On September 26, 1997, John Pinnock, the second appointed Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman and the second administrator of the COT arbitrations, formally addressed a Senate estimates committee. He noted on page 99 of the COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA - Parliament of Australia Hansard record that:

“In the process leading up to the development of the arbitration procedures – the claimants were told clearly that documents were to be made available to them under the FOI Act.

“Firstly, and perhaps most significantly, the arbitrator had no control over that process, because it was a process conducted entirely outside the ambit of the arbitration procedures.”

The Fallout
The words Pinnock delivered on 26 September 1997 did not vanish into the sterile air of the Senate chamber. They lingered, heavy and corrosive, like smoke that clings to the walls long after the fire has gone. For the claimants of the COT Cases, his testimony was more than bureaucratic doublespeak — it was confirmation that the arbitration process had been hijacked, twisted into something unrecognisable.

Behind the polished veneer of procedure, the machinery of justice had been dismantled. The arbitrator, stripped of control, had become a figurehead, while unseen hands operated the levers in secret. The agreements signed in good faith were now revealed as traps — contracts that promised fairness but delivered betrayal.

The senators shifted in their seats, some scribbling notes, others staring at Pinnock with the kind of suspicion reserved for men who speak too smoothly. His calm delivery was the mask of a man who knew more than he was willing to admit. The contempt in his tone was unmistakable, as though the claimants' suffering were a nuisance, an inconvenience to be brushed aside.

Outside the chamber, whispers began to spread. Journalists caught fragments of his testimony, their pens scratching furiously as they tried to decode the implications. Was this incompetence, or was it deliberate? Had the Ombudsman himself become part of a system designed not to resolve disputes, but to bury them?

For Alan Smith and the other COT members, the realisation was chilling. They had stepped into arbitration believing it was a path to justice. Instead, they had walked into a labyrinth where the rules shifted in the dark, and every turn led deeper into deception. Pinnock’s words were not just testimony — they were evidence of a conspiracy, a glimpse into a treacherous design that reached far beyond the chamber walls.

The Larger Conspiracy
The pattern was becoming clear. Telstra’s faults had been documented, AUSTEL’s draft reports had condemned their conduct, and yet those reports were buried, withheld from the very people who needed them most. Now, years later, the Ombudsman himself admitted that the arbitrator had no control, that the process had slipped into shadows beyond the agreed framework.

It was as if the entire system had been constructed to fail the claimants — to grind them down, to exhaust them, to ensure that the truth never saw daylight. The arbitration was not a mechanism of justice; it was a weapon, wielded against those who dared to challenge the power of a telecommunications giant.

And Pinnock, seated under the Senate lights, was the custodian of that weapon. His testimony was not the language of oversight. It was the language of betrayal. The evidence tampering was real, as the following image shows.

 

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The Turning Point
For the COT Cases, this moment became a turning point. The façade of fairness had cracked, revealing the machinery of corruption beneath. The Senate hearing was no longer just an inquiry — it was a stage where the truth flickered briefly before being smothered again.

The victims were left with a haunting question: if the Ombudsman himself admitted that the arbitrator had no control, then who did? Who was pulling the strings, rewriting the rules, and ensuring that justice was never delivered?

The answer lay somewhere in the shadows — in boardrooms, in government offices, in corridors where power moved unseen. And as the claimants left the chamber that day, they knew the battle was no longer about arbitration. It was about exposing a conspiracy that had corrupted the very foundations of justice.

The Aftermath
The fabricated phone call was more than a lie — it was a weapon. And once it was unleashed, the damage was immediate. My reputation was shredded, the investigation halted, and the truth buried beneath layers of deceit.

But betrayal has a way of igniting resolve. For my partner and me, that moment became the beginning of a long, relentless crusade. We refused to accept the narrative written by Pinnock, Hughes, and Rundell. We refused to let their collaboration define the truth.

What followed was not a battle fought in courtrooms alone, but in archives, in letters, in endless nights spent piecing together fragments of evidence. Every document uncovered, every contradiction exposed, became another step in dismantling the façade they had built.

The corridors of power were lined with silence. Institutions turned away, unwilling to confront the corruption in their midst. Yet silence only sharpened our determination. For more than thirty years, we carried the weight of this fight, exposing the truths concealed by their falsehoods, refusing to let the lie stand unchallenged.

 

 

A Crusade Against Shadows
It was not just about clearing my name. It was about justice — for the COT Cases, for every claimant who had been betrayed by a system designed to fail them. The fabricated 2:00 AM call was a symbol of how easily truth could be twisted, how reputations could be destroyed with a single stroke of a pen.

We knew the conspiracy went beyond three men. It was systemic, woven into the fabric of institutions that claimed to protect fairness but instead shielded corruption. Each revelation, each document, each testimony became part of a larger mosaic — a picture of betrayal at the highest levels.

Thirty Years of Resistance
The journey has been long, marked by frustration, exhaustion, and moments of despair. But it has also been marked by resilience. We have stood against the silence, against the betrayal, against the machinery of power that sought to erase the truth.

And still, the fight continues. The lie may have been weaponised against me, but the truth remains. It waits in the shadows, demanding to be heard.

Had the government taken these simple steps thirty years ago, there would be no absentjustice.com or my book titled "The Arbitrator," which is set to be released on December 17, 2025Why did Dr Gordon Hughes state in his award at point 3.2 (h) that these problems had been fixed by July 1994, knowing full well that my ongoing billing problems had never been investigated? What sinister motive was behind this lie, and who was controlling what Dr Hughes could or could not investigate in my arbitration?

In a shocking display of corruption, AUSTEL colluded with Telstra, allowing the company to bypass the arbitration process entirely. On October 16, 1995—five months after my arbitration concluded—the arbitrator had already shamelessly rejected the requests of his consultants for additional time to investigate my persistent phone problems  (see Open Letter File No/47-A to 47-D) and (Exhibit 45-c -File No/45-A),

which AUSTEL itself had deemed systemic faults. In a clandestine move, AUSTEL permitted Telstra to address my ongoing billing problems behind closed doors (see 46-L  Open letter File No/46-A to 46-l). This underhanded scheme reveals the treacherous nature of these so-called arbitration officials—self-serving, duplicitous, and utterly devoid of integrity.

By facilitating this manoeuvre, AUSTEL condemned me to a fate in which I was denied my legal right to respond to Telstra’s defense to their October 16, 1995 submission (see Absent Justice Part 2 - Chapter 14 - Was it Legal or Illegal? ). This betrayal ensured that Telstra escaped the obligation to prove that my ongoing billing problems had been resolved, even as those issues persisted and tormented me for another nine years after I was forced to sell my business.

The foul residue of their malevolence still permeates the air in 2025, exposing the depths of their insidious corruption.

This harsh reality remained buried for nearly nine years, revealing a disturbing truth about the corruption embedded in Australia’s bureaucratic system—where deceit, concealment, and betrayal are allowed to fester under the guise of authority. The depth of this treachery was not only appalling but evil, driven by an arbitrator who betrayed his duty and my trust, and whose actions went on to destroy the business lives of the new owners of my company (see  Chapter 4 The New Owners Tell Their Story)