In 2018, the NSW Government launched the NSW Mentally Healthy Workplaces Strategy 2018–2022.
It was described as the largest commitment by any Australian government to workplace mental health.
The vision was clear:
NSW employers and workers take effective action to create mentally healthy workplaces.
The Strategy acknowledged something important and true:
• One third of adult life is spent at work.
• Work can either prevent mental ill-health — or cause and exacerbate it.
• Employers have legal obligations to ensure work does not cause psychological harm, so far as reasonably practicable.
• Prevention must sit alongside recovery.
• Regulatory services must be prevention-focused.
It was funded with $55 million.
It set a target: by 2022, more than 90,000 NSW businesses would be taking effective action.
It outlined four streams of work:
1. Awareness raising
2. Evidence-informed interventions
3. Research
4. Building employer capability
It committed to inspector training, recovery-at-work programs, evidence-based tools, benchmarking, and collaboration between SafeWork NSW, SIRA and icare.
The language is thoughtful.
The framework is sound.
The intent is commendable.
But strategies are only as meaningful as their implementation.
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The Baseline the Strategy Itself Revealed
Before launching the Strategy, SafeWork NSW benchmarked 2,000 workplaces.
Only 8.8% were found to have an “integrated and sustained” approach to workplace mental health.
That statistic is not minor.
It means more than 90% of workplaces were not operating at best practice levels.
If that is the baseline, then regulatory leadership is not symbolic — it is essential.
Because awareness without enforcement does not change behaviour.
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The Legal Framework Already Exists
It is important to be clear: the obligation to prevent psychosocial harm does not originate in a strategy document.
It arises from statute.
Under the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (NSW), a person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU) must ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of workers. That duty includes psychological health. It includes identifying and managing psychosocial hazards. It includes designing work so that risks are eliminated or minimised.
Officers have due diligence obligations to ensure those duties are met.
Workers have the right to raise safety concerns.
Regulators are empowered to enforce compliance.
The Strategy reflects these legal duties. It does not create them.
So when psychosocial risks are reported and documented, the expectation under the law is not passive acknowledgment. It is reasonably practicable action.
The integrity of the system depends on that action occurring consistently and transparently.
This is not about assigning personal fault.
It is about alignment between:
• Legislative duty
• Public strategy
• Regulatory practice
• Workplace reality
When those elements align, workers are protected.
When they diverge, the consequences are real.
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Where the Tension Lies
The Strategy states that:
• Employers must proactively identify and manage psychosocial risks.
• Managers must eliminate or minimise risks to mental health.
• Recovery at work must be supported.
• Regulatory services must be prevention-focused.
• Mental health is everyone’s responsibility.
Those statements are strong.
So the question becomes unavoidable:
What happens when a worker:
reports psychosocial hazards,
provides documentation,
identifies ongoing harm,
and enforcement does not follow?
What happens when recovery is destabilised by prolonged compensation delays?
What happens when the lived experience of a worker during the Strategy years is the opposite of what the Strategy promises?
At that point, the issue is no longer awareness.
It is accountability.
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Prevention Is Not a Website
The Strategy includes media campaigns, benchmarking tools, online resources and collaboration programs.
Those initiatives are useful.
But prevention-focused regulation is not a communications exercise.
It requires:
• Timely investigation
• Appropriate use of statutory powers
• Clear findings
• Protection against retaliation
• Stabilisation of recovery
• Transparent reasoning
Without those elements, prevention becomes rhetorical.
And when rhetoric replaces enforcement, injured workers carry risks the system was designed to manage.
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Recovery at Work Must Be Real
The Strategy speaks of “Recovery at Work” programs and support through the claims process.
Recovery requires stability.
Stability requires:
• Timely statutory entitlements
• Protection from continued psychosocial exposure
• Clear regulatory boundaries
• Good faith implementation of injury management
When recovery becomes prolonged, adversarial, or financially destabilising, the system itself becomes a stressor.
That is not consistent with the Strategy’s vision of mentally healthy workplaces where workers feel safe, valued and connected.
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My Experience During the Strategy Years
My workplace injury, regulatory complaints and compensation dispute unfolded during the very years this Strategy was active.
During the period when commitments were made to:
• Prevention-focused regulatory services
• Building employer capability
• Evidence-informed intervention
• Recovery at work
My lived experience involved:
• Escalating psychosocial risk
• Prolonged financial distress during compensation delays
• Regulatory inaction despite documented hazards
• A recovery process that became destabilising rather than protective
The Strategy describes a mentally healthy workplace as one where:
• Work is designed to be safe
• Workers feel valued and connected
• Systems are integrated and embedded
• Continuous improvement is visible
That language matters.
Because when those elements are absent, the gap between policy and practice is not abstract.
It is experienced — physically, psychologically, financially and relationally.
