The Social Media Post I Saw on 29 April 2022

I still remember the day.

Friday, 29 April 2022.

I was extremely exhausted.

For months I had been trying to obtain help regarding my workers compensation claim, the failure to implement the Injury Management Plan by my employer and insurer, the withholding of my statutory entitlements, and what were serious failures by both SafeWork NSW and SIRA.

I had taken those concerns to my local member, Chris Minns, and his Kogarah electorate office.

There had been indications that something was happening.

And then I saw the social media post.

Chris Minns had visited the University campus at Blacktown.

 

Chris Minns’ social media post, 29 April 2022, following his visit to ACU Blacktown during the NSW election campaign. The statement that workers deserve “a government that listens to their concerns and takes action” would later take on a very different meaning for me.

At first, I was pleased.

In fact, I emailed Chris Minns and Cheryl Han that same day and told them it was “a good idea and great opportunity to visit ACU.”

I genuinely believed it was positive.

The university offered courses in nursing, teaching, social work, paramedicine and allied health. Highlighting those professions during an election campaign was important.

Importantly, I thought the visit might also mean that somebody was finally paying attention to what had happened to me.

I wanted to believe that.

I needed to believe that.

At that point I was carrying a burden that had become unbearable.

I was frightened.

I was financially collapsing.

I was isolated.

I was trying to survive the consequences of raising concerns about workplace safety and then finding myself trapped in a workers compensation system that seemed determined to ignore its own obligations.

When I saw the post, I actually felt relief.

I wrote to the electorate office that seeing the photo had made me feel as though a burden had lifted.

For a brief moment, I felt hopeful.

Then I read the words.

One sentence in particular stayed with me.

Chris Minns wrote that workers deserved:

“A government that listens to their concerns and takes action.”

At the time, I wanted to believe that statement.

I wanted to believe somebody was finally listening.

I wanted to believe somebody was finally prepared to take action.

After all, I was his constituent.

I lived in his electorate.

I had repeatedly raised concerns regarding workplace safety, workers compensation, injury management, regulatory failures and the impact those failures were having on my life.

I had explained that I was struggling.

I had explained that my entitlements remained withheld.

I had explained that I was trying to save my home, protect my health and hold my family together while navigating a system that seemed increasingly hostile toward an injured worker.

I thought those concerns mattered.

I thought they would be heard.

But what followed was not listening.

What followed was silence.

And the action that ultimately affected my life was not action that protected me.

The employer had already failed to provide a safe work environment after I raised concerns.

The insurer had continued to withhold entitlements.

The insurer had failed to implement the Injury Management Plan.

The insurer had failed to provide effective case management.

The insurer had failed to ensure safeguards that should have existed under the scheme.

The insurer had failed to cooperate in ways that would have supported recovery and a safe return to work.

And now I found myself facing something else.

Not advocacy.

Not transparency.

Not communication.

Silence.

The result was that I increasingly felt abandoned not only by my employer and insurer, but also by the elected representative I had approached for help.

That is what made this period so frightening.

People often look at correspondence and government processes and forget there is a human being living through them.

At that time I was trying to manage overwhelming financial pressure.

I was trying to save my home.

I was trying to maintain my health.

I was trying to preserve relationships with my family.

I was trying to survive, and I was doing it largely alone.

The imbalance of power was extraordinary.

On one side stood:

• An employer.
• An insurer.
• Lawyers.
• Government agencies.
• Regulators.
• And increasingly what felt like political indifference.

On the other side stood one injured worker.

People often confuse vulnerability with weakness.

They are not the same thing.

I was vulnerable.

I was frightened.

I was exhausted.

But I was not weak.

If anything, the fact that I continued documenting events, writing letters, lodging complaints and demanding accountability despite everything that was happening proves the opposite.

What I didn’t  understand at the time was how significant that social media post would become.

It now stands as a reminder of the gap between public statements and private experiences.

A worker deserving a government that listens.

A constituent asking to be heard.

A promise of action.

And then silence.

The issue was never that Chris Minns visited ACU.

Politicians visit universities during election campaigns.

That is normal.

The issue was the timing.

The issue was that I had been led to believe advocacy and support were occurring regarding matters that directly affected my employment, health, entitlements and future.

The issue was what happened afterwards.

Nothing.

No update.

No explanation.

No clarity.

Just growing uncertainty.

As the days passed, my confidence in the Kogarah electorate office began to disappear.

My trust began to erode.

My instinct told me that something was wrong.

On 3 May 2022, after still hearing nothing, I wrote again.

I explained that a friend had contacted the office seeking an update regarding the Friday meeting with the university.

I explained how important that information was.

I explained that my mental health depended on knowing what was happening.

I explained that TAL, my mortgage broker and the conveyancer all needed answers.

I explained that I wanted healing with my family before Mother’s Day.

I was asking for communication.

I was asking for an update.

