SIRA Knew the System Was Failing. Where Was the Accountability?

SIRA had the figures. It acknowledged deteriorating return to work outcomes. It published an action plan with ten commitments to improve them.

Some of those commitments were exactly what injured workers needed: scrutiny of insurers’ injury management practices, public reporting of insurer performance, and enforcement when employers failed to support recovery and return to work.

So why was I still left asking for the very things the regulator said it was there to ensure?

I had already lost trust through my experience of the system. I preserved the public record because I wanted the commitments to remain available for scrutiny. Finding the publication again doesn’t answer the questions about what followed.

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The admission was already on the page

The publication was titled “Turning around poor return to work performance.”

SIRA’s own words were clear:

“The core role of the workers compensation scheme is to help people recover and return to work.”

Its then Chief Executive, Adam Dent, also acknowledged:

“Delayed return to work has serious implications for injured people as the evidence shows that the longer a person is away from work, the less likely they are ever to return.”

That’s an extraordinary and unfair statement to read when you’re an injured worker repeatedly seeking a safe path back to your role, while the organisations responsible for assisting you leave the barriers in place.

More generally, the data in the publication showed deterioration between 2015–2016 and 2020–2021. At four weeks, the return to work rate fell from 77% to 65%, the stay at work rate from 45% to 34%, and the working rate from 87% to 77%.

Those are falls of 12, 11 and 10 percentage points respectively. Behind those figures are people: their health, livelihoods, relationships and futures.

SIRA knew that outcomes were deteriorating. It knew that delay could cause lasting harm. Its own publication established that knowledge.

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These were concrete commitments

The action plan required insurers to resubmit business plans by 28 February 2022, explaining how they would improve four-week return to work performance. It promised reviews of all insurers’ return to work practices in the first half of 2022, including injury management programs, claim files, customer interviews and the systems used to identify workers at risk of not returning.

That kind of scrutiny could have mattered enormously to someone in my position.

My claim was lodged on 22 May 2020. An Injury Management Plan was issued on 25 June 2020. Around August 2020, after finding out my case manager left (something the insurer also “failed” to tell me), I repeatedly sought a replacement and meaningful assistance. I lodged my complaint with SIRA on 11 January 2021.

My position has remained consistent: I want the plan implemented with safeguards so I can return and recover in my role at ACU.

A review that actually examined what happened in my claim could have confronted the gap between a plan on paper and the assistance I received.

The fourth commitment was particularly significant:

“SIRA will commence publishing the return to work performance of all insurers in 2022.”

It went on to promise:

“holding insurers accountable for their performance.”

Yes. That would be a good thing. Publish the results. Examine the conduct behind them. Establish whether insurers are doing what they should. Require corrective action where they are failing.

The fifth action proposed a dedicated return to work inspectorate, including enforcement directed at employers when necessary. The sixth proposed a two-year research fellowship at the Black Dog Institute, focused on return to work for people with psychological injury.

The remaining actions addressed government agencies, identifying employers whose workers faced delayed return, early contact with injured workers, and workplace rehabilitation.

There were useful ideas here. My question is what they delivered for people already being harmed.

I saved it as a PDF. The screenshot included here comes from that preserved record and shows actions 4–10.

SIRA’s published commitments included public reporting of insurer return to work performance, accountability for insurers, employer enforcement and research into psychological injury.

 ——

Another page promised supervision

My documents preserve SIRA’s “Insurer performance” material, which I annotated with the words:

“Finally - Under Fraud and Regulation”

The workers compensation section described monitoring, risk assessment and action to address poor compliance or performance. It expressly included specialised insurers within the categories SIRA regulated—the category relevant to Catholic Church Insurance, ACU’s insurer in my claim.

Its 2022–2023 supervision priorities also set out a timetable:

• July–September 2022: recording and reporting injury notifications, informing workers of entitlements and supporting early intervention.
• October–December 2022: audit quality and expectations.
• January–March 2023: insurers’ quality assurance processes.
• April–June 2023: insurer conduct and behaviour throughout disputes.

For that last period, SIRA said it would ensure insurers based disputed decisions on good evidence and explained that evidence to injured workers. It also proposed monitoring insurer conduct in dealings involving workers, IRO, ILARS and the Personal Injury Commission.

These are substantial promises. Where was that scrutiny when I raised concerns about the handling of my claim?

I was asking for help to recover, for the entitlements that had been withheld, and for a safe path back to work. I experienced a system that kept producing correspondence without resolving the conditions causing harm.

See also:

Information is Power. Withholding Information is Abuse of Power.

