade on, it remains one of the clearest examples in Australia of a personal tragedy reshaping the criminal law — and a useful case study in the gap between what a law symbolises and how often it is actually used.
This explainer sets out what Brodie’s Law changed, how it works in practice, what happened in the original case that prompted it, and why prosecutions under it are rarer than many people expect. It is general information, not legal advice.
Overview: the case that prompted the law #
Brodie Panlock worked at a café in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs. In the period before her death in 2006, she was subjected to relentless and degrading bullying by co-workers — conduct that was later examined in detail and condemned. At the time, however, there was no specific criminal offence that captured serious bullying as bullying. That gap became the focus of a public campaign led by Brodie’s family, and it is the reason the eventual reform carries her name.
The original prosecution: an OHS case, not a bullying one #
Before the law was changed, the only avenue that fit the facts was occupational health and safety law. The café operator and the individuals responsible were prosecuted for failing to provide a safe workplace, and were fined a total of around $335,000. The penalties were significant — but they were imposed for a workplace-safety breach, not for bullying as such, and the case exposed exactly the gap the campaign sought to close: the law had no way of naming the conduct for what it was.
What the law actually did #
Rather than create a standalone “bullying offence”, the Crimes Amendment (Bullying) Act 2011 expanded Victoria’s existing offence of stalking. The stalking provision in the Crimes Act 1958 (section 21A) was amended so that the kinds of behaviour involved in serious bullying — abusive or threatening words or acts, and conduct that could reasonably be expected to cause physical or mental harm, including self-harm, or to arouse fear — fall within it. The change commenced on 10 June 2011.
The maximum penalty is ten years’ imprisonment. Importantly, the law is not limited to workplaces: it applies to bullying in any setting, including schools, sporting clubs and online. The conduct, not the location, is what matters.
Court outcomes: how it has been used #
Because Brodie’s Law operates through the stalking offence rather than as a separately labelled charge, there is no neat public tally of “Brodie’s Law convictions” — prosecutions appear in the record as stalking. The law has been used, including in cases of serious workplace and online harassment, and police and prosecutors have publicly pointed to it as an available charge where bullying crosses into criminal conduct.
But it is not reached for lightly, and that is by design. The threshold for the stalking offence is high: a single rude remark or an ordinary workplace dispute does not meet it. The conduct generally needs to be a course of behaviour, serious in nature, with the capacity to cause real harm. Proving the elements to the criminal standard — beyond reasonable doubt — is demanding, particularly where the harm is psychological and the evidence is contested. How serious matters move through the system once charged is set out in our explainer on the Victorian criminal trial process.
How it fits with intervention orders #
For many people experiencing bullying or harassment, a personal safety intervention order is a more immediate and practical protection than a criminal prosecution. An order can prohibit contact and approach, and breaching it is itself an offence. Brodie’s Law and the intervention-order system are not alternatives so much as different tools for different points on the same spectrum of harm. We cover how those orders work in our guide to intervention orders in Victoria. Alongside them sit employers’ continuing occupational health and safety duties, civil remedies, and workplace and school complaint processes — which do much of the day-to-day work that never reaches a courtroom.
Why it still matters #
Brodie’s Law endures partly because of what it represents. It established, in law, that serious bullying is not an unfortunate part of life to be tolerated but conduct capable of being a crime, with a maximum penalty that signals how gravely the community can treat it. The fact that prosecutions are uncommon is not a failure of the law so much as a feature of where it sits — at the most serious end of a spectrum that is mostly managed by other means. For Brodie Panlock’s family, the law is a memorial built from advocacy. For everyone else, it is a reminder that the line between cruelty and criminality is one the law is willing to draw.
If you or someone you know is struggling, support is available. Lifeline can be reached on 13 11 14, and beyondblue on 1300 22 4636. In an emergency, always call Triple Zero (000).
