20 January 2023 — CCI’s statements to IRO, complaints closed without the scrutiny I sought, and a statutory scheme made a mockery of while I was left carrying the trauma.
On 20 January 2023, I was asking for intervention, protection and a way to recover in my job.
Catholic Church Insurance was telling me my claim had been transferred to a “fast track team for closure.”
I’m alleging more than bad faith. CCI gave false statements to IRO, and that those statements were passed on as answers while the substance of my complaints remained unresolved.
In my preceding post, “‘Always Unfit’? Prove It, Catholic Church Insurance,” I examined CCI’s statement, preserved in IRO correspondence:
“Ms Bourbous has always been unfit.”
My treating doctor’s statement, signed on 10 January 2023, recorded:
“always been able to perform suitable duties — workplace not facilitating this”
On return-to-work planning or rehabilitation, my doctor wrote:
“awaiting this from CCI”
Those accounts needed to be examined together. An insurer’s statement wasn’t a substitute for an investigation.
I regard CCI’s account as false and deeply damaging. Establishing precisely what it meant, what evidence supported it, and whether anyone knowingly supplied false or misleading information requires independent scrutiny of the full record. That’s the investigation I have been demanding.
This isn’t something I experienced as an innocent administrative oversight. It was deliberate conduct: explanations given to public officials, complaints closed, and recovery arrangements left unimplemented despite my repeated requests.
Read those words beside the distress recorded in my correspondence. Read them beside my repeated requests for the Injury Management Plan to be implemented. Then ask what kind of protection this statutory scheme was providing to the person it was supposed to help.
What has traumatised me most goes beyond the conduct I have alleged, including fraud. It’s the experience of being harmed, explaining that harm, and encountering people who continued as though my safety was someone else’s responsibility.
The abandonment. The excuses. The letters. The willingness to pass responsibility elsewhere while a human being is left carrying the consequences.
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Why I insisted on written answers
As the preceding post records, on 18 October 2021 I expressly demanded answers in writing. IRO nevertheless invited a telephone call.
I needed the insurer’s actual words preserved. I needed to be able to examine them, compare them with my records. I couldn’t safely rely on an official’s verbal account of what the insurer had said.
Without written answers, I risked being left trying to reconstruct and challenge a conversation while already carrying enormous distress. Insisting on writing was a safeguard for my participation and procedural fairness.
The written record now allows CCI’s statements to be tested. That’s exactly why I insisted on it.
IRO’s later response said:
“IRO notes the complaint that the insurer did not answer the above questions has now been resolved by the insurer addressing these matters.”
It then said it would close the complaint.
But supplying an answer doesn’t establish its truth. What did IRO verify? What did it compare with the treating evidence? What opportunity did I have to challenge the substance before the complaint was treated as resolved?
These questions also concern the regulators and oversight bodies to which I kept turning. What did SIRA do to scrutinise the insurer’s explanations and the evidence I supplied? Why did I remain the person carrying the investigation, the unanswered questions and the trauma?
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My work and my evidence cannot be left out
I have served ACU since 2001. I’m a qualified information manager and academic and research librarian. My work, professional achievements and qualifications form part of the history that can’t simply be swept aside by an unexplained “always.”
I’m also using those professional skills now: organising records, checking dates, comparing accounts and reconstructing what happened.
That work doesn’t establish unrestricted capacity for every duty at every point. It does require an honest, precise examination of my skills, capacity for suitable duties, treating recommendations and the safeguards needed to recover in my job.
Which period did CCI mean? Which duties? Under what conditions? Where’s the evidence?
A genuinely independent investigation must examine whether CCI’s statements were false or misleading, what those making them knew, who authorised them, and how officials relied upon them. It must include my evidence and give me a meaningful opportunity to respond.
It must scrutinise the employer’s, insurer’s and legal representatives’ “accounts” alongside the records, rather than allow their “narrative” to displace my participation.
