On 9 November 2022, I sent a long email setting out a chronology of my attempts to obtain workplace protection, communicate with my colleagues and return safely to my work. I described the effect that correspondence from Clayton Utz, unethically acting “on behalf of the university”, had on me and my family.
On 10 November 2022, I followed up with selected records, an annotated workplace safety strategy and references to reporting about Clayton Utz’s earlier conduct.
I sent these emails to SafeWork NSW and SIRA, and I included journalists because I felt that my repeated requests for help hadn’t stopped the harm. I asked the journalists to protect my identity, my family’s identity and the university’s identity at the time. I also copied in the two lawyers from Clayton Utz involved in these unethical communication practices. What I wanted was an investigation and a safe return to the work I had done for two decades.
The two emails belong together. The first explains the history and why I was so distressed. The second identifies some of the records I sent to support what I had said.
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I asked for a safe workplace
This began with a request to address bullying, harassment and psychosocial hazards at work. I needed the problems resolved so that I could continue doing my job safely and well. I also had temporary carer responsibilities, and I was entitled to keep my family’s privacy private.
By 20 May 2020, I was responding to false statements made in a 13 May 2020 letter from a HR executive to my employment lawyer. I wrote about the scrutiny I had experienced when taking leave (ie. harassment), and about the way my family had been drawn into questions about my work. I was trying to explain that using my leave entitlements when I needed them was not a special accommodation or a failure of commitment to my job.
I had worked hard for the university. I wanted to remain part of it. In the November 2022 chronology, I returned repeatedly to the same point: I had asked for a safe work environment, not for my family’s privacy to be unlawfully involved or for my connection with colleagues to be cut off.
See:
http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2025/04/dangerous-psychopathic-letter-2020-part.html
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My family’s complaint came before Clayton Utz’s emails
My family didn’t suddenly appear in this story when Clayton Utz unlawfully “contacted” them.
In my 9 November 2022 chronology email, I explained that my family’s privacy had become an issue during a 9 March 2020 meeting about my workplace matters. Family members later made their own formal complaint about what had happened to them. I described the Clayton Utz emails that followed as threatening and intended to intimidate my family into silence.
My family’s privacy was violated by HR senior executives. They chose to violate privacy laws and entangling my family in what began as my request for a safe workplace. They had every reason and a right to raise concerns about their own privacy. They should never have become targets because I reported bullying, harassment and psychosocial hazards at work.
These events caused distress within a family that was already dealing with serious grief and trauma.
That’s the boundary I keep coming back to:
How did a workplace safety complaint reach the point where my family was receiving a frightening letter from my employer’s lawyers at Clayton Utz?
See:
http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2025/02/introducing-corporate-psychopath.html
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An email address created for recovery
On 2 July 2020, after making a workers’ compensation claim caused by the employer’s unsafe and intimidating conduct as retaliation, I told Catholic Church Insurance’s case manager about a new email address. I had created it on my psychologist’s recommendation for communication about injury management and my return to work. It was intended for contact with my treating professionals, the case manager and those coordinating that return, including ACU’s Return to Work coordinator.
In my November 2022 chronology, I said that the address later reached Matthew Condello of Clayton Utz. To me, that was another example of something intended to support my recovery becoming a channel for sending communication I experienced as intimidating.
The broader return to work process was also a central part of my 9 November 2022 email. I wrote that by 6 October 2020, I was writing to the university’s work health and safety manager because almost five months had passed without the communication or return to work plan I needed. I was asking the employer and insurer to cooperate with my treating professionals and help me return safely.
I wrote to Catholic Church Insurance at the same time about the financial consequences of delay:
“The income stops, but the bills don’t.”
That was why the absence of a RTW plan mattered so much. I was dealing with a continuing workplace safety concern, a need for contact and support, and growing financial pressure. My concern about these lawyers’ involvement cannot be separated from that situation.
See:
http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2025/06/email-address-created-strictly-for.html
http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2025/08/whs-and-wellbeing-manager-negligence.html
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The letters to my family and me
In the 9 November 2022 email, I told SafeWork NSW that Clayton Utz must never contact me and my family again. I was angry, frightened and exhausted. The firm’s communications had crossed a boundary that should NEVER have been crossed.
