ACU Governance Was Told: My Family’s Trauma Was Not a Plaything - November 2022

On 28 November 2022, I wrote to ACU’s governance with a reminder that should never have been necessary:

“This is a kind reminder of your commitment to the dignity of the human person and common good.”

By then, I was describing more than three years without respite, the depletion of my leave entitlements, financial pressure and concerns about the use of deeply personal information.

I was asking governance to confront what was happening under its authority.

——

Even confidentiality had become a question

At the beginning of the email, I wrote:

“I ‘trust’ you’ll keep this email confidential.”

The quotation marks around “trust” mattered. I was sending an appeal for protection while questioning whether the information I disclosed would itself be protected.

I then made the boundary explicit:

“My privacy and my family’s grief, trauma and life adversities are not to be treated as a plaything.”

I went on to describe my concern that this information was being exploited by university executives, managers and staff in what was unlawful adverse action and discrimination.

My family’s grief was personal. Our trauma was personal. The adversities we had lived through were part of our lives, and I was asking that they be treated with dignity.

What does a university’s commitment to the dignity of the human person mean when an employee feels compelled to write those words to its governing body?

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“On behalf of the university”

In that same email, I raised allegations of employer fraud involving ACU’s employment relations leadership. I referred to the wording used in formal letters:

“on behalf of the university”

That phrase raised a fundamental question of governance responsibility. If actions were being taken on behalf of the university, what were those entrusted with governing it doing to examine those actions and stop the harm I was reporting?

I’m an ethical, law-abiding employee of twenty years. My leave entitlements had been taken in circumstances involving workers’ compensation, and raised concerns about the involvement of Catholic Church Insurance, the NTEU and others, including coercion or attempted coercion affecting me and my family.

These were serious allegations I put directly before governance. They required examination and an accountable response.

——

The snowball effect reached another deadline

I wrote:

“I’ve had no down time for over three years”

That sentence captures something that a list of correspondence cannot: the absence of a chance to recover.

By late November 2022, I was also struggling with ATO and myGov identity-verification requirements to obtain a director ID for my self-managed superannuation fund. In the email, I described the pressure of a possible $13,400 ASIC fine if I didn’t complete the process by close of business on Wednesday.

I was still trying to meet my obligations while asking who was making the institutions involved meet theirs.

This was the snowball effect of harm. The workplace issues I had raised were consuming the capacity I needed to manage the rest of my life. Financial administration became another crisis. Another deadline arrived. Another consequence threatened the security I had worked to build.

The system failed me, and now I felt threatened with punishment while struggling under the consequences of those failures.

——

Governance had a decision to make

I told governance that those appointed to comply with workplace health and safety responsibilities were causing harm themselves.

Then I ended with a direct statement:

“The decision to continue or end the gross negligence by COB 1 December, 2022, is ultimately yours.”

That was my call for action, with a date attached: 1 December 2022.

I signed the email in my role:

“Vicki (Senior Library Coordinator, Strathfield campus. HEW 8 Step 4).”

I was writing as an employee seeking protection, accountability and an end to the harm.

On 28 November, my appeal was before ACU governance.

My privacy. My family’s grief. My leave entitlements. My health. My financial security.

The people governing a university committed to human dignity had been told what I was experiencing. 

What did they do with that knowledge?

Source: contemporaneous record of events - Document 573.

——

Research that helps explain why I went to governance

Boddy and Boulter’s HRM’s Response to Workplace Bullying: Complacent, Complicit and Compounding examines workers’ perceptions of human resource management’s response to bullying.

The researchers analysed 924 comments beneath a TEDx talk about workplace bullying and corporate psychopathy. Four themes emerged: workers expected HR to address bullying, but described inaction, alignment with management, and HR involvement that worsened the harm. The authors discuss a double betrayal when the expected source of protection becomes part of the problem, and suggest enforceable standards and intervention beyond HR where necessary.

This was a qualitative study of self-selected online comments, not a representative survey. It doesn’t  establish what happened at ACU. 

For me, the connection is direct. My email of 28 November 2022 was an appeal to governance about the conduct of people entrusted with protecting employees. I was reporting that the structures I should have been able to rely on were implicated in the harm.

Even my request for confidentiality carried doubt:

“I ‘trust’ you’ll keep this email confidential.”

I wasn’t simply asking someone to resolve a disagreement. I was asking the governing body to take responsibility for what was being done “on behalf of the university”, while my health, family privacy and financial security were being damaged.

The research offers a framework for understanding that experience. My email supplies the contemporaneous record of what I told governance.

When an employee reports that the people responsible for protection are themselves causing harm, referring the employee back into those same structures cannot be treated as an adequate answer.

Reference

Boddy, C. R., & Boulter, L. (2025). ‘HRM’s response to workplace bullying: Complacent, complicit and compounding’. Journal of Business Ethics, 197, 541–555. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-024-05755-3⁠. Open access.

