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

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…

Honesty Is Tested When It Matters Most

The University Code of Conduct describes honesty and integrity as fundamental principles of the University — not as ideals, but as behavioural obligations owed to every person within its community.

I believed that.

I believed honesty meant being told the truth about what was happening to me. I believed it meant transparency in processes, clarity in decisions, and genuine dialogue — especially when health, safety, dignity, and livelihood were at stake. I believed honesty would guide conduct when things became difficult, not disappear when it became inconvenient.

That belief was tested.

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When Transparency Is Promised but Not Practised

The Code defines honesty as being truthful and sincere, transparent in rules, policies, procedures and day-to-day dealings, and acting lawfully and with integrity.

In my experience, what I encountered instead was prolonged opacity.

Information relevant to my situation was withheld. Processes that directly affected my health, income, and professional standing were not explained clearly or consistently. Decisions were made without disclosure of critical facts, and silence replaced transparency at moments where honesty was most needed.

Honesty, as written in the Code, requires openness. What I experienced was confusion. It shifts power, erodes trust, and leaves people unprotected.

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Accountability Cannot Be Selective

The Code states that staff must be accountable in all work, act with authenticity, sincerity and truthfulness, and disclose all relevant information required to perform their role effectively.

Accountability is not a burden placed only on those with the least power. It applies most strongly to those with authority, discretion, and control over systems.

In my case, accountability often flowed in one direction only. I was expected to comply, respond, explain, document, and justify — while those making decisions about me were not required to do the same in a transparent or timely way. Questions went unanswered. Requests for clarification were deflected. Errors were not acknowledged.

Honesty requires reciprocity. Without it, accountability becomes performative rather than real.

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Honesty and the Use of Power

One of the clearest commitments in the Honesty section of the Code is the requirement to exercise positional and supervisory power properly, respecting the dignity, rights and entitlements of staff and students.

Power exercised without honesty is not neutral. It creates fear. It silences. It destabilises.

My experience taught me that when transparency is absent, power fills the gap. Decisions are made behind closed doors. Narratives are controlled. People affected by those decisions are left guessing — and guessing is exhausting when you are already unwell, vulnerable, or isolated.

Honesty would have meant clear communication, lawful process, and acknowledgment of impact.

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Silence Is Not Honest

The Code commits to a workplace where matters can be raised without fear of retribution, and where staff are supported to speak up.

In practice, silence became the dominant response.

Silence in response to evidence.

Silence in response to distress.

Silence where explanation, correction, or care should have occurred.

Silence is often framed as neutrality. It is not. Silence is a decision. And when silence replaces honesty, it compounds harm.

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What Honesty Would Have Looked Like

Honesty would have looked like:

• clear explanations of processes as they unfolded;

• timely disclosure of information that affected my rights and wellbeing;

• acknowledgment of mistakes rather than denial or deflection;

• genuine dialogue rather than managed communication;

• decisions grounded in law, policy, and human dignity — not convenience.

The Code of Conduct already articulates this standard. The failure was not the absence of guidance. It was the absence of practice.

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Why Honesty Still Matters

I am writing this not because honesty is abstract, but because its absence has real consequences.

Honesty protects people.

Honesty prevents harm.

Honesty sustains trust.

Honesty is what allows institutions to claim integrity without irony.

If a Code of Conduct is to mean anything, it must apply precisely when it is hardest to uphold — when power is imbalanced, when scrutiny is uncomfortable, and when telling the truth carries risk.

That is when honesty is no longer a value statement.

It becomes a moral obligation.

Discrimination and Harassment Adviser #1 - March 2021

“Actions speak louder than words. Let your words teach and your actions speak.”

 St. Anthony of Padua

I made contact in March 2021.

At that point, I was already experiencing serious workplace harm. I did what institutions tell staff to do: I contacted a campus Discrimination and Harassment Adviser through the internal pathway designed to provide guidance, information, and early intervention.

I left a voicemail.

I followed up with a message in writing via my academia.edu account. 

There was no response.

No acknowledgment.

No referral.

No information about options, protections, or process.

Just silence.

⸻

Silence Is Not a Neutral Outcome

A discrimination and harassment adviser is not required to investigate or determine outcomes. Their role is far more basic — and far more important.

It is to interrupt risk, provide procedural guidance, and ensure a person is not left exposed to foreseeable harm.

Silence does the opposite.

Silence leaves the individual exactly where the risk already exists — isolated, unsupported, and without information that could reduce harm.

This was not a missed email.

It was a failure of function.

⸻

When Silence Is Followed by Promotion

In January 2024, that same adviser was promoted to Campus Dean.

This raises an important governance question.

How does an institution progress individuals into senior leadership roles while unresolved failures in internal safety or advisory pathways remain unaddressed?

How does silence in a discrimination and harassment advisory role sit alongside advancement into positions of greater authority, without any visible process of review, learning, or remediation?

Promotion does not resolve earlier silence.

It changes the level of responsibility attached to it.

