I Asked My Elected Representative Chris Minns for Help — Because the Regulators Failed - December 2021

This is where everything should have come together.

The evidence was there.

The risks were known.

The obligations were clear.

It should have triggered action.

Instead, nothing changed.

By December 2021, I was no longer asking for help within the system.

I was escalating what happens when the system itself does not act.

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13 December 2021 — When the System Should Have Intervened

On 13 December 2021 at 11:43 AM, I wrote to the Kogarah electorate office of my elected representative, Chris Minns.

By that point, I was already under the care of a trauma specialist. This was not the result of a single workplace event. It was the result of what followed after I reported harm and attempted to engage the system as required.

In that email, I explained that I had exhausted every available avenue.

I set out clearly that:

• SafeWork NSW had not taken effective action in response to serious psychosocial hazards
• SIRA NSW had not enforced my workers compensation entitlements
• My recovery had been obstructed by inaction rather than supported by enforcement

I also outlined what should have occurred under the law. This included enforcement of my entitlements, restoration of my employment, and the return of leave that had been depleted while I was being harmed.

I made it clear that I had compiled evidence. I had documented the failures. I had done everything expected of a worker navigating the system.

What I asked for was simple.

I asked when I could attend the office and speak directly with Chris Minns.

I also described the human impact. I explained that I felt alone, vulnerable, frightened, traumatised, and distressed.

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19 December 2021 — When Non-Enforcement Became Harm

On 19 December 2021 at 11:27 PM, I wrote again.

By this stage, the consequences of inaction had become immediate and unavoidable.

I explained that I needed my job to be restored as a matter of urgency. This was not simply about employment. It was about recovery, financial stability, and the ability to move forward.

I set out that:

• Psychosocial hazards had not been addressed
• My workers compensation entitlements had not been paid
• There had been no meaningful regulatory intervention despite the seriousness of the situation

I was experiencing the withholding of legally owed income and ongoing psychological harm.

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20 December 2021 — Financial Consequences of Regulatory Failure

On 20 December 2021 at 4:01 PM, I sent a further email.

By this point, the failure to enforce the law had translated directly into financial risk.

I explained that I was under pressure from a real estate transaction. I required proof of my employment and income stability.

Both had been undermined.

This was not simply the result of employer conduct. It was the direct consequence of regulators failing to enforce obligations that were designed to protect my income and support my recovery.

I also described the physical impact of this pressure. I explained that I felt extremely unwell due to stress and fear.

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21 December 2021 — Escalation Beyond the Regulators

On 21 December 2021 at 3:39 PM, I provided further information.

At this stage, I was no longer waiting for regulatory action.

I provided:

• Direct contact details for senior leadership
• Information regarding union involvement
• Evidence that the impact had extended to my family

This escalation should not have been necessary.

The responsibility to investigate and enforce compliance sits with the regulators.

However, in the absence of that action, I was required to take those steps myself.

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23 December 2021 — The Human Cost of Inaction

On 23 December 2021 at 11:52 AM, I sent a further email.

This was two days before Christmas.

By then, the situation had reached a critical point.

I explained that:

• The process affecting my home was progressing without certainty
• Each delay increased the risk that I would lose my home
• I was likely to spend Christmas alone due to the strain caused by the situation

I reiterated the legal position.

My leave had been depleted while I was being harmed. My compensation had been withheld. My employer’s obligations to support recovery and return to work had not been enforced.

I made it clear that I could not endure further harm.

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Legal Accountability — Statutory Duties vs Conduct

This was not an absence of law.

It was an absence of enforcement.

SafeWork NSW

Under the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (NSW), SafeWork NSW is responsible for enforcing compliance with work health and safety duties, including psychosocial risks.

This includes:

• Investigating reported hazards
• Taking action to prevent ongoing harm
• Enforcing compliance where breaches occur

What occurred instead was a failure to intervene meaningfully, despite known risks and ongoing harm.

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SIRA NSW 

Under the Workplace Injury Management and Workers Compensation Act 1998 (NSW) and the Workers Compensation Act 1987 (NSW), SIRA is responsible for ensuring that insurers comply with statutory obligations.

