The “System” That Followed Me Home - June 2022

People assume a workers compensation claim is simply about work.

It isn’t.

When the system fails, it follows you everywhere.

For two years I had been trying to convince regulators, insurers and my employer to do what the legislation already required.

• Appoint a case manager.
• Implement an Injury Management Plan.
• Support a genuine return to work.
• Protect me from the very people I had reported.

Instead, I was left without the income and support the statutory scheme was created to provide.

The consequences were no longer confined to my workplace.

They had reached my home.

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In early June 2022, I was racing against time to complete settlement on the unit I lived in.

I had to liquidate an investment property to achieve settlement because of the fraud from a publicly funded university and an APRA regulated insurer (and employers / insurers withholding statutory benefits as a continuation of illegal adverse action, IS FRAUD). 

The only option I had was a security swap. 

I was going to use the proceeds of the sale of the investment property to complete a security swap with my lender.

I would complete settlement once the sale of the investment property was finalised.

This was now about survival.

Every email became another attempt to keep everything from collapsing.

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The vendor had already served a Notice to Complete requiring settlement by 13 June 2022, later extended to 14 June, with the warning that failure to complete could result in termination of the contract, forfeiture of my deposit and potentially further legal action. 

Imagine reading those words after everything else that had already happened.

Imagine carrying that fear while simultaneously trying to recover from workplace psychological injury, but instead continuing to be a victim of fraud as adverse action by a publicly funded university employer and APRA regulated insurer! 

That’s why the ripple effect of harm was happening! 

No regulator enforced compliance to stop the fraud!!!!

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The emails show me doing everything I could.

• Speaking with my lender.
• Working with my real estate agent.
• Trying to organise a security swap.
• Offering additional money.
• Seeking legal advice.
• Trying to negotiate.

Trying to reassure everyone that I would honour my commitments*

I was fighting to keep my home.

* All while ACU and CCI kept refusing to honour their commitments with me (a safe work environment, statutory compliance including implementing the agreed injury management plan and providing weekly payments, and for the VC and senior executives at ACU, refusing to honour their commitment to the dignity of the human person as stated in the ACU Mission). 

Refer to previous posts like:

• http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2025/05/catholic-church-insurance-june-2020.html
• http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2025/06/injury-management-plan-legally-binding.html
• http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2025/07/cci-cruel-con-insurance-september-2020.html
• http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2025/08/enter-unsafework-nsw-that-rtw-plan-i.html
• http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2025/09/theft-of-two-decades-of-accrued-leave.html
• http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2025/09/injury-management-and-rehabilitation.html
• http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2025/09/greater-wage-theft-and-fraud-from-pcbu.html

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It was so much financial pressure and emotional exhaustion.

One email says it plainly:

“I’m paralysed with fear.”

Another explains why.

“I’m too stressed, humiliated, traumatised and therefore, very unwell, to be able to effectively negotiate on my own.”

This was an honest description of someone whose nervous system had already been pushed beyond its limits.

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At the same time, I wrote to my workers compensation solicitor explaining why I had temporarily disappeared.

Another emergency had overtaken everything else.

I wrote:

“My priority this week is to save my home.”

I also wrote something that remains true today.

“All this was caused because of employer fraud of workers compensation benefits while harassing me under these laws, and insurer non-compliance… I’ve got greater injuries from systemic abuse, from a process that was meant to support my recovery in my job, not cause more harm.”

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These documents expose something important.

Financial harm doesn’t begin when someone reaches a level that may cost them their home.

It begins much earlier.

It begins when a statutory system fails to enforce compliance on ALL STAKEHOLDERS, to provide the income, rehabilitation and support that Parliament intended.

The stress compounds.

Savings disappear.

Assets are placed at risk.

Every delay creates another crisis.

Every unanswered email pushes someone closer to the edge.

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These weren’t isolated events. This wasn’t simply an unfortunate property transaction.

It was another consequence of years of regulatory systemic failure.

While the workers compensation and WHS systems continued to fail in their statutory obligations, I was left trying to save the roof over my head.

No one should have to fight on both fronts at once.

Yet that is exactly what these documents reveal.

And the worst part?

This wasn’t the end.