I described the Clayton Utz communication to my family as a scare tactic. I also described receiving a letter from Matthew Condello of Clayton Utz on 4 February 2021. I understood that communication as an attempt to stop me contacting colleagues and members of the university community who mattered to me. I was seeking support, a safe return to work and an end to the isolation.
See:
http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2025/07/intimidating-family-as-community.html
http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2026/01/clayton-utz-isolation-intimidation.html
This sequence was important, because on 18 January 2021, I had complained to SafeWork NSW and asked for help with the continuing workplace risks and my isolation. I including three colleagues as witnesses, including the WHS and Wellbeing manager. Then came that lawyers’ correspondence to me. Instead of feeling protected after raising my concerns, I felt more frightened to open my email.
See:
http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2026/01/safework-nsw-my-experience-when.html
I had told my workers’ compensation solicitor:
“Can you inform this bully law firm to never contact me again. I want to return to my work and I demand the offenders in HR to leave me alone. I need a colleague to contact me as a support.”
I was trying to establish a boundary because the contact had become another source of distress.
I also responded to Mr Condello of Clayton Utz directly, informing him that I hadn’t viewed his attachment because of its effect on my wellbeing. I wrote:
“All I asked for in return was a safe work environment, so I can continue to provide excellent service without collapsing from stress and burnout.”
I had waited until a GP telehealth appointment to open that email account because I was afraid of what I might find. I expected another distressing response from SafeWork NSW; I didn’t expect the kind of lawyers’ correspondence my family had already experienced to reach me too. I recorded at the time that my GP was shocked and said they shouldn’t be harassing me. I made a workers compensation claim because of this very unsafe conduct by university representatives in HR.
See:
http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2026/01/when-cry-for-safety-is-answered-by.html
My family had made a formal complaint to the university about their own privacy. They had every right to do that. This had nothing to do with Clayton Utz. It was a direct legal obligation from my nationally registered, publicly funded university employer, with a VC on a $1 million salary that’s extremely responsible for ensuring the safety and wellbeing of staff, students and the community members who were being relentlessly harassed by staff and lawyer representatives of the university. The now VC, Zlatko Skrbis, was also the decision maker of these complaints. It’s all on record.
See:
http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2025/06/the-decision-maker-now-vice-chancellor.html
Yet correspondence from Clayton Utz came to my family, and the to me, in response. We experienced those letters as threatening and intimidating, beyond disrespectful. It definitely didn’t display a commitment to the dignity of the human person, as stated in ACU’s mission. I want the university leaders and Clayton Utz to understand that involving my family in this way caused real distress.
I want Clayton Utz to never again contact me or my family. I want ACU to stop conduct that I experience as threatening or intimidating and to address my workplace safety concerns so I can return to my work with appropriate safeguards. Those were the boundaries I was trying to establish then, and they remain important to me.
Lawyers are paid to act for their clients. That doesn’t answer the ethical question I raised then and raise again now: what responsibility do they have when their communications may cause further harm to an injured worker and her family? Who examines the substance, the tone and the consequences of those communications, especially when the person receiving them has repeatedly said that contact is causing distress?
I was under a statutory scheme that should have protected me!
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What I asked SafeWork NSW to see
My 9 November email set out repeated attempts to get SafeWork NSW to examine the workplace risks I was reporting.
In October 2020, I had contacted SafeWork NSW while seeking protection from conduct I that was continuing during my workers’ compensation claim. I recalled an inspector saying, “I’m not here to do he said she said.” That was a shock to me when I was asking for the records and the continuing conduct to be examined.
See:
http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2025/08/enter-unsafework-nsw-that-rtw-plan-i.html
http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2025/08/unmanaged-psychosocial-hazards-october.html
On 9 March 2021, I responded to SafeWork NSW again. I asked it to take seriously my lack of contact with colleagues and the distress this was causing. I needed a support network among the people I had worked with for so long. This was part of my safety and recovery, not a side issue.
See:
http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2026/01/when-regulators-close-ranks-systemic_02001716617.html
My chronology continued through 2021 and into 2022. I described further approaches to SafeWork NSW, including correspondence about its response to my complaint, contact with its psychosocial health channel and a report submitted through its Speak Up process. I questioned how public commitments to mentally healthy workplaces were being put into practice when I was still asking for help with the risks I had reported.
I wasn’t asking for a stock response or a referral that sent me around another circle. I wanted the workplace conduct examined and the injury management and return to work arrangements addressed.
