Information is Power. Withholding Information is Abuse of Power.

Information is power. When legally required information is withheld, power becomes control.

International Women’s Day is a day of declarations.

Of leadership.

Of equality.

Of commitment to dignity.

In March 2021, while public messages celebrated gender equality, my voice was being systematically narrowed — not by accident, but through silence, assumption, and the withholding of information.

I was not empowered.

I was not informed.

I was not protected.

I was silenced.

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The Optics

On 8 March 2021, staff received a message from the Vice-Chancellor celebrating International Women’s Day and the University’s tenth consecutive Workplace Gender Equality Agency citation (https://www.wgea.gov.au). It spoke of a “continued focus on equity, diversity and inclusion” and a “shared commitment” to gender equality.

Union communications throughout February and March discussed enterprise bargaining, workloads, digital change, and gender equity campaigns.

National campaign messaging focused on insecure work and collective action.

There were elections to organise.

Committees to populate.

Statements of equality to issue.

The messaging was active.

The rhetoric was strong.

But equality is not measured by newsletters.

It is measured by how power responds to vulnerability.

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The Reality: 9 March 2021

The day after International Women’s Day, SIRA informed me that my complaint had been closed.

It stated that it had liaised with SafeWork NSW and that the employer’s Return to Work program was compliant with legislation.

No explanation of evidentiary testing.

No transparency regarding investigative methodology.

No indication that my evidence or my GP’s evidence had been formally considered.

SafeWork had determined shortcomings had been corrected.

The matter was administratively finalised.

But here is what is not in those letters.

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The Withholding

I had never been properly informed of my statutory workers’ compensation entitlements.

I had not been provided clear guidance about:

• Weekly payment entitlements,

• Injury management obligations,

• Insurer duties under SIRA standards,

• The employer’s Return to Work program that SIRA later referenced as compliant.

The inspector treated me as though I already understood my statutory rights.

I did not.

Those rights were never passed on to me by the employer. Nor properly explained by the insurer.

The workers’ compensation framework is not optional guidance.

It is statutory law.

Employers and insurers are required to inform injured workers of their rights, entitlements and injury management processes.

Instead, assumptions were made.

I was treated as if I should have known.

As if ignorance of rights was personal failure.

As if raising confusion was obstruction.

Victim-blaming does not always arrive as shouting.

Sometimes it arrives as condescension.

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The Hostility

During interactions with SafeWork NSW, the inspector stated:

“Well all they’ll do is show me their policies and I don’t want to ruffle feathers.”

And:

“I’m not here to play he said she said.”

But that is exactly what occurred.

The inspector accepted the employer’s position.

The individual I had identified as relentlessly harassing me — the National Manager of Employment Relations and Safety — was representing the employer.

The inspector sided with the employer’s narrative.

In front of the WHS & Wellbeing Manager.

Who remained silent.

The very person tasked with wellbeing.

Silent.

That silence was not neutral.

It was alignment.

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The Redirection to Lawyers

On 9 March 2021, a long-standing friend contacted the WHS & Wellbeing Manager out of genuine concern for my health and safety.

She had every right to do so.

Raising a WHS & Wellbeing concern — particularly where psychological safety is at issue — is lawful. It is responsible. It is exactly what workplace safety frameworks are designed to encourage.

What happened next was extraordinary.

Within minutes, the very senior HR executive whose conduct formed the basis of my workers’ compensation claim — the individual I had identified as relentlessly harassing me — returned my friend’s call.

She did not engage with the safety concerns raised.

She questioned my friend’s authority to contact the WHS & Wellbeing Manager.

She characterised the contact as inappropriate.

And she directed that all communication occur only through external lawyers.

The alleged perpetrator of the psychosocial harm intervened directly in a safety escalation.

The safety pathway was not protected.

It was intercepted.

Instead of the WHS & Wellbeing Manager independently addressing the concern, the matter was redirected to lawyers.

Safety was converted into legal containment.

This is not what psychologically safe systems look like.

This is the inversion of psychological safety.

A worker raises harm.

A support person seeks wellbeing intervention.

The alleged source of that harm inserts herself into the communication chain and redirects it to lawyers.

That is not trauma-informed governance.

That is power consolidating itself.

And when that consolidation occurs in the shadow of International Women’s Day messaging about leadership and equality, the contrast is not symbolic.

It is structural.

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Regulatory Compartmentalisation

SafeWork deferred.

SIRA relied on SafeWork.

Each pointed to the other’s findings.

When I asked for transparency regarding what evidence had been considered, I was told the complaint would be closed.

When I questioned process, I was treated as unreasonable.

When I asked for statutory clarity, I was treated as difficult.

When I showed distress, it was pathologised — not investigated.

My voice was not amplified.

It was administratively contained.

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The Informational Imbalance

Information determines power.

