Learn about horrendous crimes, unscrupulous criminals and corrupt politicians and lawyers who control the legal profession in Australia. Shameful, hideous, and treacherous are just a few words that describe these lawbreakers—government Corruption. Read about the corruption within the government bureaucracy that plagued the COT arbitrations. 

By hovering your mouse or cursor over the following images, you can learn more about the truth surrounding our casualties of Telstra story.

📘 Call for Justice

My name is Alan Smith. This is the story of my battle with a telecommunications giant and the Australian Government—a battle that has twisted and turned since 1992, winding through elected governments, government departments, regulatory bodies, the judiciary, and the Australian telecommunications giant, Telstra, or Telecom, as it was known when this story began. The quest for justice continues to this day.

My story began in 1987, when I decided that my life at sea—where I had spent the previous 28 years—was over. I needed a new land-based occupation to see me through to retirement and beyond.

Hospitality was my calling, and I had always dreamed of running a school holiday camp. Imagine my delight when I saw the Cape Bridgewater Holiday Camp and Convention Centre advertised for sale in The Age. It was nestled in rural Victoria, near the maritime port of Portland. Everything seemed perfect. I performed my due diligence to ensure the business was sound—or at least, all the due diligence I was aware of. Who would have guessed I needed to check whether the phones worked?

Within a week of taking over the business, I knew I had a problem. Customers and suppliers alike were telling me they couldn’t get through. Yes, that’s right—I had a business to run and a phone service that was, at best, unreliable, and at worst, not there. Of course, we lost business as a result.

And so, my saga begins. It has been a quest to get a working phone at the property. Along the way, I received some compensation for business losses and many promises that the problem was resolved. It never was. I sold the business in 2002, and subsequent owners have suffered the same fate.

Other independent businesspeople similarly affected by poor telecommunications joined me on this journey. We became known as the Casualties of Telecom—or the COT cases. All we ever wanted was for Telecom/Telstra to acknowledge our problems, rectify them, and compensate us for our losses. A working phone—is that too much to ask?

We initially called for a full Senate investigation into Telecom and these issues. Instead, we were offered an arbitration process. It seemed like a fair way to resolve the problem, so we accepted. At that early stage, we genuinely believed the technical faults would be addressed.

No such luck. Suspicions that something was deeply wrong with the arbitration process surfaced almost immediately. We had been promised access to the Telecom documents needed to make our case. Despite that promise, those documents were never provided. We still don’t have them.

Then came the discovery that our fax lines were being illegally tapped during arbitration. With the weight of the government against us, we lost.

Worse still, we were tricked into signing confidentiality clauses that have hampered our efforts ever since. I may be breaching those clauses by making this public—but what choice do I have?

We turned to Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to obtain the documents we were promised. We know the evidence exists—proof that our lines were faulty and improperly tested. But without access, justice remains out of reach.

So I ask you: Are we imagining this? Or has there truly been massive corruption and collusion among public servants, politicians, regulatory bodies, and Telstra itself—protecting Telstra at the expense of rural Australian businesses?

 📘 Whistleblowers: The Last Line of Defence Against Institutional Betrayal
 

The twelve chapters featured at the bottom of the Absent Justice homepage—ranging from Telstra-Corruption-Freehill-Hollingdale & Page to The Promised Documents Never Arrived—remain in draft form, pending final editing. Each chapter is supported by a series of exhibits, many of which were obtained through the Australian Freedom of Information Act (FOI Act) after years of effort. Together, they underpin the mini-stories on absentjustice.com, weaving a vivid tapestry of deception, injustice, and bureaucratic decay. While these chapters may eventually be archived, their purpose is enduring: to expose the systemic failures that corrupted the Casualties of Telstra (COT) arbitrations and to honour those who had the courage to speak out.

In their place, we shine a light on whistleblowers—those extraordinary individuals who risk everything to reveal truths buried beneath layers of institutional deceit. These are not mere informants; they are moral sentinels. Their courage is not born of ambition, but of conscience. They refuse to be complicit, choosing instead to confront injustice head-on.

Governments worldwide must recognise that democracy cannot survive without whistleblowers. History is unequivocal: from Watergate to WikiLeaks, from the COT Cases to the British Post Office scandal, it is whistleblowers who have pierced the veil of corruption and forced accountability.

 

📘  Was Julian Assange among them?

In 1994, three teenage hackers contacted Graham Schorer, COT spokesperson, warning that Telstra was acting illegally. Was Julian Assange among them? Their offer of critical arbitration files was declined—out of fear, mistrust, and bitter experience. The documents never came. The deception endured. Senate Hansard later confirmed Telstra’s misconduct. But the damage was done.

