What the NTEU decided to do vs what it ethically should have done - May 2021

“Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.” Thomas Jefferson. 

I had joined the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) in good faith.

I did so while navigating workplace bullying, harassment, and an active workers’ compensation claim. I joined because unions exist to protect workers when power is misused—especially when someone is already injured, frightened, and financially exposed.

What followed instead was silence, obstruction, and conduct that compounded harm.

The Moment I Was Shut Out

In March 2021, while I was still a financial member of the NTEU, my attempt to email my union representative via their official @nteu.org.au address was blocked.

Not ignored.

Not delayed.

Technically blocked.

I received an automated server rejection stating “Access denied.”

At the time, I was already experiencing serious distress and fear. I had credible concerns about workplace surveillance and retaliation. Being blocked from contacting my own union—without warning, explanation, or due process—was terrifying.

It signalled something far worse than neglect: active exclusion.

What the Union Failed to Do

Under workers’ compensation law, an injured employee is entitled to protection from further harm, wage theft, and harassment.

Yet during my membership:

• Wage payments and leave entitlements continued to be withheld

• Harassment persisted under the cover of “process”

• I was left to navigate workers’ compensation law alone

• No clear advice or advocacy was provided

• No explanation was given about what the union would or would not do

This failure was not neutral.

It enabled harm.

While this was happening, the NTEU continued to deduct my membership fees—adding insult to serious injury—at a time when I was in acute financial hardship and struggling to keep a roof over my head.

What the NTEU Says It Provides — and What I Experienced

What follows is a direct comparison between the NTEU’s own published policies and my lived experience as a financial member.

Industrial Assistance to Members

The NTEU states in its policy manual:

“NTEU provides industrial assistance to individual members with workplace issues via the provision of advice and support through the Elected Officers and staff of the Union. Industrial assistance will generally be in the form of verbal and written advice, support and representation at workplace meetings…”

As a member dealing with workplace bullying, harassment, and an active workers’ compensation claim, I repeatedly sought this advice and support.

Instead, I was blocked from contacting my union representative, received no meaningful advice—verbal or written—and was left to navigate complex industrial and compensation processes entirely on my own.

This was not a limitation of assistance.

It was no assistance at all.

Union Support and Protection

The NTEU publicly assures members:

“Should you ever get into trouble at work, union membership means that there is someone there to help and provide you with knowledgeable and professional advice… Being part of a union helps to protect your rights at work and to access advice and support from experts and workplace delegates.”

I was “in trouble at work” in the most literal sense: injured, under workers’ compensation, experiencing ongoing harm, and in serious financial distress.

There was no protection.

There was no expert advice.

There was no one “there to help”.

Access to Representatives and Communication

The NTEU instructs members to contact their local branch and workplace representatives when issues arise:

“Being a member of NTEU means that you can seek advice on industrial or legal issues that relate to your employment… contact your local NTEU branch and get in touch with your workplace representatives.”

This language assumes that communication channels are open and available to members.

In my case, they were not.

In March 2021, while still a financial member, my attempt to email a union representative via an official @nteu.org.au address was rejected with an “Access denied” server response. No explanation was provided. No alternative pathway was offered. No policy basis was cited.

I was not just unheard.

I was locked out.

Code of Conduct and Respectful Engagement

The NTEU’s Code of Conduct states:

“NTEU expects our workplaces and activities to be respectful safe places where staff, officers and members are not subjected to inappropriate behaviour… The Code of Conduct is binding on members and staff.”

As a member raising serious concerns about harm, safety, and rights, I expected respectful engagement and a clear complaint pathway.

What I experienced instead were unanswered questions, dismissive responses, and procedural silence—at a time when I was already vulnerable and distressed.

Respectful engagement did not occur, not from 2020, when I needed critical information about my workers’ compensation statutory entitlements, including my weekly payments, the employer’s legal obligation to provide a return to work plan aligned to its injury management policy and the legally binding injury management plan agreement and protection measures to stop the continual stalking and harassment from the primary cause of my claim, the national manager of employment relations and SAFETY. 

A safe process did not exist in practice.