This includes:

• Payment of weekly benefits
• Implementation of injury management plans
• Oversight of return-to-work processes
• Enforcement where there is non-compliance

What occurred instead was prolonged non-enforcement, despite clear evidence of withheld entitlements and failure to implement required processes.

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Ministerial Accountability — Oversight Cannot Be Delegated Away

By December 2021, this matter had moved beyond regulatory process.

It had become a question of ministerial responsibility.

Chris Minns was directly contacted through his electorate office with detailed accounts of regulatory failure and escalating harm.

Jihad Dib holds responsibility for SIRA NSW and the framework under which these functions operate.

Sophie Cotsis is responsible for oversight of SafeWork NSW.

These roles carry responsibility for ensuring that:

• Regulators act when harm is reported
• Statutory obligations are enforced
• Systems designed to protect workers function in practice

The record shows that:

• Detailed complaints were made
• Evidence was provided
• Harm was ongoing

Yet the outcome did not change.

There was no effective intervention.

There was no enforcement.

There was no restoration of lawful entitlements.

Oversight cannot remain passive in those circumstances.

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Dignity, Respect, and Where the Burden Lies

This matter is not only about statutory compliance.

It is about dignity.

It is about respect.

It is about how a person — and their family — are treated when they ask for a safe work environment and lawful support to recover.

The impact of what occurred did not sit with me alone.

It extended to my family.

People who had done nothing more than stand beside me were drawn into a situation that should have been contained, managed, and resolved through proper processes.

That did not occur.

Instead, the consequences of inaction were allowed to extend beyond the workplace, affecting relationships, wellbeing, and stability.

That is not what the system is designed to do.

Nor is it consistent with the standards of conduct expected of institutions that publicly commit to dignity, ethical practice, and good governance.

Respect is not demonstrated through statements of values.

It is demonstrated through action — particularly when a person is vulnerable and reliant on the system to act lawfully and fairly.

Where that does not occur, the impact is not only legal or financial.

It is personal.

It affects identity, reputation, and a sense of dignity.

The burden of that impact does not properly sit with the person who sought help.

It does not properly sit with their family.

Where obligations were not met, and where action was not taken when it should have been, responsibility rests with those who held the authority and the duty to act.

The evidence was there. The law was clear. The action was missing. 

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What Must Be Understood

The consequences of non-enforcement are real.

They are lived.

They are cumulative.

They affect health, financial stability, and the ability to move forward.

But they do not extinguish a worker’s rights.

They do not justify abandoning lawful recovery.

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Recovery Is Not Optional — It Is a Legal Obligation

I do not accept that the outcome of regulatory failure is that I am left to carry its consequences without proper recovery.

I do not accept that non-compliance can be resolved by a payment while the legal obligations to support recovery remain unfulfilled.

I do not accept that this matter can be reduced to a closed claim, when the lawful pathway to recovery and return to work has not been properly implemented.

Under the law, recovery requires:

• Proper implementation of an Injury Management Plan
• Genuine return-to-work processes
• Cooperation with treating practitioners
• A safe return to work - requiring employer and insurer statutory compliance

Those statutory obligations were not optional at the time.

They do not become optional because they were ignored.

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The Position Is Simple

I have a right to a voice in my own recovery.

I have a right to a lawful pathway back to work.

I have a right to have that pathway properly implemented.

That pathway can be restored.

And it must be.

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The Real Question

By December 2021, I had done everything the system requires of a worker.

I had reported the harm.

I had provided the evidence.

I had engaged with the regulators.

I had escalated to my elected representative.

And still, nothing was enforced.

This is no longer a question about a workplace.

It is a question about the system.

What happens when regulators do not regulate — and those responsible for oversight do not step in?

Because that is not what the law provides.

And it is not an outcome I accept.

And the wage theft continued…

Source: contemporaneous record of events - Document 230.

The Home I Was Trying to Secure — And What It Cost Me - It started in December 2021

I have worked in a secure, full-time, continuing role since 2001. When I tried to buy my home, what I did not have was the income I was legally entitled to rely on.