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Three reasonable questions
On 28 December 2022, I wrote to CCI asking for written confirmation of three things:
“Is Sandy … a case manager the way Jessica … was?”
“Has Sandy … been briefed on what has happened so she understands why CCI has become a trigger of compounded trauma for me?”
“Is CCI finally going to cooperate to implement the injury management plan agreement attached?”
These were practical questions. Who was managing my claim? Did that person understand the harm already caused? Would CCI cooperate with the plan intended to support my recovery and return to work?
I was still trying to obtain cooperation. Still trying to make the system work. Still asking to recover in my job of two decades.
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The answer: closure
On 20 January 2023, CCI’s Tail Senior Claims Specialist replied. That’s who this “Sandy” was. That was the title on the email; it didn’t resolve my question about who was responsible for implementing my Injury Management Plan.
She “apologised” for not responding sooner, saying she had been on leave. She then wrote:
“CCI apologise for any distress that communications might have caused you.”
Any distress? Don’t mock me.
My earlier email had explicitly identified compounded trauma. My questions were about case management and implementing an Injury Management Plan. Describing the problem as “distress” that communications “might” have caused didn’t answer those questions or address what I was asking CCI to do. The corrupt conduct and dodging tactics have been reprehensible.
The email continued:
“The claim was transferred across to me to manage, but has since been transferred to our fast track team for closure.”
CCI said the claim had been disputed in August 2022, that it hadn’t received an appeal, and that the claim was therefore ready for closure. It said the claim would be reopened if an appeal was received.
That was CCI’s stated position after causing me severe trauma and undermining a statutory scheme right in front of the regulators. While I repeatedly raised matters that needed to be resolved, CCI kept gaming the system legal loopholes.
Who authorised this? Is it the same individual who’s been directing and authorising this corrupt conduct all along? And why? Of what benefit was it for CCI or for this person or persons?
I had asked who would help implement a recovery plan. I was told who would close the file.
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“Outdated”: what happened to the plan?
CCI acknowledged that the specialist had been briefed and understood that communication was to occur by email, without telephone contact.
It then addressed the Injury Management Plan dated 25 June 2020:
“The Injury Management Plan you provided is dated 25/06/2020, which is outdated.”
The email went on to say that because the claim was disputed and had been transferred for closure, an Injury Management Plan was not required. INCORRECT. One issue had NOTHING to do with the other.
AGAIN! DON’T INSULT MY INTELLIGENCE AND MOCK ME CATHOLIC CHURCH INSURANCE!
What happened between the issuing of that plan and the decision to dismiss it as “outdated”?
Where was the account of its implementation? Where was the explanation of the cooperation I had been seeking? Where was the response that I had been left without the support needed to recover safely in my work?
The email didn’t provide that account.
Sections 45 and 46 of the Workplace Injury Management and Workers Compensation Act 1998 (NSW) set out the insurer’s and employer’s duties concerning an individual injury management plan. Section 45 requires the insurer to give effect to an established plan and comply with its obligations under it. Section 46 requires the employer to participate and cooperate in establishing the plan and comply with its obligations under it. SIRA’s Standard of Practice 12 — Injury Management Plans also sets out expectations for consultation, planning and review.
To me, this made a mockery of the scheme.
A plan I had been trying to have implemented was now being dismissed because of its age, after I and my treating professionals tolerated years of dodgy tactics from CCI, while the reasons it had remained unimplemented were left unanswered.
Was the plan allowed to grow old while I was asking for help, only for its age to become another reason to withhold that help?
Here are all the posts in my story involving Catholic Church Insurance. Read the truth. The posts are ordered from newest to oldest. Go right back to May 2020.
See My story involving questionable corporate conduct by Catholic Church Insurance
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The explanations changed. Who checked the facts?
First came the account that I had “always been unfit.” Then, in January 2023, the plan I had repeatedly asked CCI to implement was described as “outdated.” In the same correspondence, delays in replying were explained by leave, while the claim itself was being moved towards closure.
