Page 3751 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 19 September 2018
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been destroyed by the very people whose professional and personal standing Minister Fitzharris wants to protect.
I wonder what Minister Fitzharris would say to staff who have taken sick leave because of the workplace culture at ACT Health, because of the “can’t do” or “won’t do” process-driven attitude of bureaucracy. I wonder what Minister Fitzharris would say to the families of those who have attempted or even committed suicide because of the treatment that they have endured from the very people that she wishes to protect. Minister Fitzharris brushes off the claims of bullying, intimidation and harassment in ACT Health. She says that there are safe and respectful pathways in place to deal with these issues.
Last time I spoke in this place, I told the story of Charlie. Let me tell you the story of another ACT employee. I will call him Frank. He told me his story over a cup of tea, in 2½ hours, with my senior adviser and his partner earlier this week. Frank is no precious petal. In a past job, Frank, as a leader of others, bravely stared down situations that threatened his very life. He led people in those circumstances. Death was always a risk. Death would not have come as a surprise. He leads a team in ACT Health now. He has developed a strong team culture, one that will work, with a good work ethic that gets things done.
He does not get support from his superiors. He is probably better qualified than some of his superiors, and that may be part of Frank’s problem. His superiors assert their authority in the most destructive way, to the point where Frank and others in his team have submitted complaints. Instead of addressing these issues, these complaints served only to intensify the bullying, intimidation and harassment coming from management.
It was not just from Frank’s immediate boss; it came from all directions in the senior management team. It was like a vitriolic gang, relentlessly wearing Frank and others down. He has been performance managed, summoned to no-notice performance meetings where voice recordings have been taken without his knowledge. He has been belittled in front of the team that he manages. Management has even told Frank’s team that he is on the way out.
Frank’s managers have even taken advantage of his trust and faith in the system by not writing things down and then denying that they ever said anything about the agreements and commitments that they had made to him. He has been shut down when he has discovered issues that his managers think are either too hard or too expensive to fix. These include issues that go to the safety of staff, patients and visitors to the Canberra Hospital.
Frank is currently on leave for a short time, a matter of weeks. Immediately he went on leave, his managers invited expressions of interest from other employees to act in his role. Temporary positions are usually not put up for acting arrangements unless they are somewhere between three and six months duration. This is not the sort of leave that Frank has taken, and this is clearly intimidatory.
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