When Emotion Was Used Against Me: Re-Reading Self-Drafted Legal Brief - July 2021

Personal Injury Commission (PIC): What Happened After the Examination - October 2021

I Demanded Answers in Writing: IRO Relayed CCI’s ‘Always Unfit’ Claim About My 20-Year Career - October 2021

Where were SIRA’s priorities in action, as recorded from July 2022 above? Why did SIRA and IRO repeatedly accept the insurer’s false narrative on record, without independent verification, and even used it to justify continued closure of my serious complaints? Is SIRA NSW completely disconnected of the impact this has on a human being? 

How can we to trust SIRA NSW when it publishes promises like the above, but then does not follow through with its own regulatory obligations? 

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I saved the page because I no longer trusted the system

My documents record my anger and my efforts to bring the contradiction to others’ attention.

I had preserved and shared the public record because its commitments were relevant to the failures I was reporting.

The earlier link I had retained no longer led me to this publication. I have now located an accessible link to SIRA’s “Turning around poor return to work performance” action plan. The page may have moved or its address may have changed.

The questions remain. What became of these commitments? What scrutiny, corrective action and enforcement followed? And why did my repeated requests for assistance fail to produce the practical support SIRA publicly recognised injured workers needed?

An accessible webpage allows us to read the promises. Accountability requires evidence of what followed.

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Trust requires action that reaches the injured worker

My document also contains my criticism of an independent medical assessment and a saved RateMDs policy. The policy, marked as modified on 17 May 2022 and captured on 24 May 2023, says reviews of independent medical examinations or insurance assessments may be removed because they don’t involve a doctor–patient relationship.

For me, that raises a connected question: where can an injured worker’s experience of an assessment be heard and examined? Removing such an experience from a review platform doesn’t resolve the underlying concern.

Across these records, the same problem recurs. Organisations publish policies about trust, safety, recovery and accountability. The person seeking their protection must then fight to have their experience meaningfully addressed.

I have lost trust in SIRA and in the wider system through what has happened to me. Repeated announcements cannot repair that.

Public money should fund work that produces protection in practice: examining evidence, correcting failures, requiring compliance and stopping further harm. Regulators’ leadership and government must answer for the gap between the services they fund and the outcomes people actually receive.

Paperwork is necessary. But correspondence that leaves the same harm continuing is no substitute for effective intervention.

My experience has been a snowball effect: injury compounded by delay, financial losses, repeated attempts to obtain help, and further deterioration while I was left navigating the machinery supposedly designed to support recovery.

I want to know which commitments were implemented, how their effectiveness was tested, and what action followed when an insurer or employer failed an injured worker. I want to know why my evidence and repeated requests did not produce the practical assistance I needed.

The publication and saved screenshot preserve what SIRA said it would do.

My records preserve what I experienced.

The gap between them demands an answer.

Source: contemporaneous record of events - Documents 577, 579.

——

See also:

SIRA NSW - The Regulator Already Knew the System Was Failing - August 2022

See also how SIRA NSW staff repeatedly treated me - these are some examples:

SIRA NSW : When the System Sends You in Circles - January 2021

When Regulators Close Ranks: Systemic Harm - March 2021 - Part 1

SIRA NSW Closed My Complaint — The Phone Never Rang - July 2021

CEO of SIRA NSW - When the System Breaks You, Your Nervous System Speaks - November 2021

“Is It Safe to Open?” What That Question Revealed About SIRA NSW - December 2021

“We Take Complaints Seriously”, SIRA NSW — The Sentence That Should Never Have Been Written - January 2022

SIRA NSW - Associate Director of “Customer Service” and Operations - Referred Elsewhere - April 2022

When Seeking Help Became a Trauma Trigger: What ACU Governance Was Told - December 2022

By December 2022, the fear had followed me into the very process of seeking help. Government correspondence was waiting in an online portal. I needed to read it. I wanted to know whether someone would finally act. But I could no longer bring myself to open it alone.

These documents record that point in the snowball effect of harm: when the effort to obtain protection had itself become a source of panic, exhaustion and fear.

——

On 5 December 2022, a claims consultant from TAL, UniSuper’s insurer, wrote on behalf of my usual consultant:

“Could you please confirm if you have returned to work on 27/11/2022?”

My reply began:

“The simple answer is no, I haven’t returned to work yet.”

I was still trying to secure a safe way to return and recover in my role. Yet the process of reporting harm and seeking intervention had become overwhelming.

I wrote:

“I just want it to end, starting with compliance to return to my work.”

And I explained the barrier to reading the Fair Work Ombudsman’s replies:

“I get into a panic attack and hyperventilate at the thought of logging into my account with the Fair Work Ombudsman portal.”

