My Story - My Voice: All I Needed Was the Truth Chris Minns

"Honesty is a very expensive gift, don’t expect it from cheap people." — Warren Buffett

By late July 2022, I was still trying to do something that should never have been so difficult: get my elected representative to listen.

Not solve everything overnight. Not accept every allegation I made without examining the evidence. Not somehow personally fix an entire workers compensation and work health and safety system.

Listen. Look at the evidence. Ask questions. Represent a constituent.

On 24 July 2022, I emailed Chris Minns, then the NSW Leader of the Opposition and Member for Kogarah, and Cheryl Han in his electorate office. The subject line said exactly what I wanted:

“All I need is the truth.”

And by this stage, there was evidence.

I wasn’t writing to an MP with a vague complaint. I referred specifically to the box file of evidence I had already left with his office, including material concerning SIRA and SafeWork NSW. I was trying to draw political attention not only to what had happened to me, but to what the evidence revealed about serious systemic failures in the way injured workers could be treated.

I wrote:

“Did you read any of the evidence in the box file I left with you, especially the compilation to do with SIRA, [and] SafeWorkNSW...”

That question matters.

An elected representative doesn’t have to agree with a constituent. But when a constituent comes to an electorate office with documentary evidence concerning NSW regulators, workplace safety and a workers compensation system that she says has catastrophically failed her, surely somebody should at least look.

——

I was asking my MP to represent me

My email made clear that what had happened went beyond my individual circumstances.

I told the office that I believed there were:

“serious systemic issues of abuse”

and that I had expected the evidence I provided might be put on the agenda and raised in Parliament.

I also wanted to know whether I was actually going to be given the opportunity to speak with an elected representative. I asked whether Cheryl Han really intended to contact Cherie Burton so that I could meet with her if Chris Minns was unavailable — or whether I could finally meet with my own local state MP.

That word — finally — says a lot about where things had reached.

I had evidence. I had questions. I was a constituent. I was asking for political representation concerning matters involving state regulatory systems.

What else was I supposed to do?

“Your views and concerns are important to me”

An automatic reply arrived from the Kogarah electorate office that afternoon.

It said:

“Your views and concerns are important to me.”

It also assured me:

“residents of the Kogarah Electorate will of course receive priority”

and:

“Please be assured that all emails are considered and brought to my attention.”

The automatic response even provided the electorate-office telephone number for urgent enquiries and to check whether correspondence had been received.

So that is what I did.

When I remained uncertain whether my email had actually been received or was being dealt with, I telephoned the office. I spoke with what appeared to be a junior staff member. She couldn’t locate the email.

So I sent it again, while I stayed on the phone to confirm that she received it.

She did. Confirmed.

The documentary record shows that on 29 July 2022 at 10:57 am, I resent the email to the Kogarah electorate office with one word above the forwarded correspondence:

“Resending.”

There’s something almost absurd about that single word now.

Resending.

I had already supplied evidence.

I had already written.

I had already explained the seriousness of what was occurring.

I had already asked whether anyone had actually read what I had provided.

Then I had to telephone to find out whether my email could even be found.

And then I sent it again.

——

These were not abstract political questions

I was asking Chris Minns’s office questions about what had actually happened.

I specifically asked what had been communicated to ACU’s Vice-Chancellor when my local MP encountered him at Blacktown, and what response had been given. I was raising the conduct of people responsible for workplace health and safety at my employer.

I also drew an uncomfortable comparison.

I referred to Chris Minns having attended a memorial for people who had lost their lives in work-related incidents. Against that backdrop, I asked why victims of work-related psychosocial hazards who had also lost their lives were not similarly acknowledged.

For me, this wasn’t political theatre.

I was living the consequences.

The workers compensation system, SafeWork NSW and the conduct I had reported were not policy concepts being discussed in a parliamentary chamber. They were affecting my health, finances, employment and life.

And I was asking the person elected to represent my electorate to pay attention.

“As a constituent of yours…”

I ended that email with perhaps the most important sentence in the entire document:

“As a constituent of yours, I need to know the answers. I need to know the truth.”

That was the relationship I understood representative democracy to create.

——

I was his constituent.

I was asking my elected representative to engage with evidence concerning NSW government systems and regulators that had failed catastrophically.

And despite the automatic assurance that constituents would receive priority and that emails would be brought to his attention, I received no substantive response from Cheryl Han to these questions.

That experience changed the way I understood political representation.

——

When representation depends on whether your problem is politically convenient

I can’t know what Chris Minns personally thought when these matters reached — or did not reach — him. I can’t know what discussions occurred internally in his office.

What I can document is what I did.

I approached my elected representative.
I supplied evidence.
I identified state regulatory issues.
I asked whether that evidence had even been read.
I asked for a meeting.
I asked what had been communicated to ACU.
I asked for the systemic issues I was identifying to be raised.
I followed up.
I telephoned.

And when the office couldn’t locate my email, I resent it on 29 July 2022.

Still, I didn’t receive the answers I was asking for.

From where I stood as his constituent, the message was devastating: my crisis apparently didn’t warrant meaningful engagement from the person elected to represent me.

That’s why I reject the comforting language that politicians are automatically “there for their constituents” simply because an electorate office exists.

Representation has to mean something in practice.

It has to mean listening when the issue is difficult.

It has to mean looking at evidence even when that evidence points towards institutional or regulatory failure.

It has to mean being prepared to ask uncomfortable questions of powerful organisations.

And it cannot depend upon whether helping a constituent happens to align neatly with somebody’s political interests or agenda.

I cannot prove why Chris Minns or his office failed to substantively respond to me.

But I can say what the experience meant to me:

When I urgently needed my elected representative to represent me on serious NSW matters, I didn’t feel represented at all.

The automatic reply said:

“Your views and concerns are important to me.”

My experience told me something very different.

And all I had asked for was the truth.

My Story - My Voice

Thursday, August 27, 2026

All I Needed Was the Truth Chris Minns - July 2022

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