The Under Belly Of Telstra 

On 29 October 1993, two weeks before Casualties of Telstra (COT spokesperson), Graham Schorer and I signed our two Fast Track Settlement Proposals (FTSP), which Telstra (the defendants), the then assessor and administrator to the (FTSP) forced the four claimants including me to abandon and sign Telstra's highly legalistic arbitration agreements on 21 April 1994, we asked all parties if we could have our fax lines checked for security purposes. All parties agreed. Two weeks before all parties agreed to this fax testing process, Graham Schorer, at his Melbourne Golden Messenger Courier Service and me at my business, Cape Bridgewater holiday camp, had had problems sending faxes between our respective offices. This Telstra internal FOI document, K01489, confirms that while Telstra was testing my Mitsubishi fax machine (using the COT spokesperson's office as the testing base), they noted:

‘During testing the Mitsubishi fax machine some alarming patterns of behaviour was noted”. This document further goes on to state: “…Even on calls that were tampered with the fax machine displayed signs of locking up and behaving in a manner not in accordance with the relevant CCITT Group fax rules. Even if the page was sent upside down the time and date and company name should have still appeared on the top of the page, it wasn’t’

During a received call the machine failed to respond at the end of the page even though it had received the entire page (sample #3) The Mitsubishi fax machine remained in the locked up state for a further 2 minutes after the call had terminated, eventually advancing the page out of the machine. (See See AFP Evidence File No 9)

This faxing information, dated 29 October 1993, does not coincide with Telstra's Grant Campbell's statement to Telstra on 9 February 1994 that my January and February 1994 faxing problems were new problems (Refer to the Grant Campbell segment below).

A letter dated 2 March 1994 from Telstra’s Corporate Solicitor, Ian Row, to Detective Superintendent Jeff Penrose (refer to Home Page Part-One File No/9-A to 9-C) strongly indicates that Mr. Penrose was grievously misled and deceived about the faxing problems discussed in the letter. Over the years, numerous individuals, including Mr Neil Jepson, Barrister at the Major Fraud Group Victoria Police, have rigorously compared the four exhibits labelled (File No/9-C) with the interception evidence revealed in Open Letter File No/12 and File No/13. They emphatically assert that if Ian Row had not misled the AFP regarding the faxing problems, then the AFP could have prevented Telstra from intercepting the relevant arbitration documents in March 1994, thus avoiding any damage to the COT arbitration claims. 

By February 1994, I was also assisting the Australian Federal Police (AFP) with their investigations into my claims of fax interceptions. Hacking-Julian Assanage File No 52 contains a letter from Telstra’s internal corporate solicitor to an AFP detective superintendent, misinforming the AFP concerning the transmission fax testing process. The rest of the file shows that Telstra experienced major problems when testing my facsimile machine in conjunction with one installed at Graham’s office.

It is important to highlight how skilfully Mr Row did not disclose to the AFP the problems Telstra had experienced when sending and receiving faxes between my machine and Graham’s fax machine.

Faxed COT arbitration-related documents screened and intercepted 

Fighting on two fronts 

Many of those within the Establishment said that it was unconstitutional to force the COT cases into an arbitration process with Telstra while the Australian Federal Police (AFP) were still investigating Telstra for alleged phone and fax hacking of the COT cases’ businesses and, furthermore, it was acknowledged that it was an unworkable process.  This didn’t stop the arbitrations, however, but it does raise several important questions:

1. How could two separate investigations into Telstra for allegedly unlawful conduct be undertaken by two organisations simultaneously, i.e., an arbitrator and the AFP? As far as we can find, this situation is unheard of in any other Western democracy.
2. While all the COT cases attempted to keep their individual small businesses going while their arbitrations continued, how could they be expected to submit a complex submission to an arbitrator while assisting the AFP with their investigations?
3. Who decided that this situation would be allowed to continue?

Not only was it grossly undemocratic for these small-business people to be put into such a situation, but these two investigations (the one run by the AFP and the arbitrations themselves) were being run concurrently. While these two investigations were being run concurrently, the Commonwealth Ombudsman was also investigating Telstra for acting unlawfully and outside of the Freedom of Information Act (FOI Act, 1984), for NOT supplying the COT cases with our promised FOI documents we needed to support our claims. That investigation started before the COTs signed their arbitrations and continued for five years.

