Something that was never sent to anyone, never emailed, never messaged, handed over in a private moment of trust to someone I considered a friend, became the instrument of my removal from a government job.

I did what the speak-up posters at the Department of Internal Affairs office were asking everyone to do. I sent an email to Paul James reporting bullying. Within 30 minutes, the institution showed me exactly what that was worth.

What does it take to get a manager role in the New Zealand public sector without interviewing for it? Apparently, knowing the right person. This is the story of Lisa Gibson, and the questions her appointment raises about how your tax dollars are being managed.

Richard Ashworth was the General Manager. He chose me for the role. And he was the one person in my entire experience at Department of Internal Affairs I genuinely believed to be honest. This is the story of what he chose not to see.

75 percent of people who experience workplace harassment never report it. I was one of them. This is why.

He filed a formal privacy complaint against me for disclosing his health condition.

He had posted it himself, under his own name, on a public website, in 2011.

It is still there.

For six months, I continued working alongside the people I had raised formal complaints about, with no meaningful intervention from my employer, while my health deteriorated visibly.

HR declined to accept my formal complaints about two colleagues. But when my manager produced a private diary note I had shared with him in confidence, they acted within days.

That contrast is the story.