The Snowball Effect: Losing the Future I Had Worked to Build - November 2022

The parallel crisis I’ve described in earlier posts kept growing. While I was trying to protect my health, secure help and return and recover in my role at Australian Catholic University, the consequences were spreading through everything I had worked for, built and planned.

By November 2022, another part of my future was being lost: the investment property I had arranged to purchase outright through my self-managed superannuation fund.

No loan was intended for that purchase. This was a plan for financial security in retirement. It represented years of work, saving, planning and care for my future.

The documents record the point at which that plan became a terminated contract and a forfeited $30,000 deposit. My accompanying emails record what the formal notices couldn’t: the fear, exhaustion and compounded trauma surrounding that loss, and my continuing attempts to get someone to intervene.

——

Trying to record the damage while living through it

On 12 November 2022, I replied to the property development manager after being told that the vendor would retain my deposit. The earlier email, dated 4 November, said attempts to persuade the vendor to return it had been unsuccessful.

I thanked the people who had tried to help. I also explained why replying had taken time:

“I have to keep going with fear and compounded trauma which has slowed me down.”

I had been sending reports and evidence to media organisations, independent politicians, ICAC, the Fair Work Ombudsman, university governance and the Justice and Peace Office of the Sydney Catholic Archdiocese. I was searching for a way to stop the harm before more of my life unravelled.

At the same time, I was trying to preserve an accurate record:

“I need to keep a record and make sure everything is accounted for regarding the financial damage caused by the fraud, in a legitimate process.”

That was how I described the conduct I was reporting. I wanted my allegations investigated and the resulting losses properly accounted for. I was already having to document financial damage while carrying the injury and distress behind it.

——

An outright purchase I could no longer complete

The property contract was dated 14 July 2022, to be purchased through the corporate trustee of my superannuation fund. The agreed price was $327,500, including GST, and the deposit was $30,000.

The subsequent notices record that the selling agent notified the seller on 30 September 2022 that I was no longer in a position to proceed.

On 16 November 2022, the seller’s solicitors requested written confirmation of whether I intended to complete the purchase. My conveyancer followed up on 17 November. The property title had been issued on 16 November, with settlement due on 7 December 2022.

The property process was moving towards settlement while my parallel crisis continued.

On 21 November 2022, I replied:

“I know this information is irrelevant to you, but it’s important for me to note as I was initially set up to purchase this property outright in my SMSF.”

I immediately explained why that mattered:

“I need to ensure it’s noted for the financial loss now and rental income it would’ve generated for my superannuation fund and retirement.”

ACU Governance knew. I blind copied governance@acu.edu.au into my response to the seller’s solicitor. I explicitly recorded that I had intended to purchase the property outright through my SMSF, but could no longer proceed, forfeiting my $30,000 deposit and losing the investment intended to support my retirement.

This wasn’t damage disclosed only afterwards. I was telling Governance while it was unfolding. Yet my pleas continued, the harm compounded, and I remained without the intervention I was seeking. That’s part of the trauma: knowing I had made the suffering visible to those responsible for university governance, and continuing to suffer nonetheless.

The $30,000 deposit was the immediate, identifiable loss. Beyond it was the rental income the property was intended to generate and the retirement security I had planned around it.

Those future benefits cannot simply be assigned a figure from these documents. But their place in my investment strategy was real, and I recorded it at the time.

——

“No choice” becomes a formal notice

In that same email, I attributed my inability to proceed to the employer and insurer conduct and failures of the NSW government system that I had been reporting. I wrote that I couldn’t complete the purchase and had:

“no choice but to also forfeit the $30,000 deposit.”

This matters to me. My email described the circumstances that had left me unable to proceed. The contractual paperwork recorded my confirmation that the purchase wouldn’t go ahead.

On 22 November 2022, the seller’s solicitors emailed the formal termination notice. It stated:

“the Contract is terminated immediately”

and:

“the Deposit paid by the Buyer is forfeited to the Seller”.

In a few lines, another part of the future I had worked towards was brought to an end.

The loss had progressed from a warning, to my distressed confirmation that I couldn’t proceed, to formal termination and instructions for release of the money.

——

The people I was still asking to listen

Later that afternoon on 21 November, I separately forwarded my response to SIRA’s advisory address.

I wanted those receiving my reports to understand that the financial consequences were happening now.

I also forwarded the correspondence to ICAC, the Kogarah electorate office and the Black Dog Institute who were apparently collaborating with SIRA NSW. In that email, I described the depletion of leave accumulated through twenty years of service at ACU, the intimidation I had reported, and the strain of continuing to seek help:

“I’ve had no break and I’m about to break.”

I described an earlier occasion outside the Kogarah electorate office when I had been frightened about losing my home. I contrasted that experience with public statements about listening to people and their right to work safely.