It was only the beginning of an even bigger financial collapse, caused by the serious misconduct of my publicly funded university employer, Catholic Church Insurance and total regulatory failure! 

These are the consequences of workers compensation FRAUD that SIRA NSW turned a blind eye to since 11 January 2021!!!!

To be continued…

Source: contemporaneous record of events - Documents 386-392

The System That Was Supposed to Help Me - June 2022

2–7 June 2022

By June 2022, nearly three years had passed since I reported an unsafe workplace.

Instead of recovery, I found myself explaining the same story over and over again.

On 2 June 2022, my solicitor asked what appeared to be straightforward questions arising from the Personal Injury Commission determination of 12 July 2021:

• Had I been working after that date?
• What did I understand about the agreement regarding weekly payments?
• Had my condition deteriorated?

Simple questions.

Impossible answers, because the reality could not be explained in a few sentences.

I tried, but my case was extraordinary. It did not fit inside stock standard procedural questions of this nature. 

Every answer became another attempt to explain what had happened after my workers compensation claim was lodged.

I wasn’t simply describing psychological injuries from severe employer retaliation for requesting a safe work environment anymore.

I was describing what were years of harm caused by systemic failures.

I explained that the purpose of lodging my claim in May 2020 had always been to recover and return safely to the job I loved.

Instead, I described what happened after my claim:

• the Injury Management Plan that was never implemented;
• the disappearance of my case manager;
• the absence of coordinated return-to-work support;
• repeated traumatic & adversarial “independent” medical examinations;
• years without the rehabilitation that workers compensation legislation is supposed to provide.

The further I was kept away from my work, the more I deteriorated.

I wrote that workers compensation is supposed to pay people while they recover, not years later after the damage has already been done.

That sentence summed up everything.

The injury wasn’t standing still.

Every month of delay became another injury.

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I also explained something that had become painfully obvious.

Financial pressure changes everything.

The back payment eventually agreed by the Commission did not undo what had already happened.

By then I had exhausted leave, depleted savings and was drawing on my own superannuation simply to survive.

A very small portion of back-payments arrived long after they were supposed to support recovery.

Recovery cannot be back-paid.

That’s NOT the purpose of a workers compensation statutory scheme! 

A worker is meant to be compensated at the same time as they recover and return to their work! 

Surely Catholic Church Insurance, ACU, SafeWork NSW and SIRA NSW know this!!! 

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Over those emails, I repeatedly returned to one goal.

I wanted to go back to my work.

Again and again I wrote the same words in different ways:

• I wanted the Injury Management Plan implemented.
• I wanted cooperation between the insurer, employer and my treating practitioners.
• I wanted to recover in my job.
• I wanted the employer abuse to stop.

That was all.

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On 3 June 2022, another letter arrived.

Turks Legal stepped in yet again, on behalf of Catholic Church Insurance, to arrange yet another Independent Medical Examination! 

BUT THERE HAD NEVER BEEN ANY CONTACT WITH MY OWN NOMINATED TREATING DOCTOR!

WTF! 

This would be another assessment by Olivia Lee (same person CCI coerced me to see on 31 March 2021 - we start to see which practitioners give insurers what they want, not what the truth actually is, especially for someone who will recover by RETURNING TO THEIR WORK). 

This was scheduled via telehealth for 24 June 2022. The letter warned that failure to attend could result in suspension of compensation entitlements.

Catholic Church Insurance had never paid me my legally owed compensation entitlements, at the same time as NOT co-operating to implement their own agreed injury management plan!!! 

CCI breached their own contractual obligations with me!

Re-read this post, with evidence of the legally binding injury management plan agreement - http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2025/06/injury-management-plan-legally-binding.html

But SIRA NSW and IRO funded workers compensation solicitors allow it! 

This was a desperate attempt to avoid contacting my NTD, avoid injury management obligations and return to work compliance again!

I experienced these “IME” appointments as another source of trauma, fear and justified distrust. 

Here is one example of multiple previous posts as to why - http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2025/01/a-doctor-who-commits-fraud-2019.html - and this follow-up doozy sprung onto me almost a year later - http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2025/08/proof-of-medical-fraud-october-2020.html

I had already described previous IMEs as deeply distressing.

