SafeWork NSW - My Experience : When the Regulator Doesn’t Listen - January 2021

18 January 2021

I contacted SafeWork NSW because I had no other option left.

I didn’t call to ruffle feathers.

I didn’t call to complain for the sake of it.

I called because I was frightened, exhausted, injured, and trying to stop something unlawful before it destroyed my work, my health, and my life.

By that point, I had spent an entire year trying to navigate a system that was not only complex, but inefficient — and ultimately a failure in assisting good people in society.

I was an injured worker.

I was asking for help.

And I was not being listened to.

So I put it in writing.

I copied in three colleagues as witnesses — not as a tactic, but as protection. I had already learned that silence and isolation were dangerous. I needed good, honest people around me to make sure my voice could not be erased again.

I asked for reinstatement.

I asked for my rights under workers’ compensation law.

I asked — repeatedly — for communication, cooperation, and basic human decency.

What I received instead was dismissal.

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“You Should Know This”

During my interaction with a SafeWork NSW inspector, I was treated as though I were expected to already understand everything — every process, every form, every hidden rule.

But the truth is: I didn’t know.

I didn’t know because the information had been withheld from me.

Withholding information to deliberately disadvantage someone is bullying.

Yet that reality was never acknowledged.

Instead of listening, I was spoken down to.

Instead of support, I was met with attitude.

Instead of care, I was humiliated.

I was already suffering cognitive impairment from trauma, extreme fatigue, and lack of sleep. I was trying to explain that I was overwhelmed and afraid — and I could not get a word in edgewise.

No one communicated.

No one collaborated.

No one cooperated.

Not the employer.

Not the insurer.

And, heartbreakingly, not the regulator SafeWork NSW I had turned to as a last hope.

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Trapped Between Systems

By this point, I had tried everything.

• I begged my union, the NTEU, for help.

• I contacted the Fair Work Ombudsman.

• I contacted SIRA NSW.

• I followed advice to report harassment to the police.

The police told me they couldn’t act.

They advised me to apply for an APVO.

The court told me it was a workplace issue and refused to list it.

They sent me back to the Fair Work Ombudsman. 

The Fair Work Ombudsman sent me elsewhere.

Round and round I went.

Can you see the systemic problem here?

Every door pointed to another door.

Every authority passed responsibility.

And in the middle of it all was a human being deteriorating.

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Kindness Does Not Require a Qualification

Kindness and listening do not require a qualification.

They should be a requirement of being human — especially when you work in systems designed to protect people who are already vulnerable.

I did not want pity.

I did not expect apologies from those who harmed me.

What I wanted was simple:

• For the harassment to stop

• For the law to be followed

• For someone with authority to intervene

• For my right to a safe return to work to be enforced

My recovery depended on reinstatement and continuity — as though the unlawful shame and harm to my dignity had never happened.

But instead of being supported, I was treated as a nuisance.

Instead of being heard, I was compared to “other cases.”

I am not a case.

I am an individual.

I have a name.

My name is Vicki.

And I DO NOT treat people like that, SafeWork NSW inspectors and staff. 

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The Scaffold That Fell

I tried to explain it in terms everyone understands, especially SafeWork NSW. 

SafeWork NSW still don’t understand psychological abuse in the workplace and the meaning of psychological injury and TRAUMA. 

Imagine this:

There is a loose scaffold above my head.

I report it to SafeWork NSW.

I am met with rudeness.

With attitude.

With dismissal.

No one listens.

The scaffold falls.

It flattens me.

I am unconscious in hospital.

At that point, SafeWork NSW has two choices:

1. Investigate the safety breaches, enforce the law, ensure accountability, and support my recovery — including a safe return to work.

2. Dismiss me again, leaving me with no life support, no income, no dignity — a decision that, for someone already traumatised, could be a death sentence.

That is not hyperbole. That is the reality for many injured workers.

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The Harm Does Not Stop With One Person

What happened to me did not only harm me.

It harmed my colleagues — people I had inspired, supported, mentored, and cared for.

It harmed my family.

My family became unwell from the shock and indignity. I couldn’t protect them.

My late father had worried this would be the outcome — that my kindness and dedication would be exploited.

This was not just a workplace failure.

It was a failure of dignity, respect, and social justice.

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I Tried Again

26 January 2021

I sent further information to SafeWork NSW — documents, links, explanations — trying once more to help them understand what was happening.

But by then, I was avoiding my email.

Not because I didn’t care.

Because I was frightened.

I was isolated.

I was alone.

I had learned that every time I opened an email, there was a new blow waiting.

I waited for my GP telehealth appointment so I wouldn’t be alone when I read it.

And my fear proved true — again. (Coming up in the next post). 

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If You Are Reading This

If you are an injured worker navigating silence, dismissal, or indifference:

You are not imagining it.

You are not weak.

And you are not alone.

Listening is not a courtesy.

It is a measure of dignity.

And when regulators fail to listen, the harm does not stop at paperwork — it lands in human lives.

All I ever asked for was a safe work environment.

That should never be too much to ask.

(Documents 144-145).

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Author’s note:

This post reflects my lived experience and is based on contemporaneous correspondence and formal complaints lodged with regulators.

When a human being has exhausted every agency responsible to keep her safe from further harm, and is not only failed, but those “trusted” agencies caused greater harm, this person is left with no other choice but to scream for help to save her life and assert her statutory employee rights.

It should NEVER have reached this point. 

My Story. My Voice.

Further reading:

Kelsey-Sugg, A. and Tencic, N. (2023, 18 July). ‘Workplace psychosocial hazards can be devastating, but we might be getting better at managing them’. ABC RN. Online: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-18/how-workplace-psycho-social-hazards-can-impact-mental-health/102597184 

Vassiley, A., Barratt, T., and Burgess, J. (2025). ‘Psychosocial workplace hazards and industrial relations: An introduction.’ Journal of Industrial Relations. 67(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/00221856251326664