These hackers, like so many whistleblowers, were driven by a moral imperative. They saw injustice and chose action. Their motives transcended the breach of infrastructure—they sought to protect citizens from a rigged system. Their warnings, documented in statutory declarations and investigative reports, were tragically ignored.

Whistleblowers often face persecution, gaslighting, and retaliation. When I reported Telstra’s misconduct to the Australian Federal Police, I was penalised. Telstra carried out its threats. This is the cost of truth-telling in a system designed to protect the powerful.

The COT saga echoes the UK’s Post Office scandal, where sub-postmasters were misled, jailed, and driven to despair by a government-owned entity. Like Telstra, the Post Office promised transparency and delivered betrayal. Thirty years later, the COTs still await the documents that were meant to substantiate their claims.

Whistleblowers are our last line of defence. They illuminate transgressions that might otherwise go unnoticed. Their stories are not just warnings—they are blueprints for reform. We must protect them, amplify their voices, and learn from their sacrifices.
Let us stand together to honour whistleblowers—not as rebels, but as guardians of truth.

Would you like this formatted for your homepage, paired with audio narration, or broken into sections for a visual timeline? I can also help you build a companion piece comparing the COT revelations to other global whistleblower cases.

📘 The Infrastructure of Concealment

Until the late 1990s, I uncovered and exposed a disturbing nexus of corruption involving senior bureaucrats within the Australian government and the then-state-owned Telstra Telecommunications Carrier. This corruption extended into the ownership and operation of essential services, where public trust was routinely betrayed for private gain.

My efforts to bring this misconduct to light culminated in two Administrative Appeals Tribunal hearings—V2008/1836 and 2010/4634—where I presented evidence detailing how this entrenched corruption had sabotaged my 1994/1995 arbitration and the government-endorsed 2006 arbitration review process. These hearings were not just legal proceedings; they were platforms where I laid bare the systemic rot that had infected key institutions.

Ethical questions

🔥 Ericsson’s Global Bribery Scandal: The Corruption That Crushed the COT Cases
Ericsson, the company at the heart of my Portland exchange complaints, has admitted to a years-long campaign of corruption across five countries. The U.S. Department of Justice revealed that Ericsson used slush funds, bribes, and falsified records to secure telecom contracts—including in Australia, where they partnered with Telstra after Huawei was banned.
This wasn’t just corporate misconduct. It was a global operation of deceit, with Australia caught in its web.

🧠 The Breach Went Deeper: Lane, Ericsson, and the Data That Disappeared
My assertion that Lane Telecommunications was unfit to evaluate my arbitration claims—due to prior ties with Telstra—is echoed in broader concerns about conflict of interest. Lane was allowed to retain my Ericsson-related fault data even after Ericsson acquired them. This occurred despite my claims against Telstra for deploying known defective Ericsson AXE exchange equipment, which other nations were actively removing from their networks.

Telstra’s decision to rely on this equipment—while ignoring its global rejection—shows a blatant disregard for the integrity of our claims. These deficiencies were not minor. They were the very reason the COT Cases entered arbitration: to salvage businesses crippled by faulty infrastructure.

This disregard for our right to a functioning telephone service undermined the entire arbitration process. It wasn’t just flawed—it was corrupted.

🕳️ A Treacherous Web: Ericsson, Telstra, and the Theatre of Betrayal
The most sinister chapter of this saga lies buried in Australia—within the government-sanctioned arbitration proceedings that were supposed to deliver justice to the COT Cases.

Instead, those proceedings became a theatre of betrayal.

Ericsson, operating with impunity, acquired Lane Telecommunications Pty Ltd, the very firm appointed as the arbitration’s technical consultant. This covert acquisition—executed while Lane was actively evaluating Telstra’s use of Ericsson’s compromised AXE exchange equipment—was not just unethical. It was a deliberate infiltration of the justice process, a move so brazen it defies belief.

The AXE system was already discredited globally. Nations were ripping it from their exchanges. Yet Telstra and Ericsson clung to it, knowingly deploying defective infrastructure that crippled businesses like mine.

And while we fought for survival, Ericsson bought the witness—silencing scrutiny with a corporate handshake.

Despite Telstra’s arbitration unit swearing under oath in nine separate witness statements that they had no knowledge of faults in the AXE exchange that could impact my holiday camp business, the truth lies in two internal Telstra file notes. These documents reveal that Telstra was fully aware of the escalating severity of AXE faults, which worsened as more customers were connected to the Portland exchange.

⚠️ The Call for Reckoning
This manipulation of justice reveals a shocking disregard for transparency and accountability, leaving victims trapped in a labyrinth of institutional betrayal while the true architects of corruption remain shielded from scrutiny.