I was communicating severe distress alongside a concrete financial loss. I was asking people in positions of responsibility to see the connection and act.

See also:

The Social Media Post I Saw on 29 April 2022

The Day I Almost Didn’t Come Back – Kogarah Electorate Office - May 2022

——

Even opening emails required courage

That afternoon, I wrote to the property professionals and the person assisting with my superannuation compliance:

“I’ve plucked up the courage to start viewing my emails.”

That sentence shows how deeply the fear had entered ordinary tasks. Opening correspondence, answering questions and managing a transaction now required courage while I was already exhausted.

I wrote:

“I’m utterly exhausted, degraded as a human being and humiliated.”

Yet I was still trying to look ahead. I told them that the time would come when I would be ready to purchase another property outright through my SMSF. I said I would keep the person assisting with compliance informed.

I was trying to preserve whatever could still be preserved: professional relationships, compliance, future plans and the possibility of rebuilding.

The finance professional I updated replied that evening:

“I truly hope your pursuit for justice is realised.”

There were people who responded with kindness and patience. I thanked them. Their support mattered while the intervention I was seeking remained unresolved.

——

This is the snowball effect

These documents show how harm spreads through a life.

The workplace and workers’ compensation crisis I was reporting affected my health and financial stability. The resulting strain reached my superannuation strategy. An intended outright property purchase became impossible to complete. The deposit was forfeited. The planned rental income and retirement investment were lost with the purchase. Every additional consequence created more correspondence, more deadlines and more distress for me to manage.

My health crisis and financial crisis were running in parallel, each making the other harder to survive.

Meanwhile, I continued explaining, reporting, thanking people, apologising for delays and trying to ensure that the damage was recorded. The work of seeking accountability became another burden on the person already carrying the harm.

The $30,000 belongs in the financial record. So does the failed purchase. But the human record must also include what those losses represented: years of effort and a carefully planned future, slipping away while I was still asking for help.

I was trying to return and recover in my role. I was also trying to save everything I had worked to build. By November 2022, the snowball was still growing.

Source: contemporaneous record of events - Documents 605-609.

“Because You’re Paying Cash”: The Retirement Plan I Watched Unravel - November 2022

There’s a voicemail in my records that captures the financial future I had carefully prepared for.

The settlement agent tells me that the titles for the investment property in my self-managed superannuation fund had been issued. The settlement date they were aiming for is 7 December 2022. I’d already signed the documents.

Then she says:

“And because you’re paying cash, I will get you a statement as soon as I can get one available.”

——

Because you’re paying cash.

I was meant to purchase that property outright through my superannuation fund. No loan. No mortgage on that investment. I had worked, saved and organised my investment strategy to make this possible.

My finances had been healthy. I had built a future in which this property would contribute to my retirement security.

The voicemail records the practical arrangements: the documents were signed, a settlement statement would follow, and I would be told how much to transfer into the settlement agent’s trust account.

This record preserves something important: the original arrangement was an outright cash purchase.

By 4 November 2022, I had written confirmation that my $30,000 deposit would go to the vendor.

The correspondence between those two points shows the snowball effect I had been desperately trying to stop.

——

1 November 2022: at the post office, still trying to get help

On 1 November 2022, my finance broker warned that time was running out:

“Right now, I am just so mindful we are running out of time for your settlement and I am yet to get any confirmation of the SMSF details.”

She was trying to obtain the information needed to progress matters. I was trying to get someone with authority to intervene before another financial loss became unavoidable.

I replied:

“At the post office. I’m just posting the urgent request to the Fair Work Ombudsman express post.”

Then:

“I’m then going to the federal MP office to escalate. If I’m made to lose that $30,000 that’s going to have to be compensated for too.”

This was a warning before the loss was confirmed.

I was telling people what was about to happen, what I was doing to prevent it, and how little capacity I had left:

“I can’t push myself anymore when no one did a thing to stop the crime and work-related abuse. And they were meant to.”

The same document includes my email of 31 October 2022, explaining that the trauma had affected even my ability to open correspondence.

Email accounts I had established for return-to-work communication and SMSF administration had become associated with distressing communications. I asked my advisers to forward emails to an address I could manage to use.

That’s another consequence of prolonged psychological injury and systemic abuse: ordinary administration becomes frightening, while financial deadlines continue regardless.

I was still trying to act. Still posting letters. Still going to an electorate office. Still explaining the urgency.

——

2 November 2022: I explained how my retirement savings were being consumed

On 2 November 2022, I wrote to SafeWork NSW and SIRA NSW seeking help again. I asked  again for an investigation into the employer and insurer conduct I had reported.

I’ve repeatedly asked for support to return and recover in my role. I should not have been burdened, for years, to force a statutory scheme to operate as intended.

