Final Plea

I want to live.

I have done nothing wrong.

I have been smeared and harassed at my workplace for well over a decade.

When the harassment began to threaten my students on a regular basis, I contacted the appropriate minister and demanded action, threatening to resign and tell my story if my issue wasn’t addressed. It wasn’t addressed.

Before I resigned, I sought and got expressions of interest from media. I collated the information surrounding my harassment, including compromising detail about myself so as to not have an investigation derailed through errata. I had timed my resignation to occur after a state election and well before a federal election so that I wouldn’t expose my students to the hysteria surrounding such. I had exhausted all other avenues of negotiation with my public service employer.

I felt that I was risking much through resignation, but I was to risk much by not resigning, having faced erroneous trumped up charges which had me labelled as disabled, and being the subject of further harassment which threatened to have me fired. I felt by exposing my harassment, which had emanated from sources unknown to me, I might be able to quickly find equivalent, possibly the same work quickly. Worst case scenario was that I might be forced overseas.

What happened following my resignation does not seem fair.

The media groups who had expressed an interest fobbed me off. I was advised my harassment issue was too old for the media to use. I approached a local newspaper, and they promised to investigate my claims. After about six weeks, the paper promised to run with the story. Meanwhile, the minister decided to reinvestigate, and so the paper decided to hold off the story.

Immediately upon resigning, I contacted Centerlink to claim for unemployment. I expected a waiting period. I had saved so as to wait 4 months, if I had to, but didn’t expect that issues would take that long to resolve. However, it has been five months, and still Centerlink have not processed my application. A major impediment being that I thought I was an Australian Citizen, but wasn’t, and I haven’t the paperwork to prove I am a permanent resident. I have Aboriginal ancestry (although I am not Aboriginal), but the department could not locate my Australian born parents on their database and insisted I get my birth certificate from NYC. It took 4 months to get my birth certificate from NYC.

Meanwhile, the minister again decided to not do anything, but gave me a contact that I might discuss my issue with. That contact was a named abuser of mine.

Then the local paper decided it wasn’t possible for them to run my story because their legal division wouldn’t allow them, claiming that it might be defamatory to report that I had resigned, having done nothing wrong, complaining of being harassed.

In desperation, I have approached another local paper. They have agreed to ‘look at the matter.’

I have lived frugally, and so I will survive for six months without income. However, come January, 2008, I will be broke. I will default on my home loan, and probably lose my unit, which is locate in the poorest suburb of Sydney. I have eaten through my equity, trying to get my story told. I have superannuation which could pay off my unit, but I cannot access that.

However, if I write a will, and name a worthy person, and then die by accident, that person will get a paid up unit and a few thousand left over. I am worth more dead than alive. And I never got to tell my story.

For the record, my complaint is related to having appropriately reported misconduct. A young Principal inflated the report into an allegation of paedophilia. The young Principal badmouthed me to staff and transferred me from the school. A subsequent investigation did not substantiate the charge of paedophilia, but the investigator contacted me to say I had acted appropriately, but they couldn’t put that in writing.

Meanwhile, I maintained an exemplary record of achievement at other schools, and was accepted as a tutor at a boarding school. An unfortunate meeting between the boarding school and my old school resulted in a souring of my perceived value. I was unfairly sacked from the boarding school. A year later, the boarding school, having ignored an issue I had raised with them, was the venue of an avoidable accident which resulted in the death of a boy. The public service department refused to discuss the illegal sacking with me, or communicate with me at all.

Then, my workplace supervisor, who may well have been cousin to my workplace supervisor at my old school, who had not had problems with my exemplary work before, began inflating complaints about me. I was referred to a unit to assess my fitness to teach, and was labelled ‘disabled with no special provision’ and allowed to continue teaching.

When my students began to lose marks for no other reason than that they were in my class, I decided I had to force the issue of my harassment. When a child was verbally assaulted for being in my class, or when it was suggested I was behind money disappearing, or documents disappearing, or when it was suggested I was behaving inappropriately with children, I decided I had to force the issue. When I was threatened with the sack for maintaining an online presence of 2.5 million words and images unrelated to my day job, I decided I had no other option but to force my issue into the open.

I want to live. It may be too late to report my issue for me ..
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a link to summation