Australian Anti-Bullying Law Reform

To the Honourable President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled:

The petition of the undersigned shows:

The increased prevalence of psychological abuse in all its forms (physical, verbal, online and any other mediums) and contexts (both workplace and non-workplace) being of major concern to the public.

That the harm inflicted by psychological abuse carries a massive human, financial and social cost. We believe current criminal, anti-discrimination and occupational health and safety laws (including the proposed nationally harmonised OHS laws) are inadequate in dealing with the gravity and magnitude of this serious community problem.

Your petitioners ask that the Parliament:

• Conduct a review by the Australian Law Reform Commission or the Productivity Commission or similar agency, of the effectiveness of all current (including criminal, anti-discrimination and OHS laws) and proposed legislation.

• Conduct a review of international best practice legislative and other avenues of government response to the issue of psychological abuse;

Following these reviews:

• New clearer and broader guidelines on what constitutes psychological abuse,

• Law reforms to ensure psychological abuse is appropriately addressed including:
- Amendments to criminal, anti-discrimination, OHS and other relevant laws;
- Amendments to penalties and sentencing laws to enable mandatory counselling and rehabilitation programs to be ordered, with an option of incarceration made available in extreme cases.
- Ensuring internet service providers have adequate powers to respond promptly and terminate the use of their services used to facilitate psychological abuse.

Your petitioners ask that the Parliament propose to the States and Territories that they adopt legislation consistent with the new objectives.