24 March 2022
By late March 2022, something had changed.
In the beginning, I had still believed people would listen if I explained things clearly enough. I believed that if those in positions of authority understood the seriousness of what was happening, there would be intervention, humanity, and accountability.
At first, the responses coming from the Kogarah electorate office had seemed respectful and even hopeful. There was at least the impression that someone was listening.
But by 24 March 2022, that feeling had almost disappeared.
The silence had become heavier.
The avoidance more obvious.
And the consequences in my life were becoming critical.
That morning, I emailed Cheryl Han from the Kogarah electorate office again.
I was no longer casually requesting assistance from my elected representative, Chris Minns.
I was asking for an urgent meeting because my situation was deteriorating and I did not know how much longer I could hold everything together on my own.
I wrote:
“My request for a meeting with Chris is urgent. Please put me on the calendar for the closest availability and let me know the timeslot.”
By that stage, I had already spent years trying to navigate processes properly.
I had reported concerns.
I had attempted internal resolution.
I had engaged regulators.
I had continued trying to communicate respectfully, despite the escalating harm.
But instead of resolution, I experienced delay, exclusion, silence and procedural avoidance, especially from SafeWork NSW and SIRA NSW.
The final sentence in that short email captured where I had emotionally arrived:
“It’s human cruelty.”
There comes a point where prolonged neglect stops feeling “administrative” and starts feeling deeply inhuman.
The same day, I also wrote to Professor Hayden Ramsay, who at the time was Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Ethics) at the University.
I told him plainly that the “ongoing neglect and exclusion” was causing me to “fall into depression.”
I described what was happening as:
“psychological, emotional and financial abuse.”
And that was the reality.
By then, this was no longer simply a dispute about workplace processes or workers compensation administration.
The harm had spread into every part of my life.
I was trying to secure housing.
Trying to survive financially.
Trying to preserve my dignity.
Trying to stop the complete collapse of my future while still being excluded from meaningful engagement about my own employment and wellbeing.
I also referenced the university’s public messaging about ethics, safety, care, integrity and community.
At the same time privately, I was begging people to intervene while my health deteriorated and my life became increasingly unstable.
The distress was already visible. There were no hidden warning signs.
These were direct written pleas for intervention, engagement and humanity.
I was telling senior people — repeatedly — that the situation had become unbearable.
And still, the notices continued.
Notice after notice.
Email after email.
Without meaningful action.
And the institutionalised wage theft continued…
Source: contemporaneous record of events - Document 297
——
There was something else weighing on me as I wrote these emails.
Earlier that year, I had gone to the Kogarah electorate office seeking help. By then, this was no longer simply a workplace matter. It was an urgent issue involving SafeWork NSW, SIRA NSW, regulatory failure, and the devastating consequences that failure was having on my life.
I was told that Cheryl Han was not there because she was on carer’s leave caring for her mother.
She had every right to be.
And yet hearing that stirred something in me that I could not ignore.
It brought me back to 2019, when I first raised concerns about psychosocial hazards in my workplace.
Back to when the Library Associate Director, took carer’s leave to care for her father.
I never begrudged the library associate director that leave. I never begrudged Cheryl hers.
Family matters.
Parents matter.
People should be able to care for those they love.
The problem was that I could not reconcile the contrast between the compassion and protection afforded to others and what happened to me.
When I reported workplace harm and asked for a safe work environment, the issue was not resolved locally. Instead, I was handed over to Human Resources without consultation. The concerns I raised were never treated as the serious work health and safety matter they were.
What followed was not support.
What followed was escalation.
The bullying and harassment I had reported did not stop.
The discrimination became worse.
The exclusion became worse.
The retaliation became worse.
And eventually, even my family’s privacy was dragged into it.
That remains one of the most disturbing aspects of this entire story.
My family had nothing to do with the workplace issue I had raised.
They had nothing to do with my request for a safe work environment.
Yet private family matters became known, discussed and ultimately weaponised in a process that should never have involved them at all.
It was not enough that I was already dealing with the consequences of reporting workplace harm.
It was not enough that I was already experiencing discrimination, harassment and the loss of my health.
My family’s privacy was violated as well.
That is why they made a formal complaint to the University.
Their own privacy had been breached in circumstances that should never have occurred.
——
By March 2022, these events no longer existed as separate memories. They had become part of a single pattern, where the rights, dignity and wellbeing of some people appeared worthy of protection, while mine could be disregarded.
A pattern where people who participated in, enabled, defended or remained silent about what had happened continued to enjoy the protection of their workplace rights and entitlements.
Meanwhile, I was fighting for the most basic things.
My health.
My livelihood.
My dignity.
My future.
My life.
The right to care for my own family without it being used against me.
The right to have my privacy respected.
The right to have my family’s privacy respected.
The right to ask for a safe work environment without triggering years of retaliation and harm.
That was what sat behind every email I wrote in 2022.
That was what sat behind every request to meet with my elected representative.
I was asking for somebody, anybody, with the authority to intervene, to finally acknowledge what had happened and bring it to an end.
Instead, I found myself writing another email.
Another notice.
Another plea.
Trying to explain a level of suffering that should never have followed a request for a safe work environment.
And increasingly, it felt as though the people who could stop it had simply decided not to.
