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.  

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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.

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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.

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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