See:
http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2025/06/injury-management-plan-legally-binding.html
http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2025/09/injury-management-and-rehabilitation.html
http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2026/03/when-government-mentally-healthy.html
http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2026/04/safework-nsw-thank-you-for-speaking-up.html
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The friend who tried to help
A friend of mine became involved because she was concerned for my safety and tried to advocate for me. She called the university’s work health and safety manager. My understanding is that the cause of my claim, the national manager of employment relations and SAFETY, called my friend back and directed her towards Matthew Condello of Clayton Utz. To me, that raised another boundary question: why was a concerned friend being pointed to a lawyer by my university employer, when she was trying to express concern about my wellbeing?
See:
http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2026/01/a-whs-turning-point-i-will-never-forget.html
The 9 November chronology records other ways she tried to help. In April 2021, I asked her to forward an email seeking assistance from a university discrimination and harassment adviser because I feared my own email might not get through. I reported that her contact details also appeared to have been blocked by this publicly funded university employer.
See:
http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2026/02/discrimination-and-harassment-adviser-2.html
On 28 May 2021, she contacted the dean of the Strathfield campus because she was concerned about my emotional safety in attending a weekend event on campus. I recorded how distressing the response was for me and how concerned she became for my health. I also recorded that she received two calls from a private number soon afterward, with no message left. I don’t know who made those calls or why.
See:
http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2026/02/when-safety-is-denied-at-threshold-may.html
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What I sent Safework NSW on 10 November 2022
The 10 November email followed the detailed account I’d sent the day before. This time, I identified selected records I was providing.
I explained that I hadn’t read one of the lawyers’ letters myself because doing so felt unsafe. That’s part of the record too. The distress was such that even opening correspondence required support.
The copy of the follow-up email includes an automated acknowledgement from SafeWork NSW shortly after the forwarded email’s timestamp. The acknowledgement shows that an automated response was sent; it doesn’t tell me what substantive assessment followed.*
The email was an appeal for the conduct to stop and for someone with authority to look at what had happened. It was also a request to respect my family’s privacy. I shouldn’t have had to choose between seeking workplace protection and protecting the people close to me from being pulled into the consequences.
* Given the silence from SafeWork NSW that followed, the only conclusion is IGNORED AND ABANDONED IN MY FEAR BY SAFEWORK NSW AGAIN.
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The ethics audit question
The 9 November email ended by questioning Clayton Utz’s professional responsibilities and referring to reporting about earlier controversies involving the firm. I said I would provide the references. The 10 November material includes that reference list.
One citation has stayed with me: a 24 April 2002 Australian Financial Review article by B. Pheasant titled “Clayton Utz to run ethics audit.”
Where’s the outcome of that proposed audit? Was an audit completed? Was a report produced? What did it examine, what changes followed, and what standards guide the firm when its lawyers correspond with an injured worker or her family?
The article title in my reference list shows why I was asking these questions in 2022. It doesn’t tell me whether the audit was completed or what it found. I’d like to see the report, if there is one, or a clear account of the outcome.
The other articles I listed concerned separate events involving the firm over many years. They don’t prove what happened in my case. They explain why I wanted scrutiny of a firm whose lawyers’ communications had, in my experience, added to the harm. A public reputation for legal expertise should invite serious examination of professional conduct when someone raises a specific, documented concern.
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The question that remains
My 9 November email was long because the experience had been long. It traced repeated requests for a safe return to work, contact with my colleagues and protection for my family. My 10 November email followed with selected records and references. Together, they show what I was asking people to examine and how urgently I needed them to listen. No one listened.
The emails were raw because I was living through what I described. I was trying to protect my family, reach my colleagues, recover my health and return to the work I had done for two decades. I wanted SafeWork NSW to examine the workplace risks I had reported, and I wanted the lawyers’ contact with me and my family to stop.
There must be a boundary. A worker who asks for safety shouldn’t find that her family’s privacy becomes part of the pressure around her. A friend who tries to help shouldn’t be made to feel exposed. And a lawyer’s involvement shouldn’t leave the person seeking protection, to become even more frightened to open her email.
I’m still asking who will examine what happened, including the communications sent to my family and me, and who will take responsibility for the harm that followed. I’m also still asking Clayton Utz a straightforward question: what became of the ethics audit reported as planned in 2002?
Source: contemporaneous record of events - Documents 559-560.