Instead of feeling supported by the system, I was coerced to prepare for another “examination” while still waiting for the rehabilitation that should have begun years earlier.

Why did the now workers’ compensation solicitor #2, not challenge this!?

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A few days later, on 7 June 2022, I wrote another email.

It was short.

I explained that I struggled even to say the words because they were so traumatic.

I said that what happened had been severely unlawful. I also explained that I had repeatedly attempted to have the Injury Management Plan implemented while seeking protection from the conduct that had caused my greater injury. 

This was deliberate sabotage and a continuation of diabolical and aggressive adverse action.

Even then, I was still trying to explain that everything I had done was directed toward one outcome:

Recovering safely.

Returning to my work.

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What stands out most in these documents is so much exhaustion.

By June 2022 I was no longer asking people to believe me.

I was begging people to understand that workers compensation is supposed to stop injuries becoming worse.

Instead, the process itself had become one of the greatest sources of harm.

That is the tragedy I see when I read these emails.

Not simply that I was injured.

But that the system designed to help me recover had become the very thing that made me feel unsafe and that I was trying to survive.

Source: contemporaneous record of events - Documents 351-352.

Waiting for Someone Who Cared - June 2022

8 June 2022

By June 2022, I had been fighting for years to be heard. I had reported workplace harm. I had tried to engage with my employer, the insurer, regulators, lawyers and elected representatives. At every stage, I believed that if I simply kept explaining what was happening, someone would eventually step in.

Instead, I found myself waiting.

• Waiting for phone calls.
• Waiting for meetings.
• Waiting for someone to follow through on promises that had been made.

One of those “promises” was a meeting with Cherie Burton (See http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2026/06/the-day-i-almost-didnt-come-back.html). 

As the days turned into weeks, uncertainty became its own form of suffering. I didn’t know whether the meeting was still happening, whether anyone was advocating for me behind the scenes, or whether I had simply been “forgotten”.

On 8 June 2022, I sent the following message to the Kogarah Electorate Office:

“I’ve been used and abused an entire life. Was organising a meeting with Cherie Burton a false promise too? Do you remember my first email where I said what’s the truth about the government… is there someone who cares… do you?”

See http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2026/03/chris-minns-and-kogarah-electorate.html for that part of my story, when I first contacted the office of my local state MP for Kogarah, Chris Minns, on 15 October 2021. 

Those words were written in despair.

People often think trauma comes only from the original event. What they don’t always understand is that prolonged uncertainty can become traumatising in its own right. When you’re already struggling, every unanswered email, every delayed response and every broken commitment reinforces the same devastating message:

You don’t matter.

That single email captured something much bigger than a request for a meeting. It captured the gradual collapse of my faith that the systems and elected representatives I had trusted, would protect ordinary people, when they were at their most vulnerable.

This wasn’t simply about one meeting. It was about the emotional exhaustion of continually reaching out, only to be met with silence, uncertainty or betrayal. Every time hope was raised and then disappeared, it became harder to believe the next promise.

That is one of the least understood aspects of institutional harm.

The injury is not only caused by what happens.

It’s caused by what doesn’t happen.

The meetings that never occur.

The commitments that quietly fade away.

The emails that remain unanswered.

And the person left wondering whether they ever mattered at all.

This email remains part of that record.

It captures a moment when I was desperately trying to hold onto the belief that somewhere within government, someone genuinely cared enough to listen—and to act.

Source: contemporaneous record of events - Document 354.

Every Door Remained Closed - May 2022

May 17–31, 2022

People may ask why I fought so hard.

The answer is simple.

Because by May 2022, I wasn’t fighting for compensation anymore.

I was fighting to stop every part of my life collapsing at once.

What should have been one of the happiest periods of my life—buying a home to finally settle into after decades of work—had become a race against time. Every deadline, every email and every phone call carried another threat.

I had not acted irresponsibly.

The statutory system that existed to protect an injured worker had failed to do what the law required.

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Throughout May I was juggling conveyancers, mortgage specialists, real estate agents and lawyers.

• I signed legal costs agreements.
• I arranged finance.
• I negotiated extensions.