I call on the Australian government to expose the dark machinations that enabled Ericsson to infiltrate the arbitration process. The evidence is clear. The conflict is documented. The betrayal is undeniable.

“Our local technicians believe that Mr Smith is correct in raising complaints about incoming callers to his number receiving a Recorded Voice Announcement saying that the number is disconnected.

“They believe that it is a problem that is occurring in increasing numbers as more and more customers are connected to AXE.” (See False Witness Statement File No 3-A)

To further support my claims that Telstra already knew how severe my Ericsson Portland AXE telephone faults were, can best be viewed by reading Folios C04006, C04007 and C04008, headed TELECOM SECRET (see Front Page Part Two 2-B), which states:

“Legal position – Mr Smith’s service problems were network related and spanned a period of 3-4 years. Hence Telecom’s position of legal liability was covered by a number of different acts and regulations. … In my opinion Alan Smith’s case was not a good one to test Section 8 for any previous immunities – given his evidence and claims. I do not believe it would be in Telecom’s interest to have this case go to court.

“Overall, Mr Smith’s telephone service had suffered from a poor grade of network performance over a period of several years; with some difficulty to detect exchange problems in the last 8 months.”

Lane Telecommunications Pty Ltd, appointed as the technical consultant for the arbitration process, played a significant role in the case involving Ericsson, particularly given Ericsson's acquisition of the company during the COT arbitration proceedings. During this process, Lane Telecommunications reportedly communicated to the arbitrator that the AXE voice message had only been active for a mere fourteen days on my account. This claim, which significantly downplayed the actual duration of the service, served as the basis for the arbitrator's ruling, which awarded compensation solely for the limited fourteen days.

However, government records clearly indicate that the service in question lasted for several years, contradicting the assertion made by Lane Telecommunications. The misinformation presented not only reflects poorly on the credibility of the arbitration process but also highlights the severe repercussions faced by the COT Cases. The deliberate manipulation of facts and the alleged purchase of a witness by Ericsson from Australia have undermined the integrity of these proceedings and resulted in substantial financial losses for the COT Cases.

What’s more disturbing is the Australian government’s conspicuous silence. No inquiry. No accountability. Just a void where justice should have stood. The arbitrator and their advisors didn’t just fail us—they constructed a treacherous framework of deception, one that ensured our claims would be buried beneath layers of scandal and lawlessness.

This was not incompetence. It was a calculated betrayal of public trust.

Victims were left wandering a labyrinth of institutional betrayal, while the true architects of corruption remained shielded—protected by the very system that promised resolution. The evidence, including Google-linked documentation and Chapter 5 - US Department of Justice vs Ericsson of Sweden, makes it glaringly apparent:

I call on the Australian government to tear down the veil. To expose the dark machinations that allowed Ericsson to infiltrate a legal process meant to protect its citizens. This is not just a demand for answers; it is a call for action. It is a demand for reckoning.

Read about the dealings with Ericsson on 19 December 2019, as reported in the Australian media, because it is firmly intertwined in the corrupt practices of both Telstra and Ericsson, and those who administered the COT arbitrations between 1994 and 1998. This media release states:

"One of Telstra's key partners in the building out of their 5G network in Australia is set to fork out over $1.4 billion after the US Department of Justice accused them of bribery and corruption on a massive scale and over a long period of time.

Sweden's telecoms giant Ericsson has agreed to pay more than $1.4 billion following an extensive investigation which saw the Telstra-linked Company 'admitting to a years-long campaign of corruption in five countries to solidify its grip on telecommunications business." https://www.channelnews.com.au/key-telstra-5g-partner-admits-to-bribery-corruption/

The Path to Betrayal: A Call for Accountability

The U.S. Department of Justice has unearthed a chilling truth about Ericsson’s global telecommunications operations and their disturbing ties to international corruption and terrorism. The revelations surrounding the Casualties of Telstra (COT) Cases expose a deeply entrenched web of deceit, raising urgent questions about how Ericsson was allowed to operate with impunity, even acquiring the key technical witness during government-sanctioned arbitration proceedings that scrutinised their compromised telephone equipment.

It is both baffling and deeply troubling that the Australian government has remained conspicuously silent in the face of such egregious misconduct. Ericsson’s covert acquisition of Lane Telecommunications Pty Ltd—while Lane was engaged as the arbitration’s technical consultant—suggests a deliberate manipulation of the process. This manoeuvre occurred amid serious allegations that Telstra and Ericsson knowingly relied on discredited Ericsson AXE exchange equipment, a flawed system that many nations have since abandoned due to its critical deficiencies (see File 10-B ).

