Comcare hires employees who do not understand how consent works [Part 1]

In early December 2023, I got some strange emails from a Comcare employee using the alias "Position No. 01 076". This government employee is afraid to use their name while conducting their duties as a public servant, and has to hide behind an alias. I pondered on this, what could be the reason for this government employee to hide their identity when using their powers? And then suddenly it smacked me in the face, the most obvious reason is that they could possibly be a sex offender, thus the need to keep their identity disclosed.

Who is the Comcare employee using the alias "Position No. 01 076"?

Good question, and one I have explored previously in this post. If someone put a gun to my head today and asked me to choose the correct name for the Comcare employee using the alias "Position No. 01 076", the only name I could supply would be Vesna Vasic (Alizzi), as the only information I have points to her as being the Comcare employee using that alias. It would be remiss of me to supply any other name based on the information supplied to me to date.

Why do I think "Position No. 01 076", along with other Comcare employees, could possibly be sex offenders?

One word: Consent

It is clear to me that a number of Comcare employees, including 01 076, do not understand how consent works. Therefore, it is possible that they may be applying this flawed version of consent to more than just what they are doing in the workplace. If you have non-consensual sex, you are a sex offender.

Let's look at the first email I received in early December 2023

As you can see above, I was issued an email advising me about a medical examination that Comcare was requiring me to attend under Section 57 of the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 (SRC Act).

The act of sending me to a medical examination under Section 57, in this case, is non-controversial. It is a relatively normal thing for Comcare to undertake periodic reviews of an injury, to ascertain that you are, in fact, still injured, and this is entirely reasonable for Comcare to do. But in this case, given there were some other illegal things that had just occurred on my claim (another story), combined with the fact that the previous Dr was not being used, which is against Comcare's own policy, I had the suspicion that the (alleged) Comcare delegate was doctor shopping. I have now confirmed this suspicion to be a fact.

I noticed that the Comcare employee was demanding that I provide my consent... So the obvious had to be asked here... what if I don't want to provide my consent? I get that I am required to attend a medical examination under Section 57, but if I am required to attend an examination, why ask me for my consent to collect my information? Simply take the information from me if you have the legal means to do so. And this is where things appear to get tricky.

I replied with questions such as "how can you require me to provide consent, because consent cannot be required?".

Here is the email I got in response a week later.

This email left me with more questions than answers... apparently my questions surrounding how I could be required to provide consent were supplied to the privacy team for answers, but they never responded to me in time for me to meet that deadline, 13/12/23 (and when they did respond they bundled all my questions into one response and avoided answering questions that they didn't want to answer, this is typical behaviour for these crooks), so I was required to make a decision regarding consent without being properly informed anyway, which is itself illegal as I'll show later on. Also, their response when I did get it was basically (words to the effect of) "We are the government and we can do whatever we want". It was a nonsense response.

This email also introduces the concept of having a "reasonable excuse" for not providing consent... How does one provide a "reasonable excuse" for not providing consent? I provide consent, or I do not provide consent. I do not need to have any excuse, let alone a "reasonable" one. And it also introduces the threat of my claim being suspended if I did not have a "reasonable excuse" for not providing my consent...

Comcare is demanding I provide my consent, and if I do not, I better have a "reasonable excuse". I asked Comcare what is considered a "reasonable excuse" for not providing consent, I never got an answer.

The whole thing didn't feel right to me. Flogging consent out of me seemed inappropriate. What is the point to demand I provide consent for them to take my information? Surely if I am required to provide my information, they will just take the information from me without asking for my consent? There is absolutely no purpose in asking me for consent if I must provide it... it is an entirely illogical construct.

Before I delve into it further, below is a really high level/brief summary of the situation that occurred, and I hope it helps highlight the obvious issues here.

Comcare: Give us your consent.

Me: What if I don't want to give you my consent?

Comcare: Give us your consent or we will suspend your claim!

Me: NO, I DON'T WANT TO, I DO NOT CONSENT! YOU WILL NOT THREATEN ME INTO CONSENTING, THAT SEEMS ILLEGAL!

Comcare: You must consent! Consent, or be suspended!

Me: What do you mean I must consent? Why ask me for my consent if I must consent? What purpose is there to ask me if I provide consent, if I must provide it? The whole process of seeking consent from me serves no purpose if I am required to provide it... Just take the information from me without my consent... don't ask me if I provide it voluntarily, I do not.

Me: Look, OAIC states that consent must be voluntary, and you are clearly in breach of the Privacy Act 1988 in demanding my consent! How can you say my consent is voluntary if you are forcing it from me?

Comcare: We are the government, therefore we can do whatever we want. We want your consent, so you will provide it. The Privacy Act 1988 can't stop us from doing whatever we want to do!

Me: What's the point of having a Privacy Act that gives us privacy from the government, if the government can just ignore the Privacy Act as soon as it becomes inconvenient? You must realise that this is not logical what you are saying, surely? You can't just decide to throw the Privacy Act 1988 in the bin because you don't like it!

Me: Over my dead body will you force me to provide consent, it's not going to happen. Consent is supposed to be consensual, this is not consensual. There is nothing consensual about flogging consent out of me... If the law says you have a right to take my information, then take my information. But don't ask me if I want to give you my information, because my answer is, and forever will be, no. I do what the law requires me to do, no more, and no less. And the law does not require me to provide my consent, how can it? It's not possible for that to occur.

Comcare: You did not consent, so we have now suspended your claim.

Me: But the law doesn't say I am required to consent, and you haven't shown me anything that says I must consent, and I have provided you with a ton of information from OAIC which shows that consent must be voluntary.

