My 8-year experience, including a 2-year bullying investigation, exposes how bureaucrats and politicians protect each other under the guise of confidentiality, disregarding human rights and public sector ethics.
Introduction
My story of pursuing this for 6 years (8 years if you include the 2 years of bullying investigation and termination) is really a story of how bureaucrats and politicians act when they are confident that no one is watching. They say that my case is completely confidential in order to ‘protect me’.
But, how these functionaries treat human rights, the public sector code of conduct and any commitment to the truth, may surprise the reader.
Every worker has the basic right to fully complete a bullying investigation. Even more so, when that worker has advised every HR person involved that they have two concurrent processes.
But my final outcome after 6 years, post-termination, was to see bureaucrats protecting bureaucrats. Politicians protecting bureaucrats.
The Basic Facts
For readers who don’t want to wade through the details, I provide here the most basic description of my experience.
A public servant with 40 years service, I was transferred into a unit where I experienced almost daily bullying. I became ill and went on sick leave. I was being simultaneously assessed for medical incapacity and a bullying complaint I had put in against two officers, one being my supervisor. I was terminated from employment right in the middle of the bullying investigation in September 2017. As I was no longer an employee of the department my bullying enquiry was aborted.
The unit manager where I worked stated that the bullying behaviour I had complained about was because I had performance issues. This was a lie as a performance review shortly before I went on sick leave had assessed me as having a satisfactory work performance.
The first public service appeal body (the VPSC) spent one year investigating my case and concluded that I was inadvertently terminated because the bullying review officer was unaware of my parallel incapacity process. This was also a lie because I had informed everyone involved of the 2 processes, including one of the 2 bullying review officers. But what was worst about this appeal body, is that they just repeated the department’s excuses. They (the VPSC) contorted and manipulated the facts and evidence that I had provided.
The second public service appeal body (the VO in April 2020) was unable to ‘see’ the departmental lie and ruled that the department had apologised to me for not allowing me to complete the bullying review. They ruled that the apology was sufficient. The mix up happened, they ruled, because the bullying review officer didn’t know about the medical incapacity process due to ‘confidentiality and privacy’. That was also a lie.
When I tried to get this second public service appeal body (the VO) to investigate the biased and contorted report of the first public service appeal body (the VPSC) they refused to do so, citing their legislative right to control their enquiries any way they sought fit. They told me that my complaint about the department and the VPSC were ‘linked’ , but refused to show how they were linked or how the issues were the same.
I appealed the VO decision to the third public service appeal authority (the VI). This body took two and a half years to process my complaint. They agreed with the conclusion of the second review body (VO). They also agreed with that body’s finding that I ‘could have gone to Fair Work about the bullying’. This assertion was factually wrong as an employee that is terminated can no longer apply to Fair Work on bullying.
I then proceeded to complain to the Victorian Parliamentary Integrity and Oversight Committee (IOC) in August 2023. These politicians rubber stamped the VO and VI findings. They found that the first review body’s (VPSC) contorted and biased report was ‘reasonable’. They were appalled by my use of the word ‘lies’ when referring to the departmental apology. They blustered about how IBAC (the Independent Broad-Based Anti-Corruption Commission) had ‘dismissed’ my case, which was totally inaccurate. They weighed into the argument that when the earlier appeal bodies stated that I ‘could have gone to Fair Work on the bullying’ they had only stated a fact about Fair Work’s powers , even if those powers did not apply to me (a nonsensical argument). Finally, they found that my department didn’t have any ‘systemic issues’ (see my main document for my list of 12 issues).
Finally, my former department wrote to me and told me that they couldn’t find any record of the first appeal body’s (VPSC) enquiry ever existing. They had no record of it, even though it led to one year’s investigation and two reports.
For the 6 years, I came up against everything I have outlined above. I faced off against arrogant bureaucrats and politicians. These people tried to bully and intimidate me with their endless repetition of their legislative protections, for example, trying to browbeat me into false narratives about how IBAC had ‘dismissed’ my complaint , when the IBAC wasn’t even involved in my case.
But I guess what peeved me the most was the arrogance of bureaucrats, taking evidence and facts and contorting them so that my former employer wouldn’t need to explain the gross failure of their duty of care towards me.
Of somehow thinking that an apology letter containing a lie was a proper apology.
Of the politicians absolutely outraged by my use of the word ‘lie’.
It’s a different story when these authorities front the general public. Then these organizations are full of self praise, telling anyone who would listen about their great work. Words like accountability, values, integrity. These words they throw around like confetti, but when no one is looking, such as in my case, it’s a very different story.
As for the Charter of Human Rights and the Victorian Public Sector Code of Conduct – it has absolutely no influence on these functionaries.
In my main document I reiterate that the politicians stated that they found almost everything in my 6 years down their justice ‘rabbit hole’ was ‘reasonable’. The actual facts give a totally different story.
And rather than be silenced I have set up this website to inform current public servants and others.
"We learned about honesty and integrity... that the truth matters... that you don't take shortcuts or play by your own set of rules..."
Michelle Obama