Australia's Bureaucrats closed their eyes to this conflict of interest 

To underscore the scale of what I am exposing, the Herald Sun reported on 22 December 2008 under the heading "Bad Bureaucrats" that over a thousand bureaucrats had been implicated in corrupt practices between 2007 and 2008 alone, and I quote from that article: 

“Hundreds of federal public servants were sacked, demoted or fined in the past year for serious misconduct. Investigations into more than 1000 bureaucrats uncovered bad behaviour such as theft, identity fraud, prying into file, leaking secrets. About 50 were found to have made improper use of inside information or their power and authority for the benefit of themselves, family and friends“

This wasn’t a coincidence—it was confirmation. My testimony, which is also attached here as Evidence File-1 and Evidence-File-2, aligns with a broader reckoning, revealing that what I had endured was part of a much larger pattern of institutional betrayal.

During the COT arbitrations, I became a target of this corrupt system. The treachery I encountered was not a mere anomaly; it was deeply embedded within the very fabric of the bureaucracy. This realisation propelled me to create absentjustice.com, a platform dedicated to unveiling the deceit and betrayal that defined those proceedings. I meticulously chronicled every deceitful manoeuvre, every backstab, and every act of betrayal as this corruption entered another horrific phase, known as the Robodebt affair.

A Precursor to Robodebt

This dark chapter in Telstra’s history foreshadowed the Robodebt scandal of 2023, where automated debt recovery systems—based on flawed algorithms and government indifference—led to widespread suffering. Just as Telstra’s victims were coerced into paying for faults they didn’t cause, Robodebt victims were pursued for debts they didn’t owe.

The consequences were devastating. Heart attacks. Mental breakdowns. Suicides. Families are shattered under the weight of government-sanctioned abuse. The parallels are chilling: both schemes relied on corrupted data, bureaucratic complicity, and a ruthless disregard for human life.

This serves as further proof that the issue lies not with the actual politicians—who are, for the most part, upstanding citizens genuinely trying to make a difference in the world, regardless of differing political views—but instead with the government lobbyists and bureaucrats mentioned in the Herald Sun newspaper article dated December 22, 2008, under the heading: "Bad Bureaucrats".

On 23 May 2021, Peta Credlin, a high-profile Australian media guru and TV host, wrote a fascinating article, also in the Herald Sun newspaper, under the heading: 

"Beware The Pen Pusher Power - Bureaucrats need to take orders and not take charge”, which noted:

“Now that the Prime Minister is considering a wider public service reshuffle in the wake of the foreign affairs department's head, Finances Adamson, becoming the next governor of South Australia, it's time to scrutinise the faceless bureaucrats who are often more powerful in practice than the elected politicians.

Outside of the Canberra bubble, almost no one knows their names. But take it from me, these people matter.

When ministers turn over with bewildering rapidity, or are not ‘take charge’ types, department secretaries, and the deputy secretaries below them, can easily become the de facto government of our country.  

Since the start of the 2013, across Labor and now Liberal governments, we’ve had five prime ministers, five treasurers, five attorneys-general, seven defence ministers, six education ministers, four health ministers and six trade Ministers.”

 

🧨 The Arbitration That Shielded Parasites
Leading up to and during my 1994 government-endorsed arbitration, it became painfully clear that no authority—not even the Australian Federal Police—had the power or will to act. My evidence, alongside that of other COT Cases, showed our businesses were deliberately targeted. The four principal COT Cases weren’t just collateral damage—we were hunted.

Telstra’s legal arm, Freehill Hollingdale & Page (now trading as Herbert Smith Freehills Melbourne), operated like a rogue unit. Denise McBurnie, the architect of the notorious COT Strategy, drafted it with surgical malice → Prologue Evidence File 1-A to 1-C. Wayne Maurice Gondon signed arbitration witness statements falsely attesting they had been signed by Telstra witnesses—when they hadn’t. These weren’t clerical errors. They were calculated acts of deception.

⚖️ The Arbitration Agreement That Should Never Have Been Used
As shown in government records, seven months before our arbitrations began, the four COT Cases—including mine—were assured by the government (see Point 40, Prologue Evidence File No/2) that the law firm Freehill Hollingdale & Page (now Herbert Smith Freehills Melbourne) would have no further involvement in our matters. Their conduct had been deemed unethical in their dealings with us.

But behind closed doors, Freehill Hollingdale & Page drafted our arbitration agreement—the very document that would define the terms of our pursuit of justice. We were never told. And worse, the arbitrator himself, Dr Gordon Hughes, later declared that same agreement not credible for use in my arbitration. Yet he used it anyway, as the following letter from Dr Hughes to Warwick Smith shows:

“the time frames set in the original Arbitration Agreement were, with the benefit of hindsight, optimistic;

“in particular; we did not allow sufficient time in the Arbitration Agreement for inevitable delays associated with the production of documents, obtaining further particulars and the preparation of technical reports; …

“In summary, it is my view that if the process is to remain credible, it is necessary to contemplate a time frame for completion which is longer than presently contained in the Arbitration Agreement.” (Open Letter File No 55-A)

We were given an ultimatum: sign the agreement or the arbitrator and administrator, Warwick Smith, would walk away. There was no negotiation. No transparency. Just the one threat, sign it or take Telstra to court.