I was asking for honesty.

This was one of the first moments I began to feel unsafe communicating directly with my elected representative’s office.

Because of the uncertainty.

Because I no longer knew whether what I was being told privately matched what was actually happening.

By May 2022, I realised that the people and institutions I had trusted to help were not helping at all.

The employer had failed me.

The insurer had failed me.

The regulators had failed me.

And now I was beginning to fear that political representation was failing me too.

At the time, Chris Minns had not yet become Premier.

What happened after he entered government, and what that would mean for my attempts to seek accountability, is a story for later posts.

But by early May 2022, something fundamental had changed.

I began to question whether the office that was supposed to represent me was actually listening at all.

Source: contemporaneous record of events - Document 312.

Notice After Notice – Part 13: Chris Minns and Cheryl Han again & again - April 2022

26 & 27 April 2022

“I Need the Injury Management Plan to Be Implemented Please”

By April 2022, I was no longer explaining what had happened.

The records already existed.

The injury had already been reported.

The workers compensation claim had already been lodged.

The Injury Management Plan had already been issued.

The problem was not a lack of information.

The problem was that nothing seemed to be happening.

——

On 26 April 2022, I wrote to Cheryl Han at the Kogarah Electorate Office.

The email was short.

This quote captured years of waiting:

“Is there an update?”

I explained why I was asking.

And I reminded the electorate office of a simple reality:

The university had a legal obligation to take care of me…

I ended the email with one word.

“Please.”

There was nothing unreasonable in that request.

I was asking whether there had been any progress.

Whether anyone had acted.

Whether anyone had listened.

Whether anyone cared.

——

The following day, 27 April 2022, I wrote again.

This time the subject line itself explained the problem:

“I need the Injury Management Plan to be implemented please.”

Not created.

Not drafted.

Not discussed.

Implemented.

Because by this point everyone already knew there was an Injury Management Plan.

The university knew.

The insurer knew.

The regulators knew.

The electorate office knew.

The question was never whether the plan existed.

The question was why it was not being implemented.

That is what stands out to me when I read these emails.

They show that the issue had become incredibly simple.

A worker was asking for an existing statutory process to function.

A worker was asking for obligations to be honoured.

A worker was asking for support that had already been recognised as necessary.

And yet I still found myself writing email after email, notice after notice, asking for the same thing.

——

The silence that followed is difficult to forget, because silence is also a response.

When somebody asks, “Is there an update?”, and there is none;

When somebody says, “I need the Injury Management Plan to be implemented please”, and nothing changes;

The message received is clear.

By April 2022, I was not fighting for new rights.

I was fighting for existing obligations to be honoured.

That is what these emails show.

Everybody knew.

And I kept writing.

Notice after notice.

Source: contemporaneous record of events - Documents 310-311.

Notice After Notice & A Call to Humanity — Part 12: Chris Minns & Cheryl Han once again - April 2022

23 April 2022

By 23 April 2022, I was exhausted.

I wasn’t simply tired from stress, but exhausted from carrying a crisis almost entirely alone while continuing to send notice after notice to people who had the power to intervene.

This email was sent to Chris Minns and Cheryl Han at the Kogarah electorate office during one of the most difficult periods of my life. It was Greek Easter. I was isolated, overwhelmed, financially terrified, and desperately trying to hold together both my health and my family relationships while trapped in a workers compensation system that had already failed me repeatedly.

And still, I kept writing.

Still, I kept asking for help.

I apologised for the length of my emails because by that stage I had become painfully aware that distress itself can make people uncomfortable. But what choice did I have? I was alone navigating an escalating situation involving workplace harm, regulator failures, financial collapse, and the ongoing refusal to properly implement an Injury Management Plan that already existed.

I wrote honestly about the reality of what was happening around me.

I explained that I was alone that Easter because of family strain and the broader damage this workplace matter had caused. I explained that the hostility, mobbing, and fear of further incivility had reached a point where I could no longer cope with it psychologically.

What stands out to me now is how little I was asking for.

I was asking elected representatives to continue supporting the implementation of an existing Injury Management Plan — a legal obligation within a statutory system that was supposed to exist to protect injured workers.

That was all.

I even explained that a friend had encouraged me to see an accountant and mortgage broker because of fears there would be further delays in my university employer and insurer implementing the plan. Imagine the position that places someone in: trying to negotiate survival strategies while waiting for basic statutory obligations to be honoured.

And still, I remained grateful.

Grateful to a friend who had her own serious health conditions but still found the strength to guide and support me when institutions would not.

Grateful to members of a Catholic parish who I hoped might help me through what had become psychologically unbearable.

Grateful for any human support at all.

Reading this email now, what strikes me most is the contrast between the vulnerability in these messages and the silence that followed so many of them.

These were not vague complaints.

These were direct notices.

Clear warnings.

Repeated requests for intervention.

