Episodes
For decades, the little understood system known as Workers' Compensation has been based on the politics and theatre of various Governments and not human health. It is the same around the globe. Conceived in response to German Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck's 1800's social insurance which spread in one form or another around the globe today Workers' Compensation has become a finance system pretending to be health. It has neglected injured workers, otherwise more accurately known as patients, branding them as malingerers while perpetrating mental, physical, and economic abuse rooted in outdated principles of colonialism and sexism. In short it harms rather than heals. It was even called Workmans Insurance until the 1970's when it changed its name to Workers' Compensation to accomodate women.
About Shattered Docuseries: The Hidden Epidemic of Workplace Abuse
Prepare to have your eyes opened and your heart racing. "Shattered" is not just a docuseries; it's a gut-wrenching exposé that peels back the layers of a system designed to protect but often destroys. Set in the sunburnt country of Australia, this four-part series takes you on a harrowing journey through the dark underbelly of workplace injuries, where the injured find themselves trapped in a labyrinth of bureaucracy, bullying, and betrayal.
Episode 1: Origins of Control
Spanning a century of promises and betrayals, this first episode dives head-first into the cyclone of systemic abuse — fuelled by a computer program born in Australia in the late 1980s. Its developers could never have imagined how their code would be weaponised against the very people it was meant to help.
What happens when the institutions built to protect become the perpetrators of harm?
Kathie Melocco sets out to understand what happened to her when she was injured at work — and why the abuse inside the workers’ compensation system has endured for 100 years. Her search takes her back to Lithgow’s industrial roots and forward into a digital age where algorithms decide who heals and who is left behind.
Through conversations with doctors, psychologists, rehabilitation specialists, and a former criminal lawyer whose own story lays bare the system’s dark machinery, Kathie uncovers a devastating truth: the harm isn’t accidental — it’s designed. And its hidden casualties are those the law forgot — women, older workers, and families still paying the price of progress.
Episode 2: The Punishment of Money
Money talks, but in this twisted tale, it screams. Witness how financial warfare is waged against the vulnerable, turning compensation into a weapon. You'll never look at your paycheck the same way again. We examine how a workplace injury is commoditized and body parts or mental health conditions are given a 'numerical value' that regulators, employer organizations, public and private insurers, employees' organizations, healthcare professionals, all subscribe to. If you don't meet the percentage....Everything comes down to a dollar value and what can be denied. We follow the money trail - and talk with employers, listening to their concerns. The creation of an insurance market for workers' compensation policies is a direct result of public policy and not of individual choice by employers, although doubtless some might of created such a market even if the states were not involved.
Episode 3: Doctor Doctor - The IME Inquisition
Step into the shadowy world of Independent Medical Examinations (IMEs), where the lines between medicine and law blur into a nightmarish haze. Watch in horror as women, already battling workplace injuries, face a new ordeal: examinations paid for by insurers that seem more like interrogations than medical assessments. Are these doctors healers or hired guns? As the truth unfolds, witness the gut-wrenching despair that engulfs women caught in this pseudo-medical web. This episode exposes the raw, emotional toll of a system where your pain is questioned, your truth is doubted, and your future hangs in the balance of a report that may have been predetermined. It's a medical appointment that feels more like a trial, leaving women shattered and wondering: in this game of insurance chess, are they pawns or patients?
Episode 4: Royal Commissions Examined
In the finale, we pull back the curtain on the highest levels of investigation. Do these royal commissions truly serve justice, or are they merely smoke and mirrors? The truth is more startling than fiction.
Testimonials
Shattered is different to any other docuseries that has come before it. Shattered will take you down pathways you did not know was possible. Shattered will leave you angry and asking questions.
Shattered will leave you demanding change effective immediately.
Shattered will show you what the injured workers community of Australia have known for far too long.
Workers' Compensation destroys lives; too many have lost hope and have taken their own lives, others have withdrawn into themselves of broken heart and spirit.
We must all stand and say enough, it stops here, it stops with me, it stops now.
Rosemary McKenzie-Ferguson
Suma comp Laude
Founder
Craigs Table
You think that 'workcover' is for the workers but in reality workcover is there to protect the employer under the guise of protecting the worker
Ros
This docuseries is a powerful piece of knowledge to advocate for people struggling with abuse in the workfield and workers compensation. Watching this series will trigger parts of you who were forced physically or emotionally to be quietened. This docu series is powerful and eye opening to the corruption and hidden voices around the workplace and workers compensation. Thank you all who advocated your voice for the rest of us who can't.
Adian Jackson