🏕️ Retreat into Shadows: The COT Cases and the Death of Hope
I used my holiday camp for a two-night self-help retreat, hoping to find some bearings—some clarity on where to go from here. But what unfolded during those two days was far more chilling than I had anticipated. This was in 1993.

As I sat with the other COT Cases, I began to see it—really see it. Some of them believed they were already dead.

Each story felt like a descent into a haunted abyss. Their narratives weren’t just about struggle—they were soaked in despair, wrapped in a sinister shroud that clung to every detail. As I sifted through their accounts, a creeping dread settled in my bones. It became shockingly clear: some of these individuals had resigned themselves to a fate worse than death—existence without hope.

Their expressions were haunting. Faces etched with pain and hopelessness. Eyes that once gleamed with life now reflected a profound void, drained of warmth, drained of fight. In our discussions, I felt an eerie tension—like walking a tightrope over an abyss. They had stepped back from the edge of existence, accepting a fate that left them wandering in a liminal space between life and death.

This revelation wasn’t just unsettling—it was terrifying. These fragile souls had declared themselves lost, retreating into a darkness from which they could no longer see a path back. I felt as though I was peering into the shadows of their minds, witnessing the treachery of despair that had ensnared them.

In July 2005, Senator Barnaby Joyce held a meeting at the Brisbane Polo Club, attended by fourteen individuals who had been affected by Telstra's controversial and disrupted arbitration and mediation process. During the meeting, these individuals shared their similar experiences, and Senator Joyce displayed a profound emotional response as he recognised how detrimental government bureaucracy can be, leading to a significant decline.

The government agreed to resolve the fourteen unresolved arbitration issues concerning COT (Customers of Telstra) if Senator Joyce would cast his crucial vote in the Senate to pass the Telstra privatisation legislation. He willingly agreed to cast his vote, a decision clearly depicted in the accompanying image. Additionally, a letter he sent me on September 15, 2005, further illustrates his commitment to resolving our COT issues.

15 September 2005, Senator Barnaby Joyce writes to me:-

“As a result of my thorough review of the relevant Telstra sale legislation, I proposed a number of amendments which were delivered to Minister Coonan. In addition to my requests, I sought from the Minister closure of any compensatory commitments given by the Minister or Telstra and outstanding legal issues. …”

“I am pleased to inform you that the Minister has agreed there needs to be finality of outstanding COT cases and related disputes. The Minister has advised she will appoint an independent assessor to review the status of outstanding claims and provided a basis for these to be resolved.”

“I would like you to understand that I could only have achieved this positive outcome on your behalf if I voted for the Telstra privatisation legislation.” (Senate Evidence File No 20)

Once Senator Joyce cast the pivotal vote—one that was teetering precariously in the balance—he etched his name into the annals of history for both the Telstra Corporation and the Liberal-National Coalition Government. However, in a surprising turn, Senator Coonan quickly reneged on her prior commitment, executing a decisive back-flip that many of the letters collected on this website starkly illustrate.

However, what followed was anything but just, as demonstrated by the outcomes associated with 'The eighth remedy pursued.'

The actions taken by Telstra’s executives and government bureaucrats during this process—initiated by Joyce’s good faith—were criminal, undemocratic, and ruthless. They didn’t just abandon the agreement. They weaponised it. They used the momentum of privatisation to bury our cases deeper, shielding misconduct behind corporate walls.

This episode stands as a testament to the state of disarray the government was already in—and the even more profound crisis it has since become. The abandonment of the COT Cases wasn’t just a policy failure. It was a betrayal of democratic trust, a silencing of truth, and a warning to every citizen who dares to believe in accountability.

These were the same executives who masterfully orchestrated a staggering $400 million deal with Rupert Murdoch and Fox, all for the ambitious rollout of Telstra's fibre cable infrastructure. They did this while feigning a commitment to an unrealistic deadline, despite Senate Hansard exposing the fact that the Telstra board was already aware that the project’s timeline was nothing more than a fabricated illusion. This was not merely a case of poor management; it was a calculated scheme of deception, disguised as progress and innovation.

The warning signs were glaringly apparent at every turn. As the involvement of Rupert Murdoch illustrates, the deception ran deep, casting a long shadow over the entire operation and tainting the integrity of the government bureaucracies.