An unread reply can look like a small administrative problem from the outside. My correspondence describes what it felt like from the inside: the anticipation of another response from a system that had repeatedly failed to protect me, and the fear of what opening it might do to me.

I had sent desperate pleas, reports of serious misconduct and adverse action, and supporting evidence by post. I was seeking action. I was also struggling to face the replies.

At the same time, my family was grieving. My aunt’s funeral was that week. I explained that I had arranged for a supportive friend to log in to my account after I helped my family with funeral preparations.

Even grief had to share space with the continuing crisis.

——

On 9 December 2022, I wrote to TAL again. A friend had tried to help me access the portal the previous night. I had managed to update my password, and it worked again. Restoring access had not restored my ability to face the correspondence alone.

“I can’t view government replies on my own. I’m scared and alone. And I distrust even those that show integrity - it’s a symptom of trauma.”

I was describing how far the fear had spread. Even a person showing integrity could encounter distrust, because my experience of seeking protection had left me expecting further harm.

I continued:

“I’ve been made to feel like I’m an exception to all the laws that exist and those that should’ve protected me and my rights to a safe work environment.”

This was how the experience felt to me: protections existed, but I couldn’t obtain the protection I needed.

My friend was already carrying substantial responsibilities of her own. I was grateful for her support, and conscious of what I was asking of her. Reading a government reply had become something I needed another person to help me survive emotionally.

In that same email, I wrote:

“I have so much happening in my own life and I had a right to be there for my family too.”

I also described the theft of my personal, annual and long service leave, and the conduct I had reported involving ACU, Catholic Church Insurance and others. Behind those serious allegations was a practical, continuing need: support for recovery and a safe return to my work of twenty years.

I told TAL that the Fair Work Ombudsman’s replies were:

“my hope to start restoring my trust in government integrity.”

Hope and fear were occupying the same space. I wanted to read that someone would act. I was frightened of encountering another failure to act.

I subsequently forwarded the communication to ACU governance and the Justice and Peace Office. In that message, I expressly acknowledged TAL’s conduct:

“They have displayed customer service excellence and ethical conduct.”

I then wrote:

“This is something missing from Catholic Church Insurance and certain executive staff at ACU.”

I also questioned a service excellence award given to an HR executive, who was involved in a privacy violation I had reported. The question I was putting before governance was about the relationship between public recognition and the conduct I was asking them to examine.

My acknowledgement of TAL’s service matters. I could still recognise ethical treatment and say so. I was asking ACU governance to recognise the difference too, and to respond to the harm described in the correspondence I had placed before them.

See also:

Introducing the corporate psychopath responsible for SAFETY - 2020

AND

The aftershock from the sabotage - March 2020

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The 9 December 2022 email ended:

“I’m exhausted, alone and frightened. I must rest.”

Those words were sent to the TAL claims consultant and then placed before university governance. They recorded the human consequences of the continuing crisis: fear, isolation, depleted energy, family grief, and difficulty accessing the very correspondence that might contain help.

This is part of the snowball effect I have been documenting. The harm reached beyond my workplace into my health, my family life, my ability to rest, and my ability to navigate the systems I was turning to (and initially trusted) for protection.

ACU governance was told. They were shown what seeking help had become for me.

What did they do with that knowledge to help me return and recover safely in my role?

Source: contemporaneous record of events - Documents 576, 578.

——

Further context: TAL and the duty of utmost good faith

In December 2022, I praised TAL’s ethical conduct towards me. I have since learned that, following a Financial Services Royal Commission referral, ASIC took TAL to the Federal Court, which found that it had breached its duty of utmost good faith in handling another woman’s income protection claim. 

That finding adds a sobering context to my experience. TAL’s support provided an income that helped sustain me while I continued fighting over CCI’s conduct and “handling” of my workers’ compensation claim. Although the legal frameworks differ, the connection is the need for meaningful scrutiny and accountability when insurers harm the people depending on them. Must it take a Royal Commission before an injured person’s evidence receives serious attention?

Reference: ASIC, 10 March 2021, Court finds that TAL Life Limited breached its duty of utmost good faith – Royal Commission referral⁠.

See also:

Two Insurers. One Injury. Only One Did Its Job - November 2021

ACU Governance Was Told: My Family’s Trauma Was Not a Plaything - November 2022

On 28 November 2022, I wrote to ACU’s governance with a reminder that should never have been necessary:

“This is a kind reminder of your commitment to the dignity of the human person and common good.”

