SIRA had the figures. It acknowledged deteriorating return to work outcomes. It published an action plan with ten commitments to improve them.
Some of those commitments were exactly what injured workers needed: scrutiny of insurers’ injury management practices, public reporting of insurer performance, and enforcement when employers failed to support recovery and return to work.
So why was I still left asking for the very things the regulator said it was there to ensure?
I had already lost trust through my experience of the system. I preserved the public record because I wanted the commitments to remain available for scrutiny. Finding the publication again doesn’t answer the questions about what followed.
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The admission was already on the page
The publication was titled “Turning around poor return to work performance.”
SIRA’s own words were clear:
“The core role of the workers compensation scheme is to help people recover and return to work.”
Its then Chief Executive, Adam Dent, also acknowledged:
“Delayed return to work has serious implications for injured people as the evidence shows that the longer a person is away from work, the less likely they are ever to return.”
That’s an extraordinary and unfair statement to read when you’re an injured worker repeatedly seeking a safe path back to your role, while the organisations responsible for assisting you leave the barriers in place.
More generally, the data in the publication showed deterioration between 2015–2016 and 2020–2021. At four weeks, the return to work rate fell from 77% to 65%, the stay at work rate from 45% to 34%, and the working rate from 87% to 77%.
Those are falls of 12, 11 and 10 percentage points respectively. Behind those figures are people: their health, livelihoods, relationships and futures.
SIRA knew that outcomes were deteriorating. It knew that delay could cause lasting harm. Its own publication established that knowledge.
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These were concrete commitments
The action plan required insurers to resubmit business plans by 28 February 2022, explaining how they would improve four-week return to work performance. It promised reviews of all insurers’ return to work practices in the first half of 2022, including injury management programs, claim files, customer interviews and the systems used to identify workers at risk of not returning.
That kind of scrutiny could have mattered enormously to someone in my position.
My claim was lodged on 22 May 2020. An Injury Management Plan was issued on 25 June 2020. Around August 2020, after finding out my case manager left (something the insurer also “failed” to tell me), I repeatedly sought a replacement and meaningful assistance. I lodged my complaint with SIRA on 11 January 2021.
My position has remained consistent: I want the plan implemented with safeguards so I can return and recover in my role at ACU.
A review that actually examined what happened in my claim could have confronted the gap between a plan on paper and the assistance I received.
The fourth commitment was particularly significant:
“SIRA will commence publishing the return to work performance of all insurers in 2022.”
It went on to promise:
“holding insurers accountable for their performance.”
Yes. That would be a good thing. Publish the results. Examine the conduct behind them. Establish whether insurers are doing what they should. Require corrective action where they are failing.
The fifth action proposed a dedicated return to work inspectorate, including enforcement directed at employers when necessary. The sixth proposed a two-year research fellowship at the Black Dog Institute, focused on return to work for people with psychological injury.
The remaining actions addressed government agencies, identifying employers whose workers faced delayed return, early contact with injured workers, and workplace rehabilitation.
There were useful ideas here. My question is what they delivered for people already being harmed.
I saved it as a PDF. The screenshot included here comes from that preserved record and shows actions 4–10.
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| SIRA’s published commitments included public reporting of insurer return to work performance, accountability for insurers, employer enforcement and research into psychological injury. |
Another page promised supervision
My documents preserve SIRA’s “Insurer performance” material, which I annotated with the words:
“Finally - Under Fraud and Regulation”
The workers compensation section described monitoring, risk assessment and action to address poor compliance or performance. It expressly included specialised insurers within the categories SIRA regulated—the category relevant to Catholic Church Insurance, ACU’s insurer in my claim.
Its 2022–2023 supervision priorities also set out a timetable:
- July–September 2022: recording and reporting injury notifications, informing workers of entitlements and supporting early intervention.
- October–December 2022: audit quality and expectations.
- January–March 2023: insurers’ quality assurance processes.
- April–June 2023: insurer conduct and behaviour throughout disputes.
