Ministry When It Matters - April 2021

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” 

Proverbs 3:5

Ministry is not branding.

Ministry is not a webpage.

It is not a list of values written in calm, reassuring language.

Ministry is what happens when someone is suffering.

I re-read a Campus Ministry for Staff document that states, plainly, “Campus Ministry exists to help you.” It speaks about listening, dignity, compassion, accompaniment, and pastoral care during life’s most challenging moments.

I believed those words and  I relied on them.

Because when I was suffering — not hypothetically, but in real time — I reached out for help. I identified Campus Ministry as a source of pastoral support while I was experiencing profound distress, isolation, and fear.

I still am. 

At the time, in April 2021, I asked simply:

“Does anyone care on a human level? Can we start there? Where’s Campus Ministry?”

There was no response.

The document explains that “Pastoral Care is primarily about listening and then supporting, encouraging and guiding the person… towards healing.” Listening is named as the first act of care. Yet in my case, there was no listening, no guidance, and no encouragement — only absence.

That absence did not occur in a vacuum.

In my emails, I described being in acute financial hardship, fearful of homelessness, and reliant on friends to bring food so I could eat. I wrote about carrying responsibility for protecting my family’s safety and wellbeing from the employer’s persecution, their own health was also deteriorating under the strain. I said I was “alone and frightened,” that my health was declining rapidly, and that I was not coping.

I also wrote from a place of faith.

One night, I described sitting alone on Easter, waiting to light a candle at midnight — a moment usually marked by community, hope, and shared ritual — and doing so in isolation. I wrote that I did not know whether I would survive the coming week if support didn’t arrive. That was a disclosure of risk.

At that point, the risk of further psychological harm was plainly foreseeable, and the failure of university governance to act or intervene constituted a failure to manage a known risk, not an unforeseen outcome.

I said plainly:

“I need someone to call me for support.”

As the situation escalated, my ability to communicate safely was further constrained by conduct amounting to a restriction on communication through an exercise of authority within HR or governance, despite the foreseeable risk of psychological harm. Because I held a genuine fear of ongoing prohibited interception of my personal communications, a trusted friend — who had previously contacted the WHS manager on my behalf — sent emails for me as a protective measure. (See also http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2026/01/a-whs-turning-point-i-will-never-forget.html). 

Those communications were subsequently restricted.

This intensified risk.

Blocking a proxy communication from a distressed worker — who has already disclosed fear, isolation, declining health, and concern about surviving the week — is an intentional escalation of harm as a foreseeable consequence. That is basic WHS reasoning. Governance does not get to claim surprise after the fact.

I wrote at the time:

“I should not be getting the silent treatment from anyone anyway.”

Silence, when layered on top of restricted communication, does not simply pause care. It compounds injury and leaves a person carrying distress alone, without containment, without reassurance, without any signal that their suffering has been seen.

The document also states a commitment to being “driven by the need of the person sitting before us — not our own agenda.” That mattered to me, because I was the person sitting before the institution, disclosing harm and asking to be supported as a human being.

I was not asking Campus Ministry to fix systems, resolve disputes, or intervene in governance failures. I was asking for pastoral presence — for someone to acknowledge what was happening and help hold the weight of it.

In one email, written from a place of faith as much as pain, I asked:

“Why would Campus Ministry cause more suffering to the one being persecuted in serious injustice?”

That question still stands.

In Christian tradition, Christ does not withdraw from the suffering because the situation is complex, risky, or administratively inconvenient. He stops. He listens. He responds. He does not silence the wounded voice.

When pastoral care is absent precisely when it is needed most — and when communication itself is restricted despite clear, foreseeable risk — responsibility does not disappear. University governance does not get to look away.

If ministry does not show up when a person is distressed, isolated, and asking for help, then the question becomes unavoidable:

If ministry does not support staff in times of suffering, what is the reason it exists?

This is not written in anger.

It is written in grief.

And in hope — that those entrusted with ministry and governance will reflect honestly on what happened here, and on the human cost of silence, restriction, and inaction.

Because ministry is not what we say we believe.

It is what we do

when someone asks for help.

Source: contemporaneous record of events - Document 170

 

Abandoned and alone in my hour of need

Kindness Matters 

Suttie, J. (2020, 18 November). ‘How Kindness Spreads in a Community’. Greater good magazine: Science-based insights for a meaningful life. [Online]: https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_kindness_spreads_in_a_community

Discrimination and Harassment Adviser #2 — April 2021

“[Institutional courage] is an institution’s commitment to seek the truth and engage in moral action, despite unpleasantness, risk, and short-term cost. It is a pledge to protect and care for those who depend on the institution. It is a compass oriented to the common good of individuals, the institution, and the world. It is a force that transforms institutions into more accountable, equitable, healthy places for everyone.” – Center for Institutional Courage

By the time I attempted to seek assistance from a second Discrimination and Harassment Adviser, I had already raised concerns through the first adviser, which I documented earlier here:

Discrimination and Harassment Adviser #1

https://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2026/01/discrimination-and-harassment-adviser-1.html

At this point, I was injured as a result of workplace conduct and had made a workers’ compensation claim. However, my statutory entitlements were not being provided in accordance with the law. There was ongoing statutory non-compliance by both the insurer and the employer, including the withholding of information, lack of support, and the absence of lawful return-to-work processes. The harm did not stop once a claim was made — it escalated.

It was in this context that I contacted Adviser #2.