Who knows their entitlements.

Who understands regulatory pathways.

Who knows the difference between policy and statutory obligation.

Who knows what must legally be provided.

I did not receive:

• Clear articulation of my legal entitlements.

• Transparent injury management implementation.

• Enforced compliance with statutory duties.

• Proactive union guidance on navigating the workers’ compensation framework.

At the same time, institutional actors had:

• Legal representation.

• Governance structures.

• Regulatory familiarity.

• Policy documents.

• Organisational power.

Equality cannot exist where one party holds the map and the other is told she should already know the terrain.

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The Silence of Leadership

Senior leadership spoke publicly of gender equality.

Union leadership campaigned on insecure work.

Regulators referenced compliance.

But when I said:

I am not safe.

I am not informed.

I do not understand my statutory rights.

I am being isolated.

The response was not protective intervention.

It was silence.

Redirection.

Closure.

Because information is power.

When information that the law requires to be shared is withheld, power is no longer leadership — it becomes control.

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International Women’s Day — Reconsidered

International Women’s Day messages spoke of equity, inclusion and a shared commitment to gender equality. But equality is not measured by statements. It is measured by whether women are informed of their rights, protected when they raise safety concerns, and heard when they speak.

International Women’s Day is not about branding.

It is about power.

Power is not just exercised in overt decisions.

It is exercised in:

• What information is shared.

• What information is withheld.

• Who is believed.

• Who is dismissed.

• Who is labelled emotional.

• Who is told they should have known.

When a woman is uninformed of her statutory entitlements, and then criticised for not navigating them correctly, that is not equality.

That is structural imbalance.

When a regulator says it does not want to “ruffle feathers,” while a worker is describing psychosocial harm, that is not neutrality.

That is governance failure.

When safety officers remain silent in the face of hostility, that is not professionalism.

That is complicity.

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This International Women’s Day

If information is power, then withholding information — especially statutory information — is abuse of power.

If gender equality is real, it must include:

• Transparent regulatory processes.

• Proactive explanation of legal entitlements.

• Enforcement of employer and insurer obligations.

• Protection from psychosocial harm.

• Leaders willing to ruffle feathers when safety demands it.

Otherwise, equality remains a theme.

And women who speak become inconvenient.

I was not inconvenient.

I was uninformed.

And then I was silenced.

Information is power.

Withholding information is abuse of power.

Transparency is not optional. It is a duty.

When “Support” Is Just a Referral - August 2021

When systems designed to provide support become a maze with no exit.

In early August 2021, after more than two years of workplace injury, regulatory complaints, and escalating financial distress, I wrote to multiple NSW Ministers.

Not once.

Not twice.

But repeatedly.

I wasn’t asking for sympathy.

I was asking for action.

In August 2021, I reached a breaking point.

Not the dramatic kind.

Not the kind people imagine.

The quiet, exhausted kind that comes after two years of fighting systems that were supposed to protect you.

By that stage, my workers compensation payments had been delayed again. Rent was due. Loan repayments were being deducted. My body was in a permanent state of hyper-vigilance. Sleep was fractured. My cognitive capacity was deteriorating under prolonged stress.

I wasn’t asking for sympathy.

I was asking for three simple, lawful things:

1. Transfer of the PIC agreed compensation payment (literally some back payment of statutory weekly payments that were never paid - see also http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2026/02/when-emotion-was-used-against-me-re.html). 

2. Enforce the injury management plan.

3. Stop the ongoing harm and allow me to return to work safely.

That was it.

Instead, what I received were acknowledgements and mental health referral numbers.

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The Bureaucratic Reframe

When a worker reports prolonged harassment, privacy breaches, injury mismanagement and regulatory failure, something subtle often happens.

The issue is reframed.

The workplace misconduct becomes “mental health.”

The regulatory breach becomes “distress.”

The systemic failure becomes “wellbeing support.”

And suddenly the solution offered is a counselling hotline.

Let me be clear:

I was not asking for counselling referrals.

I was asking for enforcement of statutory obligations.

There is a profound difference between psychological injury caused by institutional conduct and a personal mental health crisis detached from context. When the cause is structural, the response cannot be individualised.

You cannot therapy your way out of withheld payments.

 

You cannot mindfulness your way through regulatory silence.

 

You cannot resilience-train your way past unlawful conduct.

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What Financial Delay Does to the Nervous System

When agreed compensation is not transferred, it is not simply an accounting issue.

It becomes survival.

Rent due.

Bank balance dropping.

Family conflict escalating.

Creditors calling.

Superannuation inaccessible.

Regulators silent.

The body reads this as threat.

Adrenaline rises.

Cognition narrows.

Speech becomes fragmented.

Emails become more urgent, less polished.

And then the tone of the injured person becomes the focus — instead of the conduct that created the desperation.