A few months after that meeting, Telstra’s government lobbyist Paul Rumble emerged from the shadows. His threats nearly broke me. I went down on my knees. The referee counted eight. But I got up. I hit the deck running and took the punches one after another.

Paul Rumble and his ilk weren’t just thugs. They were parasites—protected, emboldened, and insulated by the very arbitration process that was supposed to deliver justice.

🧑‍⚖️ The Architects of Silence: Hughes, Pinnock, and Rundell
As of 2025, Dr Gordon Hughes serves as Principal Lawyer at Davies Collison Cave Lawyers in Melbourne (https://shorturl.at/L4tbp). But long before that title, he played a central role in a deeply compromised arbitration process—one that derailed my pursuit of justice.

Despite clear evidence showing that Dr Hughes, John Pinnock (the second appointed administrator to the COT arbitrations), and John Rundell (Project Manager to the arbitrations) were involved in a joint conspiracy to mislead and deceive the President of the Institute of Arbitrators Australia, Laure James, none of them has come forward to explain their actions.

My claims were valid. The arbitration process was conducted outside the agreed-upon ambit of procedures. This wasn’t a technical error—it was a deliberate manoeuvre to destroy my appeal process and silence my evidence.

To this day, not one of them has explained. Not one has acknowledged the damage done. Their silence is not just professional—it’s personal. It’s a refusal to face the truth they helped bury.

•  The arbitration process was compromised by covert monitoring.

•  Telstra insiders shared private data with intermediaries.

•  Government agencies failed to act on credible threats and evidence.

•  The arbitrator ignored critical breaches of privacy and due process.

At the time, my body was reeling from the lower gut punches. Two Australian senators on 24 June 1997, asked several questions of Telstra (refer to pages 76 and 77 - Senate - Parliament of Australia Senator Kim Carr states to Telstra’s primary arbitration defence Counsel (Re: Alan Smith: 

Senator CARR – “In terms of the cases outstanding, do you still treat people the way that Mr Smith appears to have been treated? Mr Smith claims that, amongst documents returned to him after an FOI request, a discovery was a newspaper clipping reporting upon prosecution in the local magistrate’s court against him for assault. I just wonder what relevance that has. He makes the claim that a newspaper clipping relating to events in the Portland magistrate’s court was part of your files on him”. …

Senator SHACHT – “It does seem odd if someone is collecting files. … It seems that someone thinks that is a useful thing to keep in a file that maybe at some stage can be used against him”.

Senator CARR – “Mr Ward,   we have been through this before in regard to the intelligence networks that Telstra has established. Do you use your internal intelligence networks in these CoT cases?”

What alarms me most about Telstra’s intelligence operations in Australia is this: who inside Telstra had the government clearance and expertise to filter the raw information they were collecting before it was catalogued for future use? Who was vetting this data? Who was protecting it? And more importantly, who was protecting us?

I have serious concerns about the confidential information Telstra gathered during my phone conversations with former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser in April 1993 and again in April 1994. We discussed Telstra officials and my “Red Communist China” episode. That information was sensitive, personal, and politically charged. And yet, it was intercepted, stored, and our conversations redacted.

When Telstra was fully privatised in 2005, who in Australia was given the charter to archive this material? Decades of surveillance, customer data, and intelligence—where did it go? Who holds it now? There’s no transparency. No accountability. Just silence.

🥊 Setting the Record Straight: The Sheriff Incident
The version of events reported in Senator Hansard only tells part of the story. What it omits is the desperation and injustice I faced that day.

The Sheriff and his two henchmen arrived with orders to strip my business of essential catering equipment—tools I needed to keep trading. My bankers had lost patience and sent them to ensure I stayed on my knees. This wasn’t enforcement. It was punishment.

Let me be clear: I threw no punches. But when the Sheriff moved to seize my equipment, I placed him in a wrestling hold—a ‘Full Nelson’—and walked him out of my office. It was a moment of defiance, not violence. I was protecting my livelihood, not attacking anyone.

The Magistrates' Court later dropped all charges on appeal. The court recognised his story had two sides, and mine was rooted in survival.

Strategies for Survival

So how does one tell a story like this without falling prey to legal retaliation?

• I document everything. Time stamps. Statutory declarations. Senate records. I build a fortress of facts.
• I anonymise where necessary. I use composite characters and layered narrative to protect identities while preserving truth.
• I publish through platforms that honor whistleblowers. I consult legal experts. I embed my evidence in memoir, in culinary disaster, in the rhythm of shipboard life.
• I let the reader feel the dread. The silence. The betrayal.
 