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When the WHS Regulator Narrows Its Role
On 5 February 2021 (transmitted to me on 9 March 2021), I received a formal response from SafeWork NSW regarding my request for service 1-419745.
The letter stated that the inspector had identified shortcomings in the university’s return-to-work procedures and that those shortcomings had been corrected. It further indicated that if other employment matters had arisen, they fell within the jurisdiction of the Fair Work Commission rather than SafeWork NSW.
In other words, the regulator framed the matter as procedurally addressed and jurisdictionally limited.
What the letter did not address was my allegation of ongoing psychosocial harm — including continued exposure to the primary stressor that had contributed to my injury.
In my reply that same day, I wrote asking the regulator to use its authority to stop the bullying, harassment from the stressor who was a senior executive, the isolation and victimisation I was describing.
I was not asking for commentary.
I was asking for protective intervention.
A return-to-work process can be described as “corrected” on paper while the psychosocial hazard itself remains live.
Section 19 of the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (NSW) requires risks to health and safety — including psychological risks — to be eliminated or minimised so far as reasonably practicable.
The duty is not confined to procedure.
It is directed at risk control.
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This Was About Ongoing Hazard Exposure — Not Employment Law
The primary stressor leading to my workers compensation claim was the conduct of a senior employment relations executive.
That stressor was not historical.
It was ongoing.
During the factual investigation commissioned by the insurer, I requested protective “guarding” — a separation measure intended to prevent further exposure to the identified stressor.
That protective action was recorded.
It was not implemented.
As a result, I remained exposed to the very stressor that had already resulted in injury.
This is a work health and safety issue.
It concerns hazard elimination and control.
It concerns the obligation to remove or minimise exposure once a risk is identified.
When I contacted SafeWork NSW, I did so as a last resort.
I was seeking regulatory intervention to require that protective measures be enforced — not to litigate employment status, and not to pursue workplace politics.
The issue was continued exposure to a live psychosocial hazard.
The issue was absence of implemented control measures.
The issue was failure to prevent further harm.
Redirecting such a matter into another jurisdiction does not eliminate the hazard itself.
A psychosocial risk does not disappear because it is administratively reframed.
If a worker remains exposed to an identified stressor after protective separation has been requested and not implemented, the matter remains squarely within the sphere of WHS risk control.
That is why I contacted the regulator SafeWork NSW.
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When Protective Measures Are Identified But Not Enforced
The insurer’s commissioned factual investigation recorded the need for protective action.
Yet no enforceable direction required that separation to occur.
No prohibition notice was issued.
No enforceable undertaking was imposed.
No visible control measure removed or minimised the exposure.
The stressor remained.
From a WHS perspective, once a hazard is identified, the duty is not documentation.
It is control.
When control is absent, risk persists.
And when risk persists following regulatory engagement, the question is no longer about process.
It is about whether the statutory purpose of prevention has been fulfilled.
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Hazard identified Protection requested Risk remained |
The Turning Point
The SafeWork NSW response marked a significant turning point.
From that point onward, overlapping systems — WHS enforcement, workers compensation compliance, and employment law — appeared compartmentalised rather than coordinated.
The psychosocial hazard I was reporting remained live.
What followed shortly thereafter was another serious WHS incident — one I have written about separately:
“A WHS Turning Point I Will Never Forget”
https://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2026/01/a-whs-turning-point-i-will-never-forget.html?m=1
That event did not occur in isolation.
It occurred in the context of:
• Identified psychosocial risk
• Requested but unimplemented protective separation
• Regulatory narrowing of jurisdiction
• Continued exposure to the stressor
When enforcement narrows to procedural correction but the psychosocial hazard remains active, the system does not become neutral.
The system becomes part of the environment in which harm continues.
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Why This Deserves Public Scrutiny
The NSW Government has created a public portal on mental health at work:
https://www.nsw.gov.au/employment/mental-health-at-work
The full Strategy document can be accessed here:
The commitments are clear.
The language is strong.
The vision is constructive.
What deserves scrutiny is implementation.
Because if mentally healthy workplaces are a shared responsibility, then regulators are part of that responsibility.
And accountability is not antagonistic.
It is foundational to public trust.
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A Final Reflection
The Strategy speaks of dignity.
Of authentic conversations.
Of evidence-informed action.
Of recovery.
When I reported psychosocial hazards, sought enforcement, and attempted recovery, I was not asking for special treatment.
I was asking for the Strategy’s own language to operate in practice.
A mentally healthy workplace is one where systems prevent harm and support recovery.
A mentally healthy regulatory environment is one where statutory duties are enforced, not merely articulated.
Strategies set the vision.
Implementation determines whether that vision protects people.
And behind every policy document is a human nervous system trying to feel safe enough to heal.
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