Still Looking for Someone to Listen - August 2022

By late August 2022, I was still looking for someone to listen.

That sentence sounds simple. But by then, I had been trying for more than three years.

I had raised concerns internally. I had approached my union. I had approached workplace safety and workers’ compensation regulators. I had approached government representatives. I had provided records and evidence. I had continued writing, explaining and asking questions.

I was still trying to find someone prepared to stop, look at what had happened as a whole, and take it seriously.

And I was frightened.

——

Another Question I Needed Answered

In August 2022, another issue came to my attention concerning a staff appointment within the university library.

I questioned whether a person appointed to a senior librarian position held the university qualification ordinarily associated with professional librarian roles.

I didn’t know the answer.

That was why I was asking.

Had the person subsequently completed the necessary university studies? What qualifications were required for the position at the time of appointment? If those requirements hadn’t been met, who had authorised the appointment and on what basis?

These were valid questions.

But after everything that had happened since July 2019, I no longer had confidence that simply raising a concern internally would result in transparent scrutiny.

I wanted a legitimate and ethical external (NOT “independent”) examination.

Not assumptions. Not another closed loop of “internal” decision-making.

Someone genuinely “independent” and external to look.

——

I Was Still Trying to Find an Avenue

What stands out to me now is how hard I was still trying to use legitimate avenues.

I hadn’t walked away.

I hadn’t stopped asking questions.

I hadn’t stopped believing that somewhere within all these systems there must be somebody willing to examine the records.

But my confidence in those systems was disappearing.

I wrote that if university leaders didn’t begin taking their obligations seriously, I was considering speaking publicly about what had happened to me.

Even then, I was only making enquiries about how I might do that.

I was nervous about it.

This was my workplace. My career. My private life. My family. My grief. My finances.

Speaking about any of it outside the systems I had been relying upon wasn’t something I approached lightly. But I also had to speak up (actually, it felt more like screaming for help, to attract attention), to save my life from this relentless abuse of power targeting me. 

This was a serious WHS issue. And no one, with authority, had lifted a finger to keep me safe at work. What does that tell us?

What I wanted was simple:

I wanted someone with the responsibility and authority to listen.

——

This Had Become So Much Bigger than a WHS issue

By then, what I was trying to communicate could no longer be contained within the language of an ordinary workplace WHS issue.

I wrote about what had happened following my father’s suicide.

I wrote about stigma, grief and trauma.

I wrote about harassment and privacy.

I wrote about my leave entitlements and wellbeing.

I wrote about discrimination and bullying.

I wrote about the workers’ compensation process and statutory “failures” and the financial consequences that were accumulating around me.

I wrote about the impact on my family.

Everything was becoming connected.

The workplace situation had followed me out of the workplace and into my home, my finances, my relationships, my health and my sense of safety.

And still, nobody was looking at the whole picture.

——

“I Need Support, Kindness and Compassion From Somewhere”

There’s one sentence I wrote at the time that cuts through all of the institutional language:

“I need support, kindness and compassion from somewhere because I’m alone and frightened.”

That was where I was.

Not powerful.

Not strategic.

Not trying to create a public campaign.

Frightened.

I had been battling what was happening since July 2019, and I couldn’t understand how I could have approached so many organisations and still feel so completely alone.

I had approached my union - NTEU.

I had approached SIRA.

I had approached SafeWork NSW.

I had approached NSW Police.

I had approached my local state MP - Chris Minns.

I had continued trying to explain what had happened and why intervention was necessary.

Yet the lived outcome for me remained the same:

I didn’t feel safe.

I didn’t feel protected.

And I didn’t feel heard.

——

Policies vs. Safety

One of the things that had become increasingly difficult for me to comprehend was the difference between an organisation having policies and a worker actually being safe.

I had encountered:

• Policies.
• Procedures.
• Processes.
• Departments.
• Regulators.
• Correspondence.
• Administrative responses.

What I needed was for somebody to examine what was actually happening to me.

A policy cannot listen.

A procedure cannot notice when a human being is becoming overwhelmed by what’s happening around them.

A beautifully written commitment to workplace wellbeing means very little to the person asking for help if nobody’s prepared to examine whether that commitment is being honoured in practice.

For me, psychosocial safety wasn’t an abstract policy concept.

It was whether I could feel safe in the workplace where I had built my career.

It was whether I could raise concerns without fearing what would happen next.

It was whether someone would listen when I said something was wrong.

——

A Real-Life Psychological Thriller

I’ve described what I’m living through as:

“a real life psychological thriller”

That’s how disorienting it’s become.

The ordinary expectations I once had about institutions no longer seemed to apply.

Raise a workplace safety concern — expect it to be examined.

Provide records — expect somebody to read them.

Approach a regulator — expect regulation.

Approach a union — expect representation.

Say that you’re frightened and need help — expect somebody, somewhere, to respond with humanity.

Instead, I felt as though I kept moving from one institution to another without ever reaching the place where somebody would stop and look at the entirety of what had happened.

The more systems I entered, the more complicated everything became.

And somewhere inside all of those processes was a human being who simply needed to be heard.

——

What Happens When Someone Does Speak Up?

We hear constantly that people should speak up.

Ask for help.

Tell somebody.

Reach out.

But by August 2022, my experience had forced me to confront another side of that message.

What happens after somebody speaks?

What happens when they speak repeatedly?

What happens when they provide documents?

What happens when they approach the bodies they’ve been told exist to protect them?

What happens when they keep explaining that they’re frightened?

Speaking up only works if somebody is prepared to listen.

Where institutions have legal, professional or ethical responsibilities towards people, listening can’t simply mean acknowledging correspondence and moving it somewhere else.

At some point, somebody has to look.

——

The Fair Work Ombudsman Had My Evidence

By this stage, I had also provided extensive material to the Fair Work Ombudsman.

It was another attempt to find a legitimate avenue.

I wasn’t asking anyone simply to accept everything I said without scrutiny.

Quite the opposite.

I wanted scrutiny.

I wanted somebody independent to examine the records.

I wanted the chronology looked at.

I wanted decisions tested against obligations.

I wanted the questions I had been asking for years to receive answers based on evidence.

That’s what accountability meant to me.

——

Still Looking

By late August 2022, I was beginning to contemplate whether I might eventually have to tell my story beyond the institutions I had been approaching.

But that wasn’t where I had wanted to end up.

And it wasn’t the most important thing about this moment.

The important thing was how many places I had already tried.

I was still searching for a legitimate pathway.

Still providing evidence.

Still asking questions.

Still trying to preserve some belief that the systems around me could work if only the right person stopped long enough to look.

Underneath all the allegations, correspondence, regulators, policies and processes was something painfully ordinary.

I needed help.

I needed kindness.

I needed compassion.

And after more than three years of trying to speak, I was still looking for someone to listen.

Source: contemporaneous record of events - Document 446.