The Unanswered Questions

How many other arbitrations were compromised by this insidious surveillance? Is this form of electronic eavesdropping still a problem in legitimate processes today? How many lives were ruined while the government compensated the powerful and ignored the pleas of its own citizens? And what does it say about a nation when one of its richest sons sacrifices his citizenship to become American, while the rest of us are left to fight for justice in the land we call home?

This chapter is not the end. It is a beginning. A signal flare in the fog. A call to those who still believe in truth, in accountability, and in the power of one voice to pierce the silence

 

Unmasking the Machinery of Betrayal

How does one begin to tell a story so steeped in treachery, so riddled with deceit, that it threatens to shake the very foundations of trust in our institutions? How does one, armed only with truth and a battered fax machine, stand against a government-endorsed process that masqueraded as justice while quietly feeding privileged information to the defendants—Telstra, then a government-owned telecommunications giant?

This is not a tale of paranoia. It is a chronicle of documented sabotage. It is the story of how I, and others like me, were systematically undermined during arbitration processes that were supposed to deliver fairness. Instead, they delivered silence, obstruction, and a chilling form of surveillance that still haunts me.

The Vanishing Faxes

In January 1999, a group of arbitration claimants submitted a damning report to the Australian Government. It revealed that confidential documents—faxed in good faith—were being intercepted, screened, and manipulated before reaching their intended recipients. In my case, six critical claim documents vanished. The arbitrator’s secretary admitted they were never received. Yet I was denied the right to resubmit them.

My fax account tells a different story. It shows I dialled the correct number every time. And years later, one of the technical consultants who reviewed those transmissions stood by his statutory declaration: the faxes had passed through a secondary machine before being retransmitted. Dual time stamps told the tale. The evidence was irrefutable.

 

 

During the investigation by the Victoria Police Major Fraud Group into the alleged fraudulent conduct by Telstra during and after the COT arbitrations, the Scandrett & Associates report was delivered to Senator Ron Boswell on 7 January 1999. This report confirmed that faxes were intercepted during the COT arbitrations (refer to Open Letter File No/12 and File No/13). Furthermore, one of the two technical consultants who verified the validity of this fax interception report contacted me via email on 17 December 2014, emphasising the importance of these findings.

“I still stand by my statutory declaration that I was able to identify that the incoming faxes provided to me for review had at some stage been received by a secondary fax machine and then retransmitted, this was done by identifying the dual time stamps on the faxes provided.” (Front Page Part One File No/14)

The evidence within this report Open Letter File No/12 and File No/13) also indicated that one of my faxes sent to Federal Treasurer Peter Costello was similarly intercepted, i.e.,

Exhibit 10-C → File No/13 in the Scandrett & Associates report Pty Ltd fax interception report (refer to (Open Letter File No/12 and  File No/13) confirms my letter of 2 November 1998 to the Hon Peter Costello Australia's then Federal Treasure was intercepted scanned before being redirected to his office. These intercepted documents to government officials were not isolated events, which, in my case, continued throughout my arbitration, which began on 21 April 1994 and concluded on 11 May 1995. Exhibit 10-C File No/13 shows this fax hacking continued until at least 2 November 1998, more than three years after the conclusion of my arbitration.

A Chilling Revelation

While working on my manuscript, "R'ng for Justice," I shared an early draft with Helen Handbury, Rupert Murdoch's sister, and Senator Kim Carr. On January 27, 1999, Senator Kim Carr provided his feedback on this draft:

“I continue to maintain a strong interest in your case along with those of your fellow ‘Casualties of Telstra’. The appalling manner in which you have been treated by Telstra is in itself reason to pursue the issues, but also confirms my strongly held belief in the need for Telstra to remain firmly in public ownership and subject to public and parliamentary scrutiny and accountability.

“Your manuscript demonstrates quite clearly how Telstra has been prepared to infringe upon the civil liberties of Australian citizens in a manner that is most disturbing and unacceptable.” 

Helen Handbury had visited my holiday camp twice and witnessed firsthand the torment I endured. Upon reading Senator Kim Cary Carr's response story, she was visibly shaken. “I will get Rupert to have it published,” she said. “He will be shocked.”

What horrified Helen wasn’t just the illegal fax hacking—it was the scale of it. The fact that it continued even during her second visit. The fact that I had provided evidence to the Australian Federal Police, showing that this surveillance dated back to at least September 1992, is referred to in the AFP transcript → Australian Federal Police Investigation File No/1, which discusses this evidence.

Despite this, the arbitrator refused to allow me to resubmit the missing documents.

At the time, the News of the World hacking scandal hadn’t yet erupted. But Helen saw the parallels. She saw the rot.

