SIRA NSW - When the System Is Silent, the Harm Is Not - February 2021

(Including the Regulator Who Was Told)

There is a particular kind of harm that occurs when a person asks for help and the system designed to protect them goes quiet.

Not delayed.

Not overwhelmed.

Not imperfect.

Silent.

In early 2021, I was no longer asking for outcomes. I was asking for human response. I had been injured, isolated, and stripped of support while trying to navigate my employer’s conduct, the workers’ compensation system, and communication with the state regulator, SIRA NSW, all at the same time.

The injury was real.

The trauma was real.

And the fear was real.

What I learned very quickly is this: silence inside a care and regulatory system compounds harm.

I told the regulator I was not coping

In February 2021, I wrote directly to SIRA NSW. I explained that I was traumatised, avoiding emails and voicemail because of the distress they caused, and that I had no support. I explained that delays were placing me at risk of homelessness. I asked who I was meant to speak to for income support when I was being directed back toward the very people who had harmed me.

I asked, plainly, for help.

I was not writing as an abstraction or a case number. I was writing as a human being in distress, seeking support from the regulator responsible for overseeing the workers’ compensation system.

“Who is ‘them’?”

At that time, I had applied for interim income support simply to survive. When that application was rejected, I was told to “speak with them.”

No one explained who “them” was.

Was I meant to speak to the employer representatives who had already subjected me to harm?

Was I meant to negotiate directly with an insurer I believed was not acting independently?

Was I meant to be well enough, resourced enough, and emotionally safe enough to confront the source of my own injury?

That confusion — and the distress it caused — was not incidental. It was part of a system that left me carrying the risk alone.

Trauma does not pause for process

I told SIRA NSW that I was identifying symptoms consistent with PTSD arising from prolonged organisational abuse and adverse action. I explained that I could not safely open emails without becoming distressed. I asked for support to be present with me during an insurer-arranged independent medical examination. I asked for my rights to a return-to-work plan, a case manager, and coordinated injury management to finally be honoured.

These were not unreasonable requests. They were the very safeguards the system is meant to provide.

Yet while processes continued around me, no one ensured I was safe within them.

Isolation is not recovery

One of the deepest harms was not only the injury, but the enforced isolation.

Colleagues I had supported for nearly two decades were coerced into silence. I told the regulator what this was doing to my mental health. I explained that telling someone to rely on “friends and family” ignored the reality that my family had already been drawn into harm and distress.

I wrote that therapy alone could not help me if my basic rights under workers’ compensation were still being denied — because psychological care cannot replace safety, income, dignity, and protection from further harm.

This is what systemic failure looks like

Systemic failure is not always loud.

Sometimes it looks like:

• a regulator being told someone is frightened and alone,

• repeated explanations of distress with no effective intervention,

• processes continuing while the human being inside them deteriorates,

• and silence that protects institutions rather than people.

I was not asking for special treatment.

I was asking for the system — including SIRA NSW — to function as it is meant to.

Support.

Coordination.

Protection.

A genuine path to recovery.

When the System Is Silent, the Harm Is Not

Why I am sharing this now

I am sharing this because I did not stay silent.

I am sharing this because the regulator was told.

I am sharing this because formal processes did not stop the harm.

And I am sharing this because others will recognise themselves here — still wondering if the silence means they did something wrong.

They didn’t.

If a system requires an injured person to become sicker, poorer, and more traumatised before it responds, then the system itself is unsafe.

Listening is not a courtesy. It is a measure of dignity.

(Documents 149-150). 

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Further reading 

Ahsan, S. (2022, 6 September). ‘I’m a psychologist – and I believe we’ve been told devastating lies about mental health’. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/06/psychologist-devastating-lies-mental-health-problems-politics 

SIRA NSW. (2025, 3 October). ‘Recovery after a workplace injury: Information for employers on supporting a worker in their recovery after a workplace injury.’ https://www.sira.nsw.gov.au/workers-compensation/recovery-after-a-workplace-injury