Comcare: You did not consent, we cancelled the appointment, your claim is suspended, Sincerely, Comcare delegate Position No. 01 076.

Greg Vines (Comcare CEO): Oh and by the way, we're calling the police to your home and we're referring you to the eSafety Commissioner because we don't like your blog posts, and we're no longer going to communicate with you until February 2024.

The above timeline thingy (not sure how else to describe it) is a fair summary of the situation as it occurred. In essence, Comcare tried to demand that I provide my consent, I didn't feel like consent is something that can be demanded (I can't go around demanding that people consent for me to have sex with them can I?) and as such, I did not feel like Comcare was doing the right thing here.

I have heard from other Comcare claimants, who like myself, have their claim funnelled through Catherine Chan, and they too were told they are not allowed to communicate with Comcare until February 2024. It seems I am not unique in this case. I would suggest what has happened is Catherine Chan is on leave until February, and so they have put these measures on our claim to allow Catherine Chan to have a holiday, and nobody else is allowed to deal with our claim in the meanwhile. Total corruption, Catherine Chan is entitled to a holiday of course, but our claim should be managed by someone else in the interim, not a complete communication restriction put on our claim until she returns...

And before this went down, I actually did do my research to check if my gut feeling was correct, and it was.

We are dealing with Sensitive Information as it is defined by the Privacy Act 1988. To save time and me repeating myself, to learn more about consent and how it is required for Sensitive Information you can check out my previous post about it.

In a nutshell, OAIC states

Given that it was entirely obvious that my consent was not voluntary, given that I was being threatened with a claim suspension if I did not provide it, I asked Comcare to explain to me how my consent could be considered valid? I did not receive a response before the deadline to provide my consent on 13/12/23.

What I ultimately decided to do is provide my consent, however on the consent form, I decided to state the facts of the situation. Here is the consent form that I provided

I made it very clear on the form that I was providing my consent under duress (threat of a claim suspension), it was not my choice to voluntarily supply my consent. This is true facts that I wrote on the form. I also said in the email as I sent it, that consent obtained involuntary is not lawful consent, and I would sue anyone who used this as consent, because it is clearly and obviously provided involuntary.

mlcoa shit the gear at this point, they (rightly) refused to accept my consent, because as I have demonstrated previously, consent obtained involuntary is not lawfully obtained consent. But do you think that stops Comcare? Nope. The law is not an impediment for Comcare.

Comcare has clearly been told by mlcoa that my consent is unlawful, and Comcare's behaviour is to double down and require that I withhold my truths from the form... There can be no mistaking what occurred here, Comcare demanded that I hide the fact that I am providing my consent under duress, to enable mlcoa to "turn a blind eye" and pretend that my consent was voluntary!

I thought to myself, how can I comply with Comcare's request, but still alert mlcoa that I was under duress and being forced to provide my consent, making sure that the form couldn't be considered valid by people who are obviously willing to engage in corruption and pretend I am not under duress, without annotations or commentary on the form this time?

I utilised 3 methods to achieve this, firstly, to make it extremely overt to mlcoa that I was under duress, I used the file name of the PDF to signal that I was under duress

Secondly, I stamped a statement in the PDF metadata that signalled I was under duress. This was so that if mlcoa still used my consent, I could show that my consent was supplied under duress, when produced with Comcare's email above dictating that I must not make annotations or commentary on the form.

Thirdly, I did a SHA256 checksum/fingerprint of the PDF file, and I supplied it in the email with the file, so if anyone tried to alter it, I could show it had been altered.

I also said in the email to mlcoa and Comcare as I supplied the form, if I have told you I am providing consent under duress, how can you consider this to be any less under duress? And again, I told them that I will sue anyone using this as consent.

mlcoa again refused to accept my consent, Comcare dummy spat, my claim is suspended, they sent the police to my house to try and intimidate me to take down this blog, blah blah blah, and here we are today.

I hope you can see how I could consider that Comcare employee Position No. 01 076 may possibly be a sex offender, it is clear that they do not know what consent is, as they tried to force me to provide my consent, withhold certain information, and request that mlcoa "turn a blind eye" to the fact I was literally telling them that my consent was not voluntary... This is not ok. This behaviour by both Comcare and mlcoa is not ok, is everyone really going to pretend that this behaviour from Commonwealth employees especially, is acceptable? They tried to hide facts, they tried to dishonestly collude so they could "turn a blind eye" and pretend that my consent was obtained voluntarily.

Also I'll say it again, given that everything to do with my claim goes through, and is vetted by the Statutory Oversight team, this means that Catherine Chan and/or Liz Bell were aware this was occurring, and they obviously approved this behaviour to occur. This means that they may also, themselves, be sex offenders. This is not normal Commonwealth employee behaviour what is occurring here, and they know it. This is why they are hiding their identity and using the alias "Position No. 01 076", Comcare is quite clearly shielding the identity of these employees who are breaking the law, so that if anyone investigates, nobody can be pinpointed to be held accountable. Position number 01 076 is probably a transient position with no actual employee assigned to it. If I did this in my former workplace I would have been thrown out the door on my arse quicker than I could count to 5. But these people are allowed to do this bad behaviour why? Because it suits the government?

Complaint

I have made a complaint about it, I am aware nothing will come from my complaint (they will just tell me they can do whatever they want), I will then need to complain to OAIC, wait 6 months, only to be also told by them that nothing will be done about it.

Update

Comcare's response to my complaint is available for viewing here.