I apologised repeatedly to complete strangers for delays that were never of my making. It was SIRA NSW! 

My solicitor explained exactly what would happen if settlement failed.

• Penalty interest.
• A Notice to Complete.
• Loss of my deposit.
• Potential legal action.

The possibility that the vendor could resell the property and pursue me for any financial loss.

Every email carried another reminder that time was running out.

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The heartbreaking part is that I knew exactly why settlement had become impossible.

Not because I lacked employment.

Not because I had mismanaged money.

Not because I couldn’t service the loan.

The problem was that the insurer and employer had never complied with their obligations after my workplace injury.

The Injury Management Plan had been agreed.

It should have been implemented.

Weekly payments should have been made.

Return to work should have been coordinated.

Instead, none of it happened.

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I explained exactly that to my conveyancing solicitor.

“The delay is due to employer / insurer non-compliance with the law, and our legally binding agreement as per injury management plan… Once this happens, settlement will be immediate.”

I even asked them to apologise to the vendor on my behalf.

“Please apologise to the vendor. She’s been so understanding and this has been humiliating for me.”

Humiliation became a recurring emotion.

I hadn’t done something wrong.

But I kept finding myself apologising for consequences created by people who never accepted responsibility themselves.

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At the same time I was pleading with my workers’ compensation solicitor.

I wasn’t asking for damages.

I wasn’t asking for millions.

I was asking them to force compliance with laws that already existed.

To make the insurer honour the Injury Management Plan.

To make my employer participate in my recovery.

To help me return to work.

To stop my life from unravelling.  

⸻

By then I had exhausted almost every avenue.

• Three employment lawyers.
• A workers’ compensation solicitor (with this being the second one).
• The NTEU.
• Internal processes.
• Regulators.

Nobody had stopped what was happening.

In one email I wrote words that I’m still saying today.

“I’m alone and I’m frightened.”

I had just returned from my local federal MP’s office after delivering yet another file.

I remember crying so uncontrollably that I wrote on the outside of the envelope:

“…please save me.”

I genuinely believed there were no doors left to knock on.

I even told my solicitor:

“You and my Federal MP Linda Burney are my only hope and support I have left now.”

Those are not words someone writes unless they have already exhausted everything else.

⸻

And while all of this was happening…

Life continued to throw smaller blows that, on their own, might seem insignificant.

There were emails about an auction sign at my Melbourne investment property.

A notice alleging a breach of owners corporation rules because an auction sign had been placed on common property.

Threats to remove it.

Additional charges.

Arguments over incorrect contact details.

Reading those emails now, I don’t see an auction sign.

I see someone already drowning being told they also needed to worry about another piece of paperwork.

When your nervous system is already overwhelmed, even small administrative problems become enormous.

Everything felt like another demand.

Another deadline.

Another problem to solve completely ALONE.

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Then came the Notice to Complete.

The formal notice gave me until 13 June 2022.

After that, I stood to lose the property, my deposit, and potentially face further legal action.

Imagine carrying that knowledge while also waiting for a workers’ compensation system that should never have allowed things to reach that point.

⸻

What strikes me isn’t simply how much pressure I was under.

It’s how interconnected everything had become.

The failure to implement an Injury Management Plan wasn’t confined to occupational rehabilitation.

• It became a housing issue.
• A financial issue.
• A legal issue.
• A health issue.
• A family issue.

Every delay multiplied into another crisis.

Every institution looked only at its own small piece.

The bank looked at finance.

The conveyancer looked at settlement.

The vendor looked at the contract.

The workers’ compensation system looked at procedures.

Nobody stepped back to see that they were all connected by one central fact:

If the employer and insurer had complied with their statutory obligations in the first place, none of these cascading crises would have happened!!!

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This is one of the biggest misconceptions about workplace psychological injury.

People imagine the harm ends when someone leaves work.

It doesn’t.

It follows you into your finances.

Into your home.

Into your relationships.

Into every conversation where you have to explain why your life no longer makes sense.

By the end of May 2022, I wasn’t simply trying to buy a home.

I was trying to stop the rest of my life from being taken away as well.

And I was doing it entirely ALONE…

While the institutionalised wage theft continued…

Source: contemporaneous record of events - Documents 377-385