Repeated explanations that the situation was deteriorating and becoming dangerous to my health, financial security, and family stability.

This series is called Notice After Notice for a reason.

Not because nobody knew.

But because they did know.

And the notices kept coming anyway…

…but they allowed the non-compliance of statutory obligations to continue… they allowed the wage theft to continue too…

Source: contemporaneous record of events - Document 309.

——

I’m Dying

Not in the way people imagine when they hear those words.

Not from a terminal illness.

Not from a single catastrophic event.

But from something much slower.

Something that is happening in plain sight.

Loneliness.

Social isolation.

The gradual erosion of human connection.

Over the years I have written extensively about the workplace injury, the employer and insurer misconduct, the regulatory failures, the financial devastation, and the endless notices that were ignored. But there is another consequence that is harder to quantify and far less visible.

The isolation.

The silence.

The disappearance of people.

When I first raised concerns about psychosocial safety at work, I had colleagues, professional networks, friends, community connections, and the ordinary social interactions that come with twenty years in a workplace.

As the time passed, those connections disappeared.

Some people became frightened.

Some withdrew.

Some simply stopped responding.

Others may have been told things I will never know.

I do not know what conversations occurred behind closed doors. I do not know what narratives were created. I do not know what warnings were given.

What I do know is that the result was isolation.

The same isolation that appears repeatedly throughout these blog posts.

The unanswered messages.

The empty weekends.

The birthdays spent alone.

The holidays spent alone.

The fear of picking up the phone because there is nobody left to call.

The exhaustion of carrying trauma without the protective buffer of community.

Before continuing, I encourage readers to watch the presentation below by psychologist and loneliness researcher Julianne Holt-Lunstad. Her work helped me understand what I was experiencing. Prolonged social isolation has measurable consequences for physical health, psychological wellbeing, and even mortality.

Julianne Holt-Lunstad explains that loneliness is not merely an emotional experience. It is a health issue. A public health issue. One that increases the risk of premature death and affects physical as well as psychological wellbeing. Human beings are wired for connection. When those connections disappear, the consequences are measurable.

Holt-Lunstad found that loneliness is associated with a significantly increased risk of mortality, while strong social connections increase the likelihood of survival by approximately fifty percent. The health effects are so substantial that they have been compared to other major public health risk factors. 

See also https://socialsciences.byu.edu/loneliness-and-isolation-present-serious-mortality-risks-antidote-found-in-acts-of-kindness

When I read that research, I cried.

For years I have been trying to explain that what has happened to me was never a workplace dispute. I reported psychosocial hazards, a serious WHS issue.

The VC and senior executives of my university community, a university with a commitment to the dignity of the human person in its Identity and Mission, and a focus on community engagement, chose to retaliate with the most reprehensible WHS violations, by engaging in greater psychosocial hazards: deliberate social isolation and mobbing.

But SafeWork NSW allowed this to continue from when I first reported it to the WHS regulator in August 2020. To this day, I’m dying slowly and painfully, a little bit more each day, alone, frightened, vulnerable, waiting for SafeWork NSW and SIRA NSW to intervene and save me from this serious misconduct of employer and insurer. I have no choice but to wait for someone to save me.

I have no choice but to hope and pray that there’s some humanity left in our society to save me from this deliberate torture of social isolation being executed by those currently in governance at ACU along with Catholic Church Insurance. But it I has become urgent. 

It is not simply a workers compensation claim.

It is the destruction of social connection.

The removal of community.

The removal of belonging.

The experience of being left alone while fighting battles that no individual should ever have to fight alone.

What frightens me most is that this isolation emerged while I was desperately trying to seek help.

While I was writing notices.

While I was asking regulators to enforce laws.

While I was asking an employer and insurer to comply with statutory obligations.

While I was asking elected representatives to intervene.

While I was asking people to simply acknowledge what was happening.

And the silence grew.

The irony is that the same research offers a simple antidote.

Kindness.

Human connection.

Small acts that remind people they matter.

A phone call.

A message.

An invitation.

A conversation.

A willingness to stand beside someone who is suffering.

Research shows that even small acts of kindness can reduce loneliness and social isolation for both the person receiving support and the person offering it. 

See https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/byu-partnered-study-finds-performing-acts-of-kindness-for-neighbors-helps-fight-loneliness

A handful of people understood that.

Their kindness has carried me further than they will ever know.

But kindness should never have been required to compensate for systemic failure.

No regulator should leave a person isolated.

No employer should leave a worker isolated.

No insurer should leave an injured worker isolated.

No elected representative should leave a constituent isolated.

And yet here I am.

Years later.

Still writing.

Still documenting.

Still hoping that somewhere within these institutions there are people willing to recognise that behind every file, every complaint number, every claim, every investigation, and every notice after notice, there is a human being.

A human being whose survival depends on something as simple, and as essential, as being seen.