By then, I was describing more than three years without respite, the depletion of my leave entitlements, financial pressure and concerns about the use of deeply personal information.

I was asking governance to confront what was happening under its authority.

——

Even confidentiality had become a question

At the beginning of the email, I wrote:

“I ‘trust’ you’ll keep this email confidential.”

The quotation marks around “trust” mattered. I was sending an appeal for protection while questioning whether the information I disclosed would itself be protected.

I then made the boundary explicit:

“My privacy and my family’s grief, trauma and life adversities are not to be treated as a plaything.”

I went on to describe my concern that this information was being exploited by university executives, managers and staff in what was unlawful adverse action and discrimination.

My family’s grief was personal. Our trauma was personal. The adversities we had lived through were part of our lives, and I was asking that they be treated with dignity.

What does a university’s commitment to the dignity of the human person mean when an employee feels compelled to write those words to its governing body?

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“On behalf of the university”

In that same email, I raised allegations of employer fraud involving ACU’s employment relations leadership. I referred to the wording used in formal letters:

“on behalf of the university”

That phrase raised a fundamental question of governance responsibility. If actions were being taken on behalf of the university, what were those entrusted with governing it doing to examine those actions and stop the harm I was reporting?

I’m an ethical, law-abiding employee of twenty years. My leave entitlements had been taken in circumstances involving workers’ compensation, and raised concerns about the involvement of Catholic Church Insurance, the NTEU and others, including coercion or attempted coercion affecting me and my family.

These were serious allegations I put directly before governance. They required examination and an accountable response.

——

The snowball effect reached another deadline

I wrote:

“I’ve had no down time for over three years”

That sentence captures something that a list of correspondence cannot: the absence of a chance to recover.

By late November 2022, I was also struggling with ATO and myGov identity-verification requirements to obtain a director ID for my self-managed superannuation fund. In the email, I described the pressure of a possible $13,400 ASIC fine if I didn’t complete the process by close of business on Wednesday.

I was still trying to meet my obligations while asking who was making the institutions involved meet theirs.

This was the snowball effect of harm. The workplace issues I had raised were consuming the capacity I needed to manage the rest of my life. Financial administration became another crisis. Another deadline arrived. Another consequence threatened the security I had worked to build.

The system failed me, and now I felt threatened with punishment while struggling under the consequences of those failures.

——

Governance had a decision to make

I told governance that those appointed to comply with workplace health and safety responsibilities were causing harm themselves.

Then I ended with a direct statement:

“The decision to continue or end the gross negligence by COB 1 December, 2022, is ultimately yours.”

That was my call for action, with a date attached: 1 December 2022.

I signed the email in my role:

“Vicki (Senior Library Coordinator, Strathfield campus. HEW 8 Step 4).”

I was writing as an employee seeking protection, accountability and an end to the harm.

On 28 November, my appeal was before ACU governance.

My privacy. My family’s grief. My leave entitlements. My health. My financial security.

The people governing a university committed to human dignity had been told what I was experiencing. 

What did they do with that knowledge?

Source: contemporaneous record of events - Document 573.

——

Research that helps explain why I went to governance

Boddy and Boulter’s HRM’s Response to Workplace Bullying: Complacent, Complicit and Compounding examines workers’ perceptions of human resource management’s response to bullying.

The researchers analysed 924 comments beneath a TEDx talk about workplace bullying and corporate psychopathy. Four themes emerged: workers expected HR to address bullying, but described inaction, alignment with management, and HR involvement that worsened the harm. The authors discuss a double betrayal when the expected source of protection becomes part of the problem, and suggest enforceable standards and intervention beyond HR where necessary.

This was a qualitative study of self-selected online comments, not a representative survey. It doesn’t  establish what happened at ACU. 

For me, the connection is direct. My email of 28 November 2022 was an appeal to governance about the conduct of people entrusted with protecting employees. I was reporting that the structures I should have been able to rely on were implicated in the harm.

Even my request for confidentiality carried doubt:

“I ‘trust’ you’ll keep this email confidential.”

I wasn’t simply asking someone to resolve a disagreement. I was asking the governing body to take responsibility for what was being done “on behalf of the university”, while my health, family privacy and financial security were being damaged.

The research offers a framework for understanding that experience. My email supplies the contemporaneous record of what I told governance.

When an employee reports that the people responsible for protection are themselves causing harm, referring the employee back into those same structures cannot be treated as an adequate answer.

Reference

Boddy, C. R., & Boulter, L. (2025). ‘HRM’s response to workplace bullying: Complacent, complicit and compounding’. Journal of Business Ethics, 197, 541–555. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-024-05755-3⁠. Open access.