How have many other Australian arbitration processes been subjected to this type of hacking? Is electronic eavesdropping and hacking into in-confidence documentation still happening today during legitimate Australian arbitration?

QUESTIONS ON NOTICE: On 15 February 1994, during my settlement /arbitration process, Senator Richard Alston (Shadow Minister for Communications) put many questions to the Senate Estimates Committee, On Notice, to be answered by Telstra. These are the questions most pertinent to the COT claimants (see Main Evidence File No/29 QUESTIONS ON NOTICE):

1. Could you guarantee that no Parliamentarians who have had dealings with ‘COT’ members have had their phone conversations bugged or taped by Telstra?
2. Who authorised this taping of ‘COT’ members’ phone conversations and how many and which Telstra employees were involved in either making the voice recordings, transcribing the recordings or analysing the tapes?
3. On what basis is Telstra denying copies of tapes to those customers which it has admitted to taping?
4. (A) How many customers has Telstra recorded as having had their phone conversations taped without knowledge or consent since 1990? (B) Of these, how many were customers who had compensation claims, including ex Telecom employees, against Telecom?
5. Why did Telecom breach its own privacy guide-lines and how will it ensure that the revised guidelines will not be open to similar breaches or abuses?
6. Could you explain why a large amount of documents accessed by customers under FOI have a large amount of information deleted, including the names of Telecom employees who wrote and received memos and documents?
7. How many customers who have alleged that Telecom has tapped or bugged their phones without their consent or knowledge are the Australian Federal Police currently investigating?

The response to Question 5 (see Main Evidence File No/29) notes, “…These matters are currently being investigated by the AFP and AUSTEL, and by Telecom;"

It would be inappropriate for Telecom to make any further comments at this stage about possible breaches of the Telecommunications (Interception) Act while the matter is before the Federal Police. However, the Minister will be making a full statement in the near future on action taken to date to remedy apparent procedural problems within Telecom”.

Telstra’s claim (when referring to Question 5 On Notice) that it would be inappropriate for them to comment on these phone interception issues whilst the AFP was still investigating these matters is, in itself, the normal and expected comment that Telstra lawyers would have ensured that Telstra would make, under those circumstances.  No other form of interception investigation by any other authority should have taken place whilst the AFP were still investigating these breaches of privacy issues because that might well have undermined the AFP process.

 

 

Who Paid Grant Campbell?

10^th January 1994: This TIO document (File 56-B - Open Letter File No/56-A to 56-D) confirms that Grant Campbell was handling my related FTSP and (Ferrier Hodgson Corporate Advisory) the TIO-appointed Resource Unit correspondence to Telstra on behalf of the TIO.

I was never informed before his arbitration that Grant Campbell had been seconded from Telstra or that he had defected back to Telstra within twelve months. The following exhibits confirm that an unhealthy relationship between the TIO office and Telstra certainly existed during Alan's arbitration period.

Interestingly, the 1993/94 TIO Annual Report does not list Mr Campbell as having worked for the TIO office, even though Mr Campbell held a senior managerial position with the TIO office. Please consider the following points:

1. TIO documents dated 9 February 1994 (File 55-B Open Letter File No/56-A to 56-D  confirm that Grant Campbell was signing letters on behalf of Warwick Smith, particularly regarding the fax billing and lock-up complaints included in my FTSP claims.
2. Telstra FOI documents H00027 H36279, and H36280 (File 56 GOpen Letter File No/56-A to 56-D) confirm that, in January and February 1995, Grant Campbell and Ted Benjamin were addressing the same types of 008/1800 billing issues on behalf of Telstra’s Customer Response Unit. This is the same Unit that Ted Benjamin headed when he wrote to Dr Hughes on 16^th December 1994 to confirm that Telstra had advised AUSTEL, in writing, that they would address my 008/1800 billing issues as part of their defence of his claim, as per the arbitration agreement. I have always been concerned about Grant Campbell’s handling of my 008/1800 arbitration materials that went through the TIO’s office in 1994.