By late 2021, I was doing what anyone in my position should have been able to do. I was speaking with agents, reviewing contracts, organising finance, and preparing to move forward into home ownership. It was not a rushed decision or an overreach. It was the natural next step after decades of stable employment — the kind of history lenders rely on, the kind that should make this process straightforward.

I wrote at the time, that “settlement would be like another word for peace.”  

That was the truth of it. Not an investment. Not a strategy. Just peace. A place where things could stabilise after everything that had already begun to unravel.

Nothing about that moment should have been fragile. The work history was there. The capacity was there. The pathway into home ownership was clear. But at the exact point I was trying to secure that future, the stability I had built over decades was being undermined.

It began when I exercised a right that is meant to be protected — requesting a safe workplace. That request, grounded in Work Health and Safety, should have triggered protection. Instead, it triggered adverse action.

——

A safe workplace is a legal right — not a trigger for retaliation.

What followed did not correct that harm. It compounded it.

Once I entered the workers compensation system, the mechanism that is supposed to preserve financial stability did not function as it should have. The income I was entitled to was not properly maintained. The Injury Management Plan that had been agreed was not implemented. There was no coordinated return to work. No proper engagement with my treating practitioners. No structure ensuring that my financial position remained intact while I recovered.

And this is where the consequences become real.

When you are trying to secure finance, stability is everything. Income is not just money — it is capacity. It is credibility. It is the basis on which your future is assessed.

——

Remove income at the point someone is seeking finance, and you remove their future with it.

I had spent more than twenty years building that foundation. What I relied on, at that moment, was that the system designed to protect injured workers would preserve it.

Instead, it allowed it to erode.

The weekly payments I was legally entitled to receive were not properly provided. Those payments are not discretionary. They exist to replace income and maintain financial stability so that an injured worker is not pushed into financial distress at the point they are most vulnerable. They exist so that obligations can be met and opportunities — including the ability to obtain finance — are not lost.

Without that stability, the consequences are entirely foreseeable.

And they were foreseeable here.

Those in positions of responsibility were aware of what was happening. The issues had been raised. The financial harm was not hypothetical — it was unfolding in real time. And still, there was no meaningful intervention to stop it. No correction. No compliance with the statutory obligations that exist to prevent exactly this outcome.

——

This was not delay. This was the removal of financial stability at the exact moment it was needed most.

I did ultimately reach settlement. I did secure my home.

But that does not undo what it took to get there.

The cost was significant. Financially, in ways that should never have occurred. Psychologically, in ways that are difficult to quantify. Structurally, in that the stability I had built over decades was not protected when it mattered most.

There is something deeply wrong about having to fight that hard to secure something that, on every objective measure, should have been within reach.

I had the work history. I had the capacity. I had the foundation.

What I did not have was the protection of a system that was legally required to provide it.

And so I secured my home despite that system, not because of it.

Not just a property - a place of stability, safety and peace.

I did not lose the home — but I was forced to pay for it in ways the law was supposed to prevent.

To be continued…

Source: contemporaneous record of events - Documents 238-240.

SafeWork NSW — “Thank You for Speaking Up” … then nothing - December 2021

There is something deeply unsettling about being told “Thank you for speaking up” when your life is already in pieces because of regulatory failure and maladministration.

That was the automated response I received from SafeWork NSW on 11 December 2021.

A reference number.

A timestamp.

A polite acknowledgement.

And absolutely no protection.

When safety becomes a system failure —
and the worker is left unprotected.

By that point, this was not a new story.

This was not a minor workplace concern.

This was a documented, escalating work health and safety crisis involving serious psychosocial hazards — the very risks that the Work Health and Safety (WHS) framework is designed to prevent.

And yet, I found myself writing words no worker should ever have to write:

“Serious psychosocial hazards now risking a life…”  

I was describing lived, ongoing harm.

I was fighting to save my life.

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When the Regulator Becomes the Risk

By December 2021, I had already reported:

• stalking
• intimidation
• bullying
• harassment
• workplace mobbing

Not just against me — but extending to my family.

