⚔️Privacy as a Weapon

WorkCover Queensland’s new “privacy” rule bars doctors from lodging claims for patients.

The result? If you’re in a coma or psychiatric ward, you lose your right to compensation.

Here’s why it’s not just cruel - it may be unlawful.

I’ve seen bureaucratic systems use policy to silence, delay, and deny justice. I’ve lived it. In 2021, I was told I had “no lawful entitlement” to my own personal employment file at my union employer.

Now, WorkCover is using that same logic to block access to injured workers - many of whom are too incapacitated to speak for themselves.

This isn’t about privacy. It’s about power.

As of this month, WorkCover Queensland has changed its approach: doctors are no longer allowed to submit Work Capacity Certificates on behalf of patients. Even in cases of serious illness or trauma, the patient must lodge the claim themselves.

This isn’t just a bureaucratic misstep, it’s a deliberate barrier.

It could mean that:

• A patient in a psychiatric facility misses their chance to lodge a claim

• A comatose worker has no one able to act on their behalf

• A traumatised individual is too unwell to navigate the process in time

And those workers? They’ll fall through the cracks.

This policy isn’t just negligent.

It may be unlawful, and it echoes the same tactics I’ve experienced firsthand. Institutions like WorkCover don’t need to shout to silence people. They use quiet, bureaucratic barriers - ones that disproportionately hurt the most vulnerable.

🔒 The rest of this exposé is for paid subscribers of The Reckoning Room.

Here’s what this policy really means, what laws it may be breaching, and why we can’t afford to let it slide.

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