During the early stages of the COT arbitration process, the COT claimants were told that Pia Di Mattina had been seconded from Minter Ellison by the TIO to assist him in the COT Arbitration Process. Miss Di Mattina’s name, understandably, does not appear in the TIO 1993/94 employee list that is included in the 1993/94 Annual Report (the report can be supplied on request). However, all the other TIO employees are listed there, it is also interesting to note that Grant Campbell’s name is not included on the employee list either, even though he dealt with a number of the billing issues during Alan Smith’s arbitration, as well as accepting part of Alan Smith’s original FTSP claim lodged with the TIO office on 27^th January 1994.

This Telstra internal email FOI folio 000973 (AS 542-E) notes:

"The ex-employee’s name is Grant Campbell. Grant then worked as the Deputy Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman and then on a senior management review team".

On 9 February 1994, Mr Campbell wrote to Telstra’s Fiona Hills, under the heading Loss of Fax Capacity, noting:

"I spoke with Alan Smith on the 9 instant following our discussion on the 8 instant. He has agreed that this is a new matter and may indicate some ongoing problems, but it is not a matter that relates directly to the preparation of his material to be presented to the Assessor".

Mr Campbell’s statement to Fiona Hills that “He  has agreed that this is a new matter” does not match the information in (AS 767-A, 768, 769, 770, 771, and AS 772-A) which confirms that local (Portland) Telstra technicians were aware of the significant problems associated with the faxing capacity issue, at least as far back as October 1993. Mr Campbell’s correspondence was, therefore, clearly misleading fellow Telstra employees and, possibly, Warwick Smith about the ongoing problems. This adds even further weight to my claims that there needs to be a transparent investigation into the TIO-administered COT arbitrations.

It is fantastic enough to find that Grant Campbell was seconded from the employment of the defendants during the COT arbitrations. Still, it is even more amazing to learn that, while he was wearing his TIO hat, he was also working on 1800 problem claims lodged by another COT claimant, but, in this instance, he was wearing his Telstra hat!  These two different ‘hats’ must lead directly to an understanding that no one may ever know how many claim documents the COT cases sent to the TIO’s office while Grant Campbell was wearing his TIO hat but being paid by Telstra.

We may never uncover how many arbitration procedural documents never reached the viewing room that the TIO-appointed, secretly absolved-from-risk arbitration Resource Unit appeared to have access to.

We have raised the issue of this Grant Campbell fax capacity issue here because Dr Hughes’ technical Resource Unit never provided me with the results of their investigations into the lost faxes, even though it cost me well over $300,000.00 to participate in the arbitration process; and even though clause 11 in the official Arbitration Agreement notes: '

The Arbitrator's reasons will be set out in full in writing and referred to in the Arbitrators award, the lost fax issues were not referred to: 'in full in writing' in the Arbitrators award.

Like Grant Campbell, Warwick Smith and his appointed Arbitration Technical Resource Unit appear to have misunderstood the significance of the 008/1800 problem because they failed to alert Dr Hughes that the 008/1800 service I used was routed through his main service line, 055 267 267, the line that one of the two faulty EXICOM phones was connected to – the phone that was prone to lock-up after each terminated call. In other words, when the Resource Unit advised John Pinnock (TIO) on 15 November 1995, and Dr Hughes on 2 August 1996 (AS 220), that Alan’s 008/1800 billing claims were not addressed, they were also admitting to not investigating or addressing my main service line 055 267 267.

Was there a more sinister motive behind the decision to ignore my billing claims, the same 008/1800 billing faults that Telstra’s Grant Campbell investigated while working with the TIO (on secondment from Telstra) and then worked on again later after he went back to Telstra to work alongside TIO Council Member Ted Benjamin?

Did Ted Benjamin's relationship with Telstra and the TIO Council have anything to do with his later relationship with Grant Campbell? There appears to be NO doubt that this particular issue – of Grant Campbell addressing 008/1800 problems on behalf of the TIO and then on behalf of Telstra, all during Alan’s arbitration – created a massive conflict of interest.

Could it be that, when I told Mr Campbell that he needed all the documents related to his earlier settlement, from before December 1992, so he could show how undemocratic this 1992 settlement process was, Mr Campbell then passed that information straight on to Telstra, thereby effectively alerting Telstra to which documents they could ‘lose’ because it was relevant to my case?  It is also interesting to connect this issue to a letter from Telstra on 11 November 1994 from the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s Office, asking why the earlier settlement material I requested under FOI had still not been supplied to him.