The change of calendar year didn’t explain what had happened to my recovery arrangements. An individual being on leave didn’t answer who was responsible for continuity of claim management.
Where was the operational evidence of the work actually being done?
I was kept away from my work, isolated from colleagues and required to exhaust my leave while the conditions preventing my safe return remained unresolved. The National Manager of Employment Relations and Safety—the person whose conduct I had identified as central to my claim—continued to badger and harass me.
That’s why I sought help from SafeWork. I remember selecting the SafeWork option when calling the department then responsible for customer service: the workplace conduct was continuing, including through the workers’ compensation process. I needed somebody to intervene.
Keeping someone away from work isn’t proof that they can’t perform suitable duties. Depleting their leave isn’t an assessment of their capacity.
My concern is that the consequences of the employer’s conduct were then used to reinforce the insurer’s account of me. That possible progression—from exclusion, to depleted leave, to an incapacity narrative—requires genuine investigation through the actual records.
Who authorised the ongoing contact? In what capacity was the manager acting? What instructions did ACU give? Who checked whether the workplace protections and recovery arrangements described on paper were operating in practice?
I also want the isolation examined: what colleagues and union representatives were told, whether anyone was discouraged from supporting me, and whether pressure or intimidation occurred. I can’t establish what was said privately. That’s why an investigator must obtain the evidence rather than leave me to speculate about closed conversations.
My complaint is that SafeWork accepted the employer’s account without the independent verification I needed, and that SIRA subsequently relied on SafeWork’s position rather than resolving the underlying questions. IRO’s handling of CCI’s answers added another layer of closure while those questions remained.
Public accountability must follow that chain of reliance.
The ministers responsible for these agencies also need to answer what happened after they were alerted. What assurances did they receive? What scrutiny supported those assurances? Who ensured that a response about my safety reflected conditions in practice?
A departmental response can’t settle those questions merely by repeating the position of the agency whose handling I was challenging.
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SIRA: where was the enforcement?
My accompanying account records how urgently I was calling for regulatory intervention:
“SIRA NSW STILL HASN’T ENFORCED COMPLIANCE AND PROSECUTED THE OFFENDERS FOR COMMITTING EMPLOYER AND INSURER FRAUD!!!”
That was my demand for action on the serious misconduct I was alleging.
The documents record a worker repeatedly seeking protection, alleging serious employer and insurer misconduct, and saying that the regulator had still not enforced compliance.
That’s the failure I was trying to expose.
What had SIRA done with my warnings? What had it examined? What explanation had it required from CCI about the Injury Management Plan and my repeated requests for cooperation?
Where was the intervention that would stop me being left alone between an employer and an insurer and their serious conduct?
SIRA’s continued failure to secure compliance amounted to a refusal to provide the protection I had been begging for. I needed meaningful action and an accountable explanation. I was still waiting.
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“Shut down in a big way”
There was another devastating incident documented: discovering that a colleague had blocked me on LinkedIn.
I wrote that I contacted her through her personal email and that she told me she had tried to raise the work health and safety and duty-of-care issue, but had been:
“shut down in a big way.”
I wanted to know who had shut her down and why.
I also recorded that I deleted the personal emails because I was so distressed and frightened. The colleague’s response is therefore presented here as my contemporaneous account of what she told me.
But the question remains unbearable: if someone tried to raise a concern about my safety and was shut down, what happened, and who was responsible?
I had already asked colleagues for help. I had begged. The silence wasn’t an abstract workplace issue. It was isolation at the very moment I needed human connection and protection.
In the document, I wrote:
“All I asked for was a safe work environment.”
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“Everybody needs you, Vicki”
I keep returning to something the campus minister said to me while I was burning out:
“Everybody needs you, Vicki.”
She didn’t know how much I was carrying. I was keeping it quiet. I was trying to be reasonable with my manager because I feared that if I spoke openly, I would be targeted.
Everybody needed me.
But when I needed protection, where was everybody?