I was seeking guidance, acknowledgement, and support — someone who could help activate the institution’s own processes when everything else had gone quiet. As I wrote at the time:

“I’m tired of fighting on my own, with everyone repeatedly failing me. Can someone do something to end this torture quickly and fairly according to the law and established policies and procedures.”

My communications were factual and detailed. They described ongoing conduct affecting my wellbeing, the lack of lawful protections while I was injured, and the impact of prolonged silence and inaction. I tried to make one thing unmistakably clear:

“There’s a human person behind the letter reporting discrimination and harassment. I need staff contact, I need support.”

No response was received from Adviser #2.

There was no acknowledgement of my communications. There was no guidance provided. There was no information about process, options, or next steps. There was no indication that the concerns I raised had even been received.

Because there was no response at all, I remained without support and without clarity about how, or whether, internal discrimination and harassment processes would be activated. I did not receive procedural information, referral options, or reassurance that I was not navigating this situation alone.

In follow-up voice messages, I tried to explain why silence itself was causing harm. I described the state I was in, and the environment of fear created by prolonged institutional inaction:

“I live in fear… I fear further hostility, ignorance, disrespect, negligence and incivility.”

I also explained how the absence of clear, safe communication had become a trigger in itself — something that compounded injury rather than containing it.

The role of a Discrimination and Harassment Adviser exists to provide a safe point of contact, information about options, and guidance on navigating complex and sensitive workplace matters. In my case, that role was not engaged at all. There was no interaction that could reasonably be described as support.

What I was asking for was not extraordinary. As I stated plainly at the time:

“All that was ever needed was respect and communication to achieve an outcome of a safe work environment.”

This account does not speculate about intent or motivation. It records what occurred — and what did not occur. The absence of any response is the factual circumstance being documented.

This experience mirrored what I had already encountered with the first adviser: the existence of formal roles and policies did not translate into practical assistance when it was most needed. The gap between written frameworks and lived experience remained unaddressed.

Where statutory obligations are not met, and internal support mechanisms are silent, the effect is not neutral. For someone already injured and seeking help, inaction and silence can themselves become sources of further harm.

I share this account to document how internal discrimination and harassment support mechanisms functioned in practice, based on contemporaneous records and lived experience. It is written in the interests of accountability, transparency, and dignity — and to make visible what institutional silence actually does to a human being.

Source: contemporaneous record of events - Document 169

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Further reading 

Nilsson, M. (2025). “Reality became real somehow”: A theological discussion about ill health and healing experiences when exposed to bullying in the workplace. Åbo Akademis förlag - Åbo Akademi University Press. [Online]: https://www.doria.fi/handle/10024/190843

Note: The publication is in Swedish. The abstract includes an English translation. 

When Every Door Closes at Once - April 2021

After months of escalating harm, silence, and withheld information, I took my concerns about the handling of my workers’ compensation claim to the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC). I didn’t do this lightly, but I also didn’t know what else to do. I was distressed, distrusting, frightened and confused about why (now) two regulators would do this - SafeWork NSW and now SIRA NSW.

SIRA NSW based their decision on a SafeWork NSW inspector’s negligent and reckless report that I never even knew about or was provided access to. I was rightfully suspicious. 

SafeWork NSW harmed me when they could have protected me, and now SafeWork NSW continued to harm me in partnership with SIRA NSW. 

I submitted around 30 documents detailing what I believed was systemic failure by a NSW regulator — SIRA — to act transparently, lawfully, or protectively in the face of serious allegations of misconduct, harm and non-compliance with statutory obligations by both the employer and its specialised insurer.

On 20 April 2021, ICAC summarised my concerns accurately enough: lack of transparency, no clear investigator, no updates, unexplained delays, and a belief that the regulator had effectively shielded my employer while I was left exposed to ongoing bullying, intimidation, and health deterioration. My family had been drawn in. Colleagues silenced. Protection measures I explicitly requested were not put in place.

The response was brief and procedural.

ICAC declined to investigate. The university was deemed outside jurisdiction. SIRA’s conduct, while acknowledged as unsatisfactory from my perspective, was not considered to show a “reasonable likelihood” of dishonesty or deliberate wrongdoing — the threshold required for corruption under the Act.

What this letter captures — and what it doesn’t — is important.

It shows how neatly responsibility can be compartmentalised. How harm can fall through jurisdictional gaps. How a person can be told, in effect, that what happened to them is serious, distressing, and documented — but still not actionable by anyone with power.

By April 2021, I had already learned this lesson the hard way: when systems focus more on thresholds, definitions, and boundaries than on human safety and continuity of care, the person at the centre becomes invisible.

This document is not just a refusal. It is a snapshot of how institutional processes can close ranks, each one pointing elsewhere, while the harm continues — unchecked, unresolved, and borne by the individual.

And that, too, is part of the public record.

Source: contemporaneous record of events - Document 168. 

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Further reading 

Adams, J. (2025, 3 July). “Process Corruption”. No brown paper bags, but just as sketchy. Michael West Media Independent Journalists. [Online]: https://michaelwest.com.au/process-corruption-no-brown-paper-bags-but-just-as-bad/

Below is a link to an informative publication by the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC). It provides insightful case studies, clarity and guidance for those in public service. 

ICAC NSW (2025, June). Coerced, Compromised or Groomed – how people get drawn into corrupt conduct". [Online]: 

https://www.icac.nsw.gov.au/prevention/corruption-prevention-publications/latest-corruption-prevention-publications/coerced-compromised-or-groomed-how-people-get-drawn-into-corrupt-conduct-june-2025