The distress becomes the story.

Not the breach.

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The Silos

Each agency responded within its portfolio.

Workplace safety? Not here — try another department.

Workers compensation? Different office.

Mental distress? Health services.

Financial pressure? No clear ownership.

The person at the centre becomes administratively dispersed.

No one addresses the whole.

And the worker — already injured — becomes responsible for coordinating the system that failed them.

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The Most Dangerous Sentence

At one point, I wrote that I had “one foot in the grave.”

That wasn’t theatre.

It was exhaustion.

The kind that comes from pleading for lawful intervention and receiving procedural replies. The kind that comes from watching your professional identity erode while being told you are “valued.” 

The kind that comes from knowing the injury could have been contained early — if someone had simply enforced the law.

This is what prolonged regulatory inaction feels like.

Not dramatic.

Diminishing.

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When “Support” Misses the Point

Offering mental health services is not wrong.

But when mental health referrals replace regulatory action, something deeply problematic occurs.

The system treats the symptom and ignores the cause.

It implies the worker needs stabilising — rather than the institution needing correction.

It shifts responsibility subtly back onto the injured person.

And that compounds harm.

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What This Moment Taught Me

In August 2021, I learned something sobering:

Systems often respond fastest to visible crisis — but slowest to structural breach.

It is easier to refer someone to a hotline than to confront institutional misconduct.

It is easier to manage distress than to remedy wrongdoing.

But if we are serious about mentally healthy workplaces, then enforcement must come before empathy scripts.

Listening is not a courtesy.

It is a duty.

And when listening fails, the injury does not stay psychological.

It becomes financial.

Relational.

Existential.

That is what happens when “support” is reduced to a referral.

Source: contemporaneous records of events - Documents 184-188.

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Context and related reading

The issues raised in this post are not isolated. They sit within a broader discussion about psychological safety, workplace investigations, and the structural conditions that create harm when institutions fail to meet their legal and ethical obligations.

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When Government Promotes “Mentally Healthy Workplaces”

https://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2026/03/when-government-mentally-healthy.html?m=1

It was this very government — the architect and public champion of the Mentally Healthy Workplaces Strategy — presiding over systems that were inflicting the very harm that strategy claimed to prevent.

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Q Workplace Solutions, misinformation and workplace investigations

https://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2025/07/q-workplace-solutions-misinformation.html?m=1

This post examines the role of external consultants and workplace investigation processes, and the importance of transparency, independence, and disclosure of conflicts of interest. When investigations are conducted without procedural fairness or without properly managing conflicts, they can become tools that reinforce organisational narratives rather than establish the truth. Workers who raise legitimate safety concerns must be protected through fair processes that comply with work health and safety obligations, not subjected to processes that compound harm.

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Sanah Ahsan – The devastating lies about mental health problems and politics

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/06/psychologist-devastating-lies-mental-health-problems-politics

Summary:

In this article, clinical psychologist Sanah Ahsan argues that much of what we are told about the “mental health crisis” is misleading. She suggests that modern mental health narratives often locate the problem inside the individual — as a disorder or personal vulnerability — while ignoring the social, political and economic conditions that create distress. According to Ahsan, inequality, insecure work, discrimination, and power imbalances are major drivers of psychological suffering, yet these structural causes are frequently overlooked in favour of individualised solutions such as therapy, medication, or resilience training. She calls for a shift in thinking that recognises mental health as deeply connected to social justice and collective conditions, not simply personal pathology.

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Jacques, S.J. – Psychological safety obligations in workplace investigations

https://www.pkf.com.au/insights/psychological-safety-obligations-in-workplace-investigations/

Summary:

This article highlights the legal and ethical obligations employers must uphold when conducting workplace investigations, particularly where psychological safety is concerned. It emphasises the importance of transparency, disclosure of conflicts of interest, procedural fairness, and adherence to statutory work health and safety (WHS) duties of care. Investigations must be conducted in a way that protects workers from further psychological harm, including harm arising from isolation, retaliation, or biased processes. Employers have a legal obligation not only to investigate complaints properly, but also to manage psychosocial hazards and ensure their processes do not themselves become a source of harm.

In my case, there was no misconduct and no incapacity. On the contrary, I had reported serious unmanaged psychosocial hazards after more than two decades of service and contribution to my university community since August 2001. The documentary evidence speaks for itself. Rather than complying with WHS and workers compensation obligations, the response escalated into forced isolation, ostracism and mobbing — accompanied by defamatory narratives that attempted to discredit the worker who raised the concern.

The lesson for employers is straightforward: risk management begins with compliance, transparency, and procedural fairness. When organisations attempt to silence or discredit employees who raise legitimate safety concerns, they do not reduce risk — they expose themselves to far greater legal, ethical, and reputational consequences.