⸻

When Knowledge Enters the Picture

In January 2024, this person viewed my LinkedIn profile.

This is not conjecture. It is a factual record.

At that point, they were on notice of my identity and professional history. The situation was no longer abstract or anonymous.

And yet, there was still no contact.

No acknowledgment of the earlier outreach.

No attempt to close the loop.

Silence continued — now from a position of greater institutional authority.

⸻

This Is a Governance Question, Not a Personal One

I am not speculating about motive or intent.

I am asking about structure, accountability, and decision-making.

What governance considerations inform the promotion of individuals into senior campus leadership roles when prior failures in internal advisory pathways remain unresolved?

What due diligence occurs before such appointments?

And how are leaders supported — or directed — to act when doing so may place them in tension with WHS statutory obligations, the responsibilities inherent in discrimination and harassment advisory roles, and the institution’s stated Identity and Mission?

At what point does procedural compliance override the duty to intervene in known risk?

⸻

Silence Creates Foreseeable Risk

Under WHS frameworks, known risk that is not addressed remains a live issue.

When risk is foreseeable, inaction is itself a decision — one that carries consequences for individuals and for institutions.

A system that allows silence to persist, and then advances individuals into more senior roles without visible accountability, sends an internal signal:

That safety is negotiable.

That unresolved harm can be absorbed.

That speaking up does not guarantee response.

⸻

Why I Am Writing This

I am writing this because silence thrives when it remains private.

I am writing this because internal advisory pathways lose credibility when their failure carries no consequence.

And I am writing this because leadership without accountability is not leadership — it is institutional drift.

This account focuses on process, governance, and documented chronology, not personal intent or character.

This is not about one individual.

It is about what the system rewards —

and what it quietly permits to continue.

Source: contemporaneous record of events - Document 162

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Further reading

Shaw, S.M. (2022, 26 July). ‘Institutional betrayal, institutional courage and the church.’ Baptist News Global. [Online]: https://baptistnews.com/article/institutional-betrayal-institutional-courage-and-the-church/#.Y38fayXZXDv 

My letter for Pastoral Care - March 2021

“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” Aesop.

There comes a point when formal processes fail so completely that the only thing left is to write as a human being.

Not as a complainant.

Not as a case number.

Not as an “issue to be managed.”

As a person.

In March 2021, I wrote a letter to a friend and colleague whose work centred on values, ethics, and care. This is a part of the institution associated with dignity, mission, and responsibility to those experiencing vulnerability.

I wrote because I was no longer safe — and because silence and isolation had become unbearable.

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Why I Wrote the Letter

By that point, formal channels had become procedural and difficult to navigate. Policies “existed”, but they were not translating into practical protection for me. Processes were being “followed”, while my sense of safety continued to decline.

I wrote because I believed — and still believe — that institutions are ultimately made of people.

And that someone whose work is grounded in care, ethics, and mission would want to understand the human impact of what was occurring.

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The Letter Was Answered

The letter was acknowledged.

It was met with humanity.

For a brief period, I experienced something close to the pastoral care I had been seeking. I felt heard. I felt taken seriously. There was a sense — careful and tentative — that the seriousness of my situation was understood.

That moment mattered deeply.

It demonstrated that compassion was possible, and that a human response could exist alongside formal “processes”.

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When Contact Was Discontinued

That connection did not continue.

Following further internal direction, contact ceased and my colleagues were wrongfully advised that matters should be left to established processes. But established and lawful “processes” were never followed.

From my perspective, the pastoral support that had briefly been available was no longer accessible.

What followed felt like an absence rather than a resolution.

A human response was replaced by alleged “procedure”.

Personal concern gave way to “formal distance”.

*Care was deferred to alleged “process”.

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What This Revealed to Me

This experience left a lasting impression.

It showed how easily individual compassion can be constrained once matters are reframed as procedural. It highlighted how care, even when initially offered, may be withdrawn when it is perceived to sit outside defined “roles” or “processes”.

And it revealed how “no contact,” when applied in circumstances involving distress, can feel profoundly isolating — regardless of intent.

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Why I Am Writing About This Now

I am writing about this letter because it marked a turning point for me.

Not because care was absent, but because it was briefly present and then no longer available.

That distinction matters.

It shows that compassion was possible.

That concern existed.

And that ultimately, those controlling “process” took precedence. The perpetrators of harm took over once more. 

Senior leaders must answer: 

How does this align to the Identity and Mission?

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This Is About More Than One Letter

It is about how systems can limit the ability of people to respond humanely, even when they want to.

About how procedural boundaries can override ethical instincts.

And about how people experiencing harm can be left to carry it alone after coming close to care.

I wrote that letter because I believed in the values that were spoken about.

I am writing this now because care should not depend on timing, permission, or procedural comfort — especially when someone is already struggling.

It is not the Identity and Mission.

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* NOTE: It is also not process. It is ostracism. 

See http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2024/10/ostracism-as-adverse-action-2019.html. 

In reading the prior post, please be mindful of my premise - http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/p/the-premise-of-this-blog.html