For that last period, SIRA said it would ensure insurers based disputed decisions on good evidence and explained that evidence to injured workers. It also proposed monitoring insurer conduct in dealings involving workers, IRO, ILARS and the Personal Injury Commission.
These are substantial promises. Where was that scrutiny when I raised concerns about the handling of my claim?
I was asking for help to recover, for the entitlements that had been withheld, and for a safe path back to work. I experienced a system that kept producing correspondence without resolving the conditions causing harm.
See also:
Information is Power. Withholding Information is Abuse of Power.
When Emotion Was Used Against Me: Re-Reading Self-Drafted Legal Brief - July 2021
Personal Injury Commission (PIC): What Happened After the Examination - October 2021
Where were SIRA’s priorities in action, as recorded from July 2022 above? Why did SIRA and IRO repeatedly accept the insurer’s false narrative on record, without independent verification, and even used it to justify continued closure of my serious complaints? Is SIRA NSW completely disconnected of the impact this has on a human being?
How can we to trust SIRA NSW when it publishes promises like the above, but then does not follow through with its own regulatory obligations?
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I saved the page because I no longer trusted the system
My documents record my anger and my efforts to bring the contradiction to others’ attention.
I had preserved and shared the public record because its commitments were relevant to the failures I was reporting.
The earlier link I had retained no longer led me to this publication. I have now located an accessible link to SIRA’s “Turning around poor return to work performance” action plan. The page may have moved or its address may have changed.
The questions remain. What became of these commitments? What scrutiny, corrective action and enforcement followed? And why did my repeated requests for assistance fail to produce the practical support SIRA publicly recognised injured workers needed?
An accessible webpage allows us to read the promises. Accountability requires evidence of what followed.
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Trust requires action that reaches the injured worker
My document also contains my criticism of an independent medical assessment and a saved RateMDs policy. The policy, marked as modified on 17 May 2022 and captured on 24 May 2023, says reviews of independent medical examinations or insurance assessments may be removed because they don’t involve a doctor–patient relationship.
For me, that raises a connected question: where can an injured worker’s experience of an assessment be heard and examined? Removing such an experience from a review platform doesn’t resolve the underlying concern.
Across these records, the same problem recurs. Organisations publish policies about trust, safety, recovery and accountability. The person seeking their protection must then fight to have their experience meaningfully addressed.
I have lost trust in SIRA and in the wider system through what has happened to me. Repeated announcements cannot repair that.
Public money should fund work that produces protection in practice: examining evidence, correcting failures, requiring compliance and stopping further harm. Regulators’ leadership and government must answer for the gap between the services they fund and the outcomes people actually receive.
Paperwork is necessary. But correspondence that leaves the same harm continuing is no substitute for effective intervention.
My experience has been a snowball effect: injury compounded by delay, financial losses, repeated attempts to obtain help, and further deterioration while I was left navigating the machinery supposedly designed to support recovery.
I want to know which commitments were implemented, how their effectiveness was tested, and what action followed when an insurer or employer failed an injured worker. I want to know why my evidence and repeated requests did not produce the practical assistance I needed.
The publication and saved screenshot preserve what SIRA said it would do.
My records preserve what I experienced.
The gap between them demands an answer.
Source: contemporaneous record of events - Documents 577, 579.
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See also:
SIRA NSW - The Regulator Already Knew the System Was Failing - August 2022
See also how SIRA NSW staff repeatedly treated me - these are some examples:
SIRA NSW : When the System Sends You in Circles - January 2021
When Regulators Close Ranks: Systemic Harm - March 2021 - Part 1
SIRA NSW Closed My Complaint — The Phone Never Rang - July 2021
CEO of SIRA NSW - When the System Breaks You, Your Nervous System Speaks - November 2021
“Is It Safe to Open?” What That Question Revealed About SIRA NSW - December 2021
SIRA NSW - Associate Director of “Customer Service” and Operations - Referred Elsewhere - April 2022
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