Please help me to petition the Honourable Grace Grace, Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations whose portfolio my petition now falls under to: review, investigate and overturn the QComp decision in my case.

This may seem like it just affects me. It does not! Precedent means, that my case can now be used to ‘screw over’ every other employer and management can demand that employers do double the workload, not provide equipment to do your job (on salary), and if you are in the training field: to demand that trainers provide all student resources out of their own pocket! My case effects every employee!

My story in brief: I agreed to take two Counselling and Community Services for a week or two until another trainer was employed. Management chose to take advantage of my loyalty and I continued with this situation for six months. I did two full-time jobs, consisting of 60 to 80 hours per week for six months. While on salary (not contract) I provided all the equipment (computer, projector and speakers) to deliver the course curriculum. Wi-Fi was needed to show the students the Youtube videos used as part of the DET approved course. Wi-Fi was not provided by the organisation so I burnt the Youtube videos to DVD’s to deliver the necessary counselling strategies to my students. Student resources were not provided by the organisation/management so I bought the resources myself and took photocopies of the necessary pages to give to the students. So, I could take the two Counselling and Community Services classes, my class contact time was reduced from two and a half days contact time to two days (without DET approval).. Although I asked management many times about employing another trainer, providing the necessary curriculum delivery equipment and providing student resources my emails were ignored.

After six months my students gave management a petition, I was called to the office to meet three managers and not allowed a support person. I called the ‘chat’ an interrogation. When I was blamed for not informing management of the resources needed, (this was a management responsibility, and they already knew from the same course being run in other campuses). One manager (who was of the highest ranking) demanded to know dates that I sent emails. I could not remember. He sneered and laughed at me and looked to the other managers laughing at my incompetence. Not once did any of the three managers acknowledge that I have been dumped with two full time jobs, that the company/managers did not provide equipment for me to do my job and nor did they provide the resources necessary for the students learning. I left the meeting traumatised, due to the exhaustion of a double workload without support for six months, suffering from PTSD.

While on sick leave my two Counselling and Community Services were returned to two and a half days of trainer/class contact time and EACH of my two classes was given an individual trainer.  ONLY I of over 30 individual trainers across all campuses was subjected to a reduced class contact time, and ONLY I was subjected to taking two full-time classes (the equivalent of two full-tme jobs) for six months!

I won my WorkCover case. The company whom I was employed with began an appeal through QComp.

To understand the system a little: WorkCover is the stand alone insurance arm that makes the initial decision separate to QComp. QComp is the regulatory body which reviews and decides appeals of WorkCover decisions. Up until an appeal is lodged neither body interacts. QComp has no discretionary rights or interference with the WorkCover process until an appeal is made. 

In the QComp decision:

a)      A conflict of interest was NOT disclosed

b)      QComp accepted Statutory Declarations from management that contradicted each other and were blatantly mis-representative of the facts.

c)       QComp accepted one particular Statutory Declaration which was grossly mis-representative of the facts two and a half months AFTER all documents were to be submitted AND this false Statutory Declaration was not disclosed. I found out about this document; months later after the decision.

d)      Numerous other documents were not forwarded to my solicitor, so they could not be challenged, yet were used by QComp to make their decision.

e)      The decision was not consistent with previous decisions made by QComp

In the following QIRC Hearing:

a)      The Regulator (who works for QComp), gave the Appellant (me) false and mis-leading information regarding the process of the second conference which lead to a second conference not occurring

b)      The Regulator gave false and mis-leading information regarding the process of presenting witnesses/information to the court resulting in neither; some of my witnesses nor my documentary evidence being allowed. (The information the Regulator gave me was so mis-leading I complained to the then Attorney-General, (Jarrod Bleijie) about her lack of experience and need of further training, only to find she had worked for QComp for eight years!)

c)       The Commissioner refused to accept evidentiary documents listed because ‘they were too much to read’.