These were not hidden risks.

They were known.

They were reported.

They were foreseeable.

And yet, they were not stopped.

The role of SafeWork NSW under the WHS Act is clear:

To identify, investigate, and eliminate or control risks to health and safety, including psychological health.

Instead, what I experienced was something far more dangerous:

Inaction. Minimisation. And abandonment.

And worse. Victim blaming. 

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A System That Knew — And Still Did Nothing

What makes this moment so significant is not just what I reported.

It is what had already happened before this report was lodged.

• A workers compensation claim was already in place

• An Injury Management Plan had already been agreed

• A treating doctor was already involved

• The hazards — and the source of those hazards — had already been identified

And yet:

• The case manager who implemented the plan was removed

• No replacement was provided

• The plan was not enforced

• The workplace hazards were not controlled

The system didn’t fail because it didn’t know.

The system failed because it chose not to act.

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“Don’t Patronise Me With Numbers”

When I lodged that safety concern, I wasn’t asking for sympathy.

I was asking for action.

I made that clear:

“Don’t you dare send bullshit numbers and patronise me. I have a right to a voice in my own recovery…”  

Because by then, I understood something most people don’t realise until it’s too late:

A reference number is not safety.

An email confirmation is not enforcement.

A policy is not protection.

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The Illusion of “Mentally Healthy Workplaces”

On that same day, I wrote again — this time calling out the gap between what is promised and what is done.

“We don’t need a safe work month — we just need SafeWork NSW to do their job.”  

Because the reality I was living did not reflect the glossy language of strategies and campaigns.

It reflected something else entirely:

• A regulator unwilling to intervene

• A system that deflected responsibility

• A worker left exposed to ongoing harm

The language of “mentally healthy workplaces” means nothing if it is not enforced when it matters most.

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Psychosocial Hazards Are Not Optional Risks

Psychological injury is not secondary.

Psychosocial hazards are not “soft risks.”

Under the WHS framework, they carry the same weight as physical hazards.

They are:

• foreseeable
• preventable
• and legally required to be managed

What I experienced was the opposite:

A workplace hazard left uncontrolled.

A worker left unprotected.

A regulator that did not intervene.

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This Was a Turning Point

11 December 2021 was not just another report.

It was a line in the sand.

It was the moment where the reality became undeniable:

The system designed to keep workers safe had become part of the harm.

And once that happens, the consequences are not just procedural.

They are human.

They are psychological.

They are, in some cases, life-threatening.

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The Question That Still Remains

When a worker reports serious psychosocial hazards…

When those hazards are known…

When the risk is escalating…

And when the regulator has the power to act…

What does it mean when nothing is done?

Source: contemporaneous record of events - Document 229.

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Legal Accountability — WHS Duties vs Conduct

Under the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (NSW), the obligations are clear, enforceable, and non-negotiable.

A Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking (PCBU) — in this case, Australian Catholic University — is legally required to:

• ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of workers
• eliminate or minimise risks to both physical and psychological health
• provide a work environment that is without risks to health and safety
• implement systems for safe work, supervision, and support

At the same time, SafeWork NSW, as the regulator, is responsible for:

• enforcing compliance with the WHS Act
• investigating reported hazards and breaches
• taking regulatory action where there is a risk of serious harm

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What the Law Requires vs What Occurred

The Law Requires:

• Psychosocial hazards to be identified and controlled
• Injured workers to be protected from further harm
• Known risks to be acted on promptly
• Regulators to intervene where there is risk to life or safety

What Occurred:

• Reported psychosocial hazards were not effectively controlled
• The source of harm was not removed or managed
• The worker remained exposed to ongoing risk
• The regulator did not take effective enforcement action

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Why This Matters

This is a question of statutory compliance.

Where there is:

• a known hazard
• a foreseeable risk
• and a failure to act

the issue moves beyond administrative delay and into potential:

• breach of WHS duties
• failure of regulatory enforcement
• and systemic risk to worker safety

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The law exists to prevent exactly this kind of harm.

When it is not enforced, the consequences are lived.

They are cumulative.

And they are, in some cases, irreversible.