Before workers' compensation became a function of government and insurance, communities created their own systems of care. Friendly societies such as the Odd Fellows helped members navigate illness, injury and hardship, embodying a simple principle: when misfortune strikes, no one should face it alone. While researching Shattered: Episode 1 – Origins of Control, we came across a photograph from the official opening dinner of Lithgow's Blast Furnace on 17 May 1907. The image r

One of the unexpected gifts of researching Shattered: Episode 1 – Origins of Control has been the stories discovered along the way. I travelled to Lithgow to better understand the town where I was born and the industrial history that shaped generations of working families. My grandfather was killed in a quarry collapse near Lithgow in 1939, leaving behind a widow and four children. What began as a search for one story quickly became a journey through many others and a long jo

During the making of Shattered, a simple question kept returning: what is the role of an injured person within a recovery system? During the making of Shattered, I found myself returning to a surprisingly simple question: what is the role of an injured person within a recovery system? At first glance the answer appears self-evident. Their role is to focus on recovery, rebuild their health and confidence, maintain important connections with family and community and, where poss

Returning to Lithgow during the making of Shattered helped reveal the deeper context behind the stories I was hearing across Australia. When I began filming Shattered, I thought I understood the story I wanted to tell. I was wrong. Although I was born in Lithgow, I left as a young child and have rarely returned. I have no family living there today. Returning during the making of the film was not a homecoming. It was a discovery. Over the course of production, I travelled back

More than a century after the Mt Kembla Mine Disaster claimed the lives of 96 men and boys, communities still gather in remembrance. The annual vigil is a reminder that workplace tragedies do not end on the day they occur. Their effects ripple through families, workplaces and communities for generations. Photographs courtesy of Kareena Markham and the Office of Minister Ryan Park MP. Used with permission. When I began filming Shattered, I thought I was making a documentary ab

One of the questions we are asked most often is simple: When can I watch Shattered? It's a fair question. Many people assume that once a documentary is finished, it immediately appears on a streaming platform. In reality, independent documentaries often follow a number of different pathways before finding their way into homes and communities. For many films, the journey begins with festivals, community screenings, educational settings and workplace conversations. Over time, o

For the past three years, Shattered has taken us into homes, community halls, workplaces and towns across Australia. We have sat with people whose lives changed after a workplace injury and listened as they tried to make sense of what happened next. When we began filming, I thought I understood the story we were trying to tell. Originally, we set out to explore the experiences of women injured at work. But the further we travelled and the more people we met, the harder it bec

When we began researching Episode 1 of Shattered, we knew we needed to understand more than policy, legislation and workers compensation frameworks. We needed to understand place. Because workers compensation was born in the industrial age, a promise of protection in exchange for risk and towns like Lithgow and Wallerawang helped build the modern industrial nation that followed. Coal mines. Railways. Steelworks. Power stations. Entire communities were organised around them. T

Where it began There’s a place in Lithgow where the walls still stand, but the system that built them has long moved on. The Blast Furnace. Built by Charles Hoskins and carried by the labour of generations of workers, it helped shape Australia’s industrial backbone. Steel, rail, infrastructure — the physical foundations of a nation. This is where industry, labour and government first met at scale. And in towns like Lithgow where the conditions for protection began. The politi

Lithgow sits on the western slopes of the Blue Mountains, a town shaped by the industries that powered modern Australia. (image credit: soaring eagle productions) From the convict road over Victoria Pass to the industries that powered the nation, the story behind workers’ compensation begins in towns like this. The road that climbs out of Lithgow toward the Blue Mountains was first carved into the escarpment nearly two centuries ago. In the early 1830s, convict labour gangs c

Why 2026 marks a system centenary — not an institutional one. As New South Wales marks the centenary year of the 1926 workers’ compensation reforms, a number of institutions are highlighting “100 years of workers’ compensation.” The framing has prompted an important question: what exactly began in 1926 and who, if anyone, can claim the centenary? Here is a summary of the critically defensible position: The Workers’ Compensation Act 1926 (NSW) marked the birth of the modern st

The story of Shattered starts in Lithgow a region that helped build this nation by providing the coal, steel, power, and materials that made modern Australia possible. From the coal seams of Lithgow and Lidsdale, to the shale works at Newnes, the Blast Furnace at Lithgow, the power stations of Wallerawang, the cement works of Portland, and the rail corridors that carried it all outward this region powered growth far beyond its borders. Lithgow was not on the margins of Aust

By the time this financial year ends on June 30, governments across Australia will have collected more than $1 trillion in taxes, fees and charges — a record for our country. It’s a staggering figure, especially at a time when so many families are struggling to make ends meet, and it raises a deeper question about what Australians are actually getting in return for that level of public revenue.Source: James Massola, “Over-governed, over-taxed and over-complicated — how Austra

Why did a seriously injured whistleblower — the very man who helped expose the failures inside NSW’s workers’ compensation system — have to find out about Treasurer Daniel Mookhey’s cruel reforms from his lawyer? That’s the telling point. No call. No care. No acknowledgment. Just silence from the Treasurer who once courted Chris McCann relentlessly when he needed his intelligence to expose the icare scandal — but who now cannot even be bothered to ensure psychological supp

Why the NSW government is still legislating a system it no longer understands and injured people are paying the price. Australia has already lived through Robodebt. The UK has already lived through the Post Office scandal. Both began with “data issues,” both were dismissed as administrative failures and both ended as human-rights tragedies. Workers’ compensation is now showing the same pattern of automation, denial, governance failure and system-level harm. The difference thi

These are not finished edits. There are no graphics. No colour grade. No carefully shaped narrative. And that is exactly why we’re releasing them now. With the NSW Public Accountability & Works Committee report on the Workers’ Compensation Amendment Bill now public, the people of NSW deserve to hear what has been said off-camera by those involved in shaping policy not only what appears in official statements or under parliamentary privilege. These two clips speak for themse

For more than a decade, NSW has not simply struggled to manage its workers’ compensation system it has administered a foreseeable harm event at scale . This is no longer a debate about “reform”, “efficiency”, or “sustainability”. It is long past that. It is now a question of legal, financial and moral liability . And the evidence is no longer technical or abstract. It is structural, documented, and cumulative. 1. The State knew the workers' compensation system was broken

The truth behind NSW’s push to raise the psychological-injury threshold 2025: They admit the harm. They just can’t prove recovery. For years, NSW governments have claimed the workers’ compensation system is “improving.” Due to their improvement programs....But when asked the only question that matters — Are people with psychological injuries getting better? — the data goes missing. National evidence says otherwise: psychological-injury claims take the longest to resolve, ha

Walk through the ruins of Lithgow’s blast furnace and you can feel the heat that once burned here. You can hear the rhythm of the shift whistle. You can almost see the silhouettes of men who poured their lives into the molten core of a nation being built. These bricks are memory. These rivets are testimony. They are also reminders of the generations who built lives and communities around this industry. And right at the centre of that history is one man — Charles Hoskins. The

This weekend past, we travelled to Cobar for the Miners’ Ghost Festival — a gathering that remembers the lives lost in the mines that built this proud community. It’s a weekend held in honour, reflection and resilience. Families come together. Stories are shared. And the past is never forgotten. But today, we learned that Cobar is once again in mourning. Two miners have tragically lost their lives underground. Another has been seriously injured. Right now, details are limited