d)      Request for witnesses to be recalled was ignored by the Regulator (this further undermined my case, however, the Regulator was permitted to recall a witness)

e)      The Regulator had evidentiary documents supporting my case, but did not disclose them until two days before the hearing to me, knowing that I could not use them at the hearing because they were not listed on any ‘Lists of Documents’. This I will always state; was a deliberate attempt to goad me, knowing I was right, but could not afford a solicitor to represent me, so was reliant upon the Regulator to advise me of the court process.

f)       The QComp regulator told me that ‘she found these documents on her desk that afternoon and had no idea where they had come from’, yet the dates on the emails showed, many (and the important one’s that proved my case) had been in her possession for two weeks prior to the trial and sent directly to her.

g)      The Commissioner had no understanding of the Vocational Education system. This allowed the QComp solicitor to make false statements about the system, attempting to make me look incompetent with absolute impunity taking advantage of the Commissioner’s ignorance. Had the Commissioner taken the time to garner some understanding of the system much of the QComp witness’s false statements could not have been used. The QComp solicitor took full advantage of the Commissioner’s ignorance.

h)      My Summarisation was challenged (rebutted) by the QComp solicitor and accepted, when Summarisations are supposed to be the final word from each party. Why was a rebuttal of our Summarisation accepted?

i) The Regulator again did NOT disclose the Conflict of Interest.

The CEO of the company my WorkCover case was against; was the Director of the Worker’s Compensation Regulatory Authority (QComp) and the Chairman of the Finance and Audit Committee for this Board from 2006 to 2012.

The purpose of the WorkCover process is to protect the worker, given the irregularities and mishandling of my case, questions must be asked if having CEO’s on Boards and in positions where they can directly influence and guide decisions of government is fair and equitable and in the interests of serving unbiased justice.

To date, there is no clear definition of ‘unreasonable management action’, one must ask: “Why not?”

Still suffering from trauma, but naïve enough to believe that QComp wanted to know the truth I pushed on. I could not afford a solicitor so my son who has Asperger’s syndrome and no legal experience or education represented me. At the time; I believed the truth and my documentary evidence would be enough. I was not prepared for the blocking tactics of the Regulator via mis-leading me and preventing me from submitting hard, documentary evidence or the blatant mis-representation of the facts from the Regulator’s witnesses.

I have appealed to 18 different politicians and government departments only to be fobbed off to someone else.

Having written to the Queensland Attorney-General –Yvette D’Ath to review, investigate and overturn the QComp decision with 106 pieces of evidentiary documents proving my claims and highlighting the real cause for the decisions, it seems that due to changes in portfolios my letter and evidence has been forwarded on to the Honourable Grace Grace, Minister of Employment and Industrial Relations.

I have been advised by a solicitor not to do this petition because I could receive threatening letters. Isn’t this the point of petitions like this? To hold politicians to account to the positions they hold and stop the corporate fat cats screwing over the ‘little person in the street – Mr and Mrs Average?’

Petitions like this are our final stance to be heard and for justice. The fact that we have to resort to petitions to get politicians to do their jobs says something sad about the society we live in.

If it happened to me, who can say how many others have been affected? I want to send a strong message to the Minister of Employment and Industrial Relations, not only for myself but also for all workers who are at risk of mis-treatment by a system that is meant to protect us…..and our children who are either in or entering the workplace.

I hope to get support stating to the Honourable Grace Grace that CEO’s of private companies should not be allowed to sit on the QComp Board in any capacity, that the QComp Regulators have a legal obligation to disclose any and all Conflicts of Interest. Furthermore, to bring about an end to the risk of corruption and fraud in the WorkCover system by tightening legislation and removing the obvious loopholes created for organisations to jump through.

Please sign my petition to let the Minister of Employment and Industrial Relations, the Honourable Grace Grace know that my case based on the QComp irregularities, and the documentary evidence provided should be reviewed, investigated and overturned.

 Thank you for your time.

 Angela Ashcroft