The Questions I Asked — That Went Unanswered

When it became clear I was receiving no service, I demanded answers. Among the questions I formally put to the NTEU were:

• Why was I never properly oriented about what support the union provides and how it works, despite repeatedly asking for a meeting?

• Does the NTEU provide advice and advocacy regarding workers’ compensation rights? If so, why was none provided to me?

• Why was no action taken for months after I supplied extensive evidence of bullying, harassment, and discrimination continuing under workers’ compensation regulations? 

• Why was I blocked from contacting a union representative through an official NTEU email address while still a member?

• Who authorised or enabled that block?

• Why were my concerns about harassment, privacy breaches, and ongoing harm met with silence?

• Why did the union continue to take my money while providing no service and allowing harm to continue?

I received no substantive reply to these questions.

Asking for a Refund — to Survive

Eventually, I asked for my membership to be cancelled and for my fees to be refunded—not as a gesture, but because I was in genuine financial hardship caused in part by the union’s inaction.

The response I received stated:

“Under our policy, you are not entitled to a refund. However, in acknowledgement of your current financial hardship your request has been reviewed and an out-of-policy refund has been authorised.”

The tone was unmistakable: arrogant, conditional, and self-congratulatory.

My response was simple and true:

“They had no issue breaching their own policies in my direction when it came to neglect, obstruction, and allowing harm to continue.

Why, then, was policy suddenly invoked as a shield?”

This was not a favour. It was the bare minimum—after the damage was done.

Nowhere Else to Go

I attempted to raise concerns externally with the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU).

I was directed straight back to the NTEU—the very organisation that had engaged in the conduct I was complaining about.

Another closed loop.

Another institutional shrug.

The Weight of Collective Betrayal

The sheer number of individuals and entities willing to unconscionably inflict harm on an innocent person—while invoking policy, process, or silence to justify it—is profoundly shameful.

Employers.

Insurers.

Regulators.

And yes—a union.

How Did I Survive This?

I survived because I had no choice.

Because I documented everything.

Because I refused to accept gaslighting as reality.

Because even when systems closed ranks, I held on to truth.

But survival is not the same as justice.

Why I Am Telling This Story

My story must be told—because accountability must follow.

Unions do not get a free pass simply because they speak the language of solidarity.

Protection must be real, not rhetorical.

And injured workers must never be abandoned, blocked, or quietly erased.

Silence is not neutral, and neither is policy when it is weaponised.

⸻

This account is based on contemporaneous records, correspondence, and documented events during my NTEU membership.  Document 171.

Further reading 

Baker, A. (2024, 24 April). ‘5 Ways Toxic Leaders Retaliate via "Proper Channels".’ Psychology Today. [Online]: https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/beyond-cultural-competence/202311/5-ways-toxic-leaders-retaliate-via-proper-channels

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

—-

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. 

—-

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

Once We Repaired Things - Relationships and Values - Part 1

Anonymous Italian text reflecting on dignity, repair, and the “throwaway” culture.

This passage is not really about poverty.

For me, it is about relational values. It is commitment, repair, endurance, and responsibility. It is about staying when things are hard. About recognising the value of what — and who — is in front of you, instead of walking away when it becomes inconvenient.

When I place it alongside my own experience of relationships — the withdrawal, the disposability, the emotional abandonment — the parallel is confronting.

Once, we repaired things.

Now, we replace them.

And I have been expected to absorb the cost.

That is the emotional truth I am sitting with.

I grew up believing relationships were repaired, not discarded.

That belief has cost me more than I ever expected.

⸻

As I write about my last experience, I will also weave in other dating experiences retrospectively in each post, and align it with what was unfolding in parallel during that time.

I despise online dating. As a woman, I find it risky and unsafe. It feels superficial, isolating, and strangely pretentious — a marketplace that strips people of context and reduces connection to curated fragments.

The world has changed, and that change scares me. It not only scares me in how people meet and date, but in the values that now seem to underpin those interactions.

I grew up believing you met someone in person — at social gatherings, through introductions by friends, through shared interests and real interpersonal interaction. There was a sense of grounding and accountability in that. You were seen in three dimensions, not reduced to a profile.