I had cared for people. Supported people. Tried to protect my team and my family. Tried to uphold the very dignity and care the university said it stood for.
Then I found myself pleading with institutions and individuals to stop the harm.
In my January 2023 account, I described seeking help from SIRA, NSW Police, SafeWork NSW, university governance, Fair Work, lawyers, the NTEU, CCI, the Justice and Peace Office, ministers and elected representatives.
That’s what “reach out” looked like in my life.
I reached out again and again.
What is the value of all the public language about supporting one another if a person can do exactly that and still be abandoned?
Read When “Reach Out” Is Not Enough - August 2022
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The trauma of ordinary participation
One of the deepest injuries has been encountering people who could see my distress and still carry on with actions that added to it.
A person writes the letter. Another repeats the institutional position. Another passes the complaint elsewhere. Another remains silent. Another treats a desperate request for protection as something to be processed and closed.
Each individual action may look small from behind a desk. The person receiving them experiences the cumulative harm.
Being lower in an organisation doesn’t erase responsibility for what someone actually does. “I was instructed to do it” doesn’t answer the moral question. Neither does “somebody else made the decision.”
Responsibility differs according to a person’s authority, knowledge and actions. But a lower pay grade doesn’t make the consequences disappear.
I want those actions examined. Who knew what? Who carried out which instruction? Who had an opportunity to question it? Who was warned about the harm and continued anyway?
The fear was that of being targeted by people with far more power than me: institutions closing ranks, isolation deepening, and protection remaining out of reach.
I need the conduct examined and the people responsible identified. I shouldn’t have had to establish every connection myself before anyone would take my safety seriously.
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The crime of abandonment
I call it the crime of abandonment.
Not a separate offence I’m asking a court to recognise, but a moral wrong whose consequences I’ve had to live with.
There’s something profoundly unconscionable about leaving a person exposed to continuing harm after they’ve repeatedly explained what’s happening and asked for help.
The financial consequences were also deeply personal. I’ve described almost losing my home and the start my parents had given me to buy property. That threatened something built from their care and sacrifices as well as my own work.
This was my life. My family’s work. My health. My home. My ability to recover.
Yet I was still having to explain why closure wasn’t a solution.
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I asked to reopen it
The email chain also records what happened next.
On 22 January 2023, I replied:
“I want to have it reopened.”
I explained:
“There was no compliance on the part of CCI regarding worker’s compensation benefits to cooperate with me to recover in my work.”
I copied SIRA, IRO, SafeWork NSW and the Kogarah electorate office.
I was making my objection explicit and asking how to proceed.
On 31 January 2023, the Tail Senior Claims Specialist replied that she had returned from annual leave and asked:
“can you please advise what you would like to appeal.”
I had already said I wanted the claim reopened. I had already identified the failure to cooperate with my recovery. I had already asked for the process.
The reproduced reply didn’t explain that process. It returned another question to me.
It was all very manipulative.
That’s part of what makes this so exhausting: repeatedly stating the problem, repeatedly asking for action, and repeatedly being required to explain yourself again.
It’s institutional gaslighting.
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Closure for whom?
In my January appeal for intervention, I wrote:
“I need the injury management plan to finally be implemented to recover in my job of two decades.”
That was my objective.
A safe workplace. Cooperation. Recovery in my job. Human contact. An end to the harm.
CCI’s phrase was “fast track team for closure.”
But whose closure?
The insurer could move a file towards closure while it undermined a statutory scheme and had unfulfilled legal obligations. I still had to live with everything that remained unresolved.
Every person who contributed to that outcome should have to answer for their own part in it.
A letter doesn’t wipe away responsibility. An instruction doesn’t wipe away responsibility. An institutional title doesn’t wipe away responsibility.
I was asking for the harm to stop. Who took responsibility for stopping it?
Source: contemporaneous record of events - Documents 626-627.
I am frightened and writing my story publicly for my safety, after exhausting the avenues reasonably available to obtain protection. I want the harm to stop so I can recover safely in my job.
