Dear Australia….
Workplace safety is critical, yet when something goes wrong, injured workers are often marginalized, punished for accidents that aren't their fault. The system known as Workers' Compensation is meant to be no fault to encourage healing and return to work quickly. But is it? Unjust treatment for those injured has persistied for decades, and disproportionately affects women. They face additional discrimination and economic abuse in the workers' compensation system, which should be about healing, not harming.
Workers' compensation must prioritize equity and family support over politics and profit. My family has endured the cruelty of this system for four generations, starting with my grandfather, who left behind a young widow and four children just days after WW2 was declared. Almost a century later, my story highlights systemic abuse and the fear faced by those who dare to speak out. We now have new laws about psychosocial hazards. We need to coach people and teach them what these hazards actually looks like in real world situations. Shattered hopefully shows you direct lived and living examples of this.
No one should fear speaking up.We must end violence against women in systems designed to help and we must stop economically abusing the vulnerable to profit for a finance system pretending to be health. Will you join me in this fight?
Launching Soon
Episode 1: Insurance System Abuse Stops With Me
Kathie's own story tells of her family's struggle with Workers' Compensation spans four generations, beginning with her grandfather's tragic death in a quarry cave-in in September 1939, just days before WW2 was declared. This event plunged his young immigrant partner and four children into dire poverty after barely surviving the Great Depression. Nearly a century later, Kathie exposes the enduring trauma and systemic failures through her own powerful story of gendered abuse and harassment that continued from a workplace into a system.
Described by one Return To Work Co-Ordinator as 'the most appalling of all the stories I have heard arising from working in 4 different workers compensation jurisdictions over 35 years'
Shattered Faith: Morally Injured Lives
In the depths of Australia's broken Workers' Compensation system, a voice emerges from the most unexpected place - a woman grappling with her own crisis of faith. It stops with me, it stops with us is the story of how Ballina Gee and Kathie Melocco set out to unravel 100 years of a system that has harmed generations of people who all they did was get injured at work.
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The Shattering
What began as a workplace injury plunged Kathie into a devastating spiral of systemic abuse. After SafeWork issued Improvement Notices for missing bullying policies, her employer responded not by protecting her, but by creating anti-bullying modules while allowing technology-enabled harassment to drive her from her home. Despite known threats of violence against her, the insurer failed to intervene.
The system's catastrophic failures mounted: icare's five-year delay in issuing an employer liability letter enabled ongoing abuse, excused by a regulator claiming there was "no legislative requirement" to inform employers of their reinstated claims despite issuing premium updates.
The cruelty reached its peak during Kathie's chemotherapy treatments for breast cancer, where she endured her employer's targeted trauma inducing healthcare advertising—even after her mother's desperate pleas to remove it. In a bitter irony, icare staff later sought out Kathie's support as a Chaplain for their own distress following the 2020 scandal that toppled their leadership—while she was still fighting the very system that had shattered her.
The Dark Night
In the midst of her struggle, Kathie discovered a calling. Retraining as a workplace chaplain supported by the return to work SIRA retraining program.
Kathie connected with other people each bearing their own scars from their own battles with the Workers' Compensation system. Each with their own struggles and ultimately rage at what they and their families had been subjected to.. Their stories mirrored her own - tales of bureaucratic cruelty, financial ruin, and profound emotional trauma.
As Kathie delved deeper into their experiences, she uncovered a chilling truth and pattern: the system's failure wasn't an oversight. It was by design. The realization shook her to her core, challenging everything she thought she knew about justice and compassion.
The Revelation
In the darkest moments of doubt, when the weight of injustice threatened to extinguish her last embers of hope, Kathie made a profound discovery. The very crisis that had shattered her faith was now forging it anew, stronger and more resilient than ever.
She realized that her journey - spanning four generations of her family, from her grandfather's tragic death in a quarry to her own harrowing experiences - had prepared her for this moment. The system hadn't just failed her; it had failed thousands.
The Dawn
Kathie's mission is clear: to expose the deliberate harm inflicted by a broken system and to fight for the dignity and rights of every injured worker and their family.
The journey continues, but now, with every step, Kathie walks not just as a survivor, but as a voice demanding an end to the cruelty of this system.