I did not want to go anywhere near online dating apps. But if you choose not to participate, you quickly discover how few options remain.

Despite the overwhelming number of people on those apps, I found myself searching for a needle in a haystack. Or should I say, the unique hay among the stack of needles. 

And for a moment, I thought I had found one.

His name was Paul.

His profile looked normal. He sounded normal. He came across as a decent, down-to-earth man — not polished or performative.

In the week before we met, we spoke on the phone most nights.

The conversations were genuinely good. They weren’t superficial or rushed. They had substance.

During one of those early phone conversations, before we had met in person, he spoke of learning more about his father when he returned to Italy, to the place where his father had grown up. That stayed with me because it touched something personal.

My father grew up in a remote village in the mountains of Arcadia, in the Peloponnese. He was raised in similar historical circumstances, shaped by the same kinds of hardship and endurance our ancestors lived through. There is something grounding about walking the land your parents came from — about understanding where they were formed, and what they carried forward.

There was another parallel I didn’t name at the time. We had both lost our fathers. Paul lost his dad to dementia. I lost mine to suicide. Different endings, but a shared absence. A shared understanding of grief that doesn’t announce itself, but lives quietly beneath the surface.

During the time of meeting Paul, I still had to speak to a few other men on the phone. Some were unsettling. Some were simply strange. None progressed to a first date. The only one who stood out — the only one who, to me, felt safe, grounded, and genuinely human — was Paul.

Not only were our phone conversations thoughtful and easy, but that first date was unexpectedly perfect. Just a cup of tea — a guy of Italian descent who doesn’t drink coffee, which I found intriguing — and a walk through a nearby park. No performance. No pressure. Just conversation. Simple. Memorable.

For the first time in a long time, I felt like I might finally be onto something good.

The man I encountered before Paul represented the risk women fear most about online dating. I’ve always trusted my instincts, but I was still naïve enough to say yes politely, even when something felt off. In situations like that, I would always note the nearest exit, just in case.

In January 2016, I went on a date I already felt uneasy about from the phone conversation alone. He was full of himself, but not in a harmless way — there was something unsettling and performative about it. I looked up the restaurant beforehand and saw how outrageously expensive it was. That should have been my cue to cancel.

I didn’t.

He arrived with flowers, which in hindsight felt less like a gesture and more like a signal. Early in the evening, near the bar where it was loud, he made a comment I initially thought I’d misheard: that he had seen me from a distance and decided I was attractive enough to approach — otherwise, he would have walked away. At the time, I told myself I must have misunderstood. If I hadn’t, I would have walked out then and there.

I got through the dinner. He made a number of insulting comments, the kind that are delivered casually but land sharply. At one point, he flashed a physical wad of cash — another red flag — paid the bill, and I left as quickly as I could.

I remember thinking afterward that something in me had to change. Politeness had kept me in situations I should never have tolerated. My instincts had been right. I just hadn’t listened to them soon enough.

Several months later, in September 2016, I was recovering from pneumonia and staying at my mother’s due to the seriousness of my condition. While resting, I happened to see a television news segment previewed that evening. The main story featured a man whose face I instantly recognised — the same man I had gone on a date with months earlier at an expensive restaurant.

For a moment, I couldn’t place him. Then it came back. I started coughing so hard I could barely breathe.

If I hadn’t been sick, I would have been at work and none the wiser. What followed wasn’t normal. He was exposed as a fraudster who had swindled money from prominent people and others. His former fiancée spoke anonymously, warning others to stay away. He later went to jail.

That was my history immediately before meeting Paul the following month.

By that point in my life, I wasn’t losing hope. I had already lost it. Years of narcissism. Years of disrespect. Years where dignity felt optional rather than fundamental. I had spent my life hoping to meet one decent man and build a family of my own. Family meant everything to me.

Like Paul, I was afraid of ending up alone. But for me, the fear went deeper. I couldn’t take any more of this reality — a culture where risk to women is normalised, where harm is trivialised, where exhaustion is expected.

Meeting Paul felt like relief, like proof that good men still exist. For me, it felt like my last hope — and for the first time in a long time, I could finally breathe.

To be continued…