When Advocacy Is Treated as Harassment
On 9 March 2021, something happened that still defines my understanding of how power operates when a worker is injured, isolated, and asking for safety.
I did not make the call myself.
A friend I have known since high school — someone deeply concerned about my health and safety — stepped in when I could no longer protect myself.
She contacted the university’s WHS & Wellbeing Manager to raise concerns about my wellbeing, the deliberate isolation I was experiencing, and the failure to meet basic injury-management and duty-of-care obligations.
She did what the system says anyone should do when there is a genuine risk to health and safety.
She checked — repeatedly — that she was speaking to the correct WHS authority.
She raised concerns about coercion, victimisation, and deliberate isolation.
She asked that HR be kept away from me to prevent further harm.
She spoke about trust, integrity, and the desire to protect the reputation of the university — even then.
Less than thirty minutes later, the “system” responded.
Not with care.
Not with concern.
But with intimidation.
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The Call That Changed Everything
At 12:09pm, my friend received an immediate callback — not from WHS, but from the National Manager of Employment Relations and Safety.
The tone was accusatory.
My friend was questioned about her “authority” to make the call.
She was accused of harassment for contacting a WHS manager.
She was told she had no right to speak to colleagues about my safety.
Then came the directive:
All communication was to cease.
Everything was to go through external lawyers at Clayton Utz.
No discussion about my safety.
No acknowledgement of the risks raised.
No attempt to de-escalate or protect.
Just control.
My friend described the interaction as intimidating.
I experienced the consequences as silencing.
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What This Revealed
This moment clarified something fundamental:
When a system treats concern for safety as misconduct,
and support as harassment,
it is no longer functioning as a safety system.
It is functioning as a containment strategy.
WHS obligations do not disappear because a worker is injured.
They intensify.
Support people are not intruders.
They are often the only safeguard left when a worker is being isolated and harmed.
And yet, the response was not protection — it was deterrence.
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Why This Matters
This was not a misunderstanding.
It was a clear signal that:
• safety concerns would be filtered through lawyers, not addressed
• third-party advocacy would be shut down
• isolation would be enforced, not remedied
This is how harm compounds — quietly, procedurally, and with plausible deniability.
I am sharing this now because internal processes did not stop the harm.
They escalated it.
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A Final Reflection
If a friend calling a WHS manager out of genuine concern is treated as harassment,
what message does that send to injured workers?
And who, exactly, is left to keep them safe?
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| WHS Risk Assessment FAILURE |
Source: contemporaneous record of events, 9 March 2021 - Document 154
Further Reading
Hollis, L.P. (2018). ‘Bully by Proxy: Using Subordinates as Henchmen to Facilitate Workplace Bullying’. [Presentation slides]: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326137001_Bully_by_Proxy_Using_Subordinates_as_Henchmen_to_Facilitate_Workplace_Bullying_Presentation_Slides
Hollis, L.P. (2019). ‘The Abetting Bully: Vicarious Bullying and Unethical Leadership in Higher Education’. Journal for the Study of Postsecondary and Tertiary Education 4 Pp.1-18
DOI:10.28945/4255 [Online open access]: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331959555_The_Abetting_Bully_Vicarious_Bullying_and_Unethical_Leadership_in_Higher_Education
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