When Politicians Don’t Listen, Will Journalists? - July 2022

31 July 2022

By the end of July 2022, I was still trying to do something that shouldn’t have been so difficult: get someone in authority to listen.

I had already tried regulators. I had tried government agencies. I had tried my elected representative. I had provided records. I had asked questions. I had tried to explain that what had happened to me wasn’t an “employment disagreement” or an “interpersonal workplace dispute”. I was raising serious concerns about workplace health and safety, workers compensation, psychosocial hazards, regulatory failures and the consequences for me and my family.

And still I was trying to be heard.

So, on 31 July 2022, I wrote to Murray Trembath, a journalist with the local St George & Sutherland Shire Leader.

The subject line was:

“Regarding the report on bullying by the SafeWork minister and Miranda MP”

I was responding to Trembath’s 29 July 2022 article, Petinos denies claims of bullying staff and using offensive language. But what struck me particularly was that the article included comments from my own local state MP for Kogarah and then Opposition Leader, Chris Minns.

That created a painful contradiction for me.

——

Calling Out Bullying in Public — But What About Your Own Constituent?

At the time, politicians were publicly condemning allegations of bullying and unacceptable workplace conduct.

Yet I had been trying to tell my own elected representative about what I said had happened to me — and about the systemic problems my records exposed.

So I asked the journalist a simple question:

“If Chris Minns hasn’t listened to a constituent in his Kogarah electorate, will a journalist listen?”

And I went further:

“There’s no point calling out all the bad behaviour of the current government ministers when his actions didn’t communicate anything better.”

This wasn’t about party politics for me.

It was about consistency.

If workplace bullying, worker safety and unacceptable conduct were important enough to condemn publicly when the allegations involved a political opponent, then surely they were important enough to investigate when a constituent walked into an electorate office carrying evidence and asking for help.

——

The Questions I Had Already Asked

On 24 July 2022, I had emailed a series of questions to the Kogarah electorate office.

When I later telephoned, staff couldn’t locate the email, so I resent the questions the following Thursday.

I wanted to know whether Chris Minns had actually read the evidence I had left with his office, particularly my material concerning SIRA and SafeWork NSW.

I wanted to know whether those systemic issues and the evidence I had supplied could be raised politically or in Parliament.

I wanted to know whether I was actually going to be given an opportunity to meet with my elected representative — or with Cherie Burton if he was unavailable. (See http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2026/06/the-day-i-almost-didnt-come-back.html). 

And I wanted to know what had happened when Labor MPs visited the university where I’ve worked for twenty years.

One question went directly to the contradiction I couldn’t reconcile.

The previous day to visiting my university employer, who was at the heart of the psychosocial hazards and psychological violence being perpetrated, Chris Minns had attended a memorial for people who had lost their lives in work-related incidents. I quoted the words from the social-media post:

“We can all do more. We can all do better.”

My response was:

“Then why didn’t he, regarding the serious WHS risks caused by my employer in my case?”

I also asked why people harmed by work-related psychosocial hazards were not part of the same public conversation about workplace deaths and workplace safety.

These weren’t abstract policy questions to me.

They were questions arising from what I had lived through.

——

“As a Constituent, I Need to Know the Answers”

By then, I was tired of uncertainty.

• Had my evidence actually been read?
• Had the seriousness been understood?
• What had been communicated to the university?
• Was anyone going to do anything?

Not political theatre.

Not a photograph.

Not another referral.

Answers.

——

Feeling Sold Out for a Photo Opportunity

What made the situation particularly painful was seeing politicians publicly visit the university where I had worked for two decades.

I described how it felt:

“I felt sold out for a photo opportunity with Chris and several Labor MPs who visited the university, my work of twenty years…”

From where I stood, politicians were able to appear at my workplace and publicly discuss employment conditions and wages while I was desperately trying to get somebody to listen to what had happened to my own employment conditions, safety, leave entitlements and workers compensation statutory rights.

See http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2026/06/the-social-media-post-i-saw-on-29-april.html

I wrote that it felt like:

“a political campaign on work conditions and wages for one, and a brand and image for the other.”

Then I asked the question underneath all of it:

“Didn’t I have entitlements too, a right to a safe work environment…?”

That was the point.

Whatever political message was being promoted publicly, I was a worker too.

I had rights too.

And I had served twenty years at that university. It was my university community too. 

——

The Personal Cost of Political Silence

There was another reason this hurt so deeply.

My father had been a loyal Labor supporter.

I had tragically lost him to suicide.

So my experience with my local Labor representative carried an emotional significance beyond ordinary political disappointment.

I wrote:

“What happened was painful and traumatic for me because it also disrespected the memory and legacy of my dad.”

I had always voted Labor, but now I was questioning that loyalty.

The state election was approaching, and I wrote that I was considering voting for an independent.

Because when I desperately needed my elected representative to listen, I did not feel heard. And worse. 

I wrote:

“I’ve always voted Labor, but the one time I needed to be heard, it cost me, nearly even my own life.”

That’s not the language of ordinary dissatisfaction with a politician.

It shows just how hopeless and abandoned I felt by July 2022.

——

“When Politicians Don’t Listen, Journalists Do”

So I turned to the media.

I wrote:

“When politicians don’t listen, journalists do. Will you listen?”

By this stage, I was also trying other avenues. I told Trembath that records had been provided to the ABC investigations team, and that I had reported matters to the Fair Work Ombudsman.

Some of my records, I pointed out, were already sitting inside Chris Minns’ Kogarah electorate office.

I wasn’t asking a journalist simply to accept everything I said as fact.

I wanted someone to look at the records.

I described providing the evidence as my civic duty.

That distinction matters.

The story I was trying to tell wasn’t simply, something terrible happened to me.

I was saying: look at what happened, look at the records, look at how the systems interacted, and ask whether those systems operated as they were supposed to.

——

Becoming a “Soccer Ball” Between Systems

My letter also described how far the crisis had spread.

My lived experience was of being repeatedly moved between institutions without the underlying problem being resolved.

I summed it up like this:

“I’m a soccer ball.”

That’s exactly what it felt like.

• Go to this agency.
• No, go to that agency.
• Talk to the police.
• Go back to Fair Work.
• Contact another regulator.
• Make another complaint.
• Write another letter.
• Explain the same history again.

Meanwhile, the person at the centre of all of it — me — was still living with the consequences.

——

Would Anyone Finally Listen?

I ended my email to Murray Trembath with another invitation:

“Would you like to know more about my story and the issues I attempted to raise with my local state MP for Kogarah. I’d be grateful for your help.”

There was something profoundly wrong with having to beg this many people simply to look.

By 31 July 2022, that was where I was.

• I had evidence.
• I had questions.
• I had approached regulators.
• I had approached my elected representative.
• I had approached the Fair Work Ombudsman.
• I had approached journalists.

And I was still asking the same fundamental question:

Who will actually listen?

The irony was impossible to ignore.

Politicians could publicly condemn allegations of workplace bullying.

They could attend workplace memorials and say:

“We can all do more. We can all do better.”

But those words only mean something if they also apply when the person asking for help is standing in your own electorate office.

I was asking my elected representative to listen to his constituent, examine the evidence I had placed before him (or rather, Cheryl Han), and take seriously what I was saying about worker safety and systemic failure.

When that wasn’t happening, I turned to a journalist.

Sometimes, when institutions keep passing a person from one door to another, the only option left is to keep telling the story until somebody finally stops, looks at the evidence, and listens.

Source: contemporaneous record of events - Document 438.