I described the impending loss:

“On Friday, I lose another $30,000 in my hard earned superannuation…”

And I explained exactly what that deposit represented:

“It was a deposit for an investment property I was set up to own outright at settlement in my superannuation.”

That sentence and the settlement agent’s voicemail tell the same story.

This was a planned outright purchase. The later search for finance arose after my financial circumstances had been severely damaged.

In that same correspondence, I wrote:

“Thanks to you, I had to take $300,000 of my superannuation to save my home now.”

I explained the chain of consequences: the absence of weekly compensation payments and employer / insurer injury management and return to work obligations, the depletion of my leave entitlements, the sale of my Melbourne investment property, the financing arrangements needed to preserve my home, and the use of retirement savings.

Each consequence reduced the resources available to absorb the next.

Eventually, the property I had planned to own outright became a purchase I was trying to rescue through finance. I wrote that I couldn’t obtain the loan needed to proceed.

——

The appearance of a finance broker in these records does not change the original plan. It shows how far circumstances had moved from it.

I also reminded the recipients that I had reported the alleged employer and insurer fraud to SIRA on 11 January 2021:

“Imagine if you had actually enforced compliance how my finances and most importantly, my health and well-being would’ve been.”

That was the question I kept asking. What could have been prevented if my reports had led to effective intervention?

——

I was asking for the cause of the harm to be addressed

My 2 November 2022 correspondence was explicit about what I needed:

“Start listening to what I need to recover and be well.”

I asked for financial harm to stop (that’s SIRA NSW), for workplace mobbing to stop (that’s SafeWork NSW), and for the support of the university community I had been part of for twenty years.

I also wrote:

“Symptoms of psychological injuries cannot be treated separately from the cause.”

The financial emergency and psychological injury were intertwined. So was the systemic harm and regulatory failure causing it.

While I was trying to preserve my home and retirement savings, I was also frightened of further correspondence, struggling with isolation, and repeatedly explaining why the underlying workplace and claim issues needed action.

I described CCI’s failure to identify a replacement case manager despite my repeated enquiries, and my requests for communication, cooperation and collaboration.

The arrangements meant to support recovery and a safe return to work had failed to provide that support.

The financial damage kept growing while I kept asking for help.

——

3 November 2022: the advisers were still gathering documents

On 3 November 2022, the correspondence shows my advisers urgently obtaining the SMSF’s FY2022 portfolio valuation and transaction report.

These emails matter because they show practical work continuing while the deadline approached. Financial records were being requested and supplied. People were trying to progress the arrangements.

But those records couldn’t undo the losses and disruption I had already described.

That evening, my email carried the subject:

“I have to forfeit the deposit.”

I wrote:

“Therefore, can I get something in writing regarding having to forfeit $30,000 deposit. I need this loss to be included in my compensation records.”

I was now asking for documentation of the loss I had been trying to prevent.

I explained that the financial damage was a ripple effect of the employer and insurer conduct I had reported, and that this context needed to be understood in relation to my superannuation.

I also wrote:

“But I feel so humiliated and degraded.”

This was another piece of my security disappearing while I was already struggling to function.

——

4 November 2022: the loss was confirmed

In the early hours of 4 November 2022, the development manager replied that he would work on the written confirmation. He also said there was no need to call immediately if I was under stress.

The separate confirmation dated 4 November 2022 stated:

“As you are unable to proceed with the property that you have contracted on behalf of your SMSF, unfortunately your deposit of $30,000 will go to the vendor.”

He explained that they had tried to persuade the vendor to return it, but that the vendor was a liquidator acting on behalf of the finance company owner and wouldn’t agree.

He added:

“Hopefully in time you will be able to recover this loss from the employer or related party that has caused you these challenges.”

That hope didn’t restore the deposit. It didn’t restore the property purchase or the future income it was intended to provide.

It left me with another documented loss.

——

Who was supposed to stop the snowball?

These six records preserve the original cash-purchase arrangement, my warnings, my appeals for intervention, the urgent financial administration, my request to record the forfeiture, and the written confirmation.

They also preserve how distressed I was while trying to prevent it.

I had planned carefully. I had worked for decades. I had put an investment strategy in place that would allow my superannuation fund to own this property outright.

Then I was using retirement savings to protect my present security, while losing another part of the future I had built.

What did my warnings require from those receiving them?

Who acted to address the underlying harm?

Who takes responsibility when an injured worker repeatedly identifies an approaching financial loss, asks for intervention, and then has to document that loss when it happens?

——

The settlement agent’s words remain in my records: “because you’re paying cash.”

So does the later confirmation: “your deposit of $30,000 will go to the vendor.”

Between those statements is a story of financial security being eroded while I kept asking for help.

I want that damage recognised. I want accountability for the conduct I reported and the failures to address it. And I continue to seek the support and safeguards necessary to return and recover in my role.

Source: contemporaneous record of events - Documents 599-604.