The $400 Million Question: Blood Money in the Boardroom

Helen Handbury wasn’t just shaken—she was horrified. What I laid before her wasn’t a mere tale of bureaucratic failure. It was a blueprint of institutional rot. A system so corrupted, so brazen in its contempt for ordinary Australians, that it rewarded the powerful while grinding the rest of us into dust.

The illegal fax interceptions. The denial of natural justice. The surveillance. The obstruction. All of it was bad enough. But then came the revelation that turned Helen pale: Rupert Murdoch—her own brother—had quietly received $400 million in compensation from Telstra. A payout cloaked in silence, sanctioned by a government-owned corporation that was simultaneously dragging everyday citizens through the mud of arbitration and mediation.

I showed Helen the Senate Hansard records. They weren’t vague. They weren’t speculative. They were damning. Members of Parliament were deeply alarmed. The entire Telstra board knew—knew—that Telstra could not meet the licensing obligations tied to that $400 million deal. And yet, they signed it anyway. They pushed it through. They handed over the money.

Who approved this grotesque transaction? Who, in the shadows of the boardroom, decided that the Australian public—who owned Telstra—should foot the bill for Murdoch’s empire while the rest of us were denied justice? This wasn’t incompetence. It was collusion. It was calculated. It was criminal.

Helen struggled to process it. She had seen the toll these arbitrations took on people like me. She had walked through my camp, listened to my story, and seen the evidence with her own eyes. And now, faced with the knowledge that her brother had been compensated while others were crushed under the weight of legal costs, she was deeply disturbed.

This wasn’t just about money. It was about betrayal. About a government and a corporation that conspired to silence dissent, conceal misconduct, and reward the elite. It was about a boardroom decision that reeked of underhanded skullduggery—one Helen could not reconcile.

She wanted Rupert to see my story. Whether she ever shared it, I’ll never know. She passed away before I could deliver the second draft. Her husband, Geoffrey Handbury, wrote me a kind letter, saying he was too old to pursue it. But the truth had already begun to surface. Senate records later confirmed it: Telstra’s board knew it couldn’t meet its agreement with Fox—and proceeded anyway.

They did it with full knowledge. They did it with impunity. And they did it while the rest of us were left to rot.

The Machinery of Collusion

The deeper I dug, the more grotesque the architecture of corruption revealed itself. This wasn’t a one-off payout. It was a symptom of something far more insidious—a machinery of collusion operating behind closed doors, where truth was suffocated and justice was bartered away.

The Senate Hansard records were not just concerned—they were alarmed. They documented a government-owned corporation knowingly entering into a contract it could not fulfil. Telstra’s board was fully aware that it would fail to meet the licensing obligations tied to the $400 million compensation deal with Rupert Murdoch’s Fox empire. And yet, they proceeded. No hesitation. No accountability. Just a rubber stamp and a transfer of wealth.

This wasn’t corporate negligence. It was state-sanctioned betrayal.

The implications were staggering. Telstra, still owned by the Australian public at the time, had effectively siphoned taxpayer money into the hands of one of the world’s wealthiest media moguls. Meanwhile, ordinary Australians—claimants like me—were being surveilled, sabotaged, and silenced in arbitration processes that were supposed to protect us.
The same Telstra that intercepted my faxes. The same Telstra that denied me the right to resubmit missing documents. The same Telstra that built its defence on stolen information. That Telstra was simultaneously cutting secret deals with Murdoch while trampling over its own citizens.

And the government? It watched. It knew. It did nothing.

Please note that I have deliberately selected the segment about Rupert Murdoch on the home page due to his controversial reputation. This example vividly illustrates how the government in Australia often extends privileges and support to large corporations, while individuals like myself, who dare to challenge the systemic issues that foster discrimination, receive little to no assistance.

Immediately following the accounts of Rupert Murdoch and Helen Handbury, readers will find the intricate saga involving Dr Gordon Hughes, John Pinnock, and John Rundell: "The Open Letter" dated 25/09/2025, which is part of the unfinished Chapter Five. This narrative sheds light on the uncomfortable truth: the same government that turned a blind eye to the Murdoch situation in the mid-1990s also permitted these three arbitration administrators to fabricate false statements and tarnish my reputation. Their actions were clearly intended to derail the investigation led by Laure James, the then-President of the Institute of Arbitrators Australia, into my serious allegations regarding the improper conduct of my arbitration process.

 

📘A Call to Examine the Machinery of Concealment

If you're visiting absentjustice.com and reflecting on the claims I’ve made about the actions of bureaucrats, public servants, and government agencies, I urge you to examine the following assertions closely. These are not mere grievances—they point to unlawful and corrupt practices designed to pervert the course of justice against the COT Cases. We were individuals who dared to challenge a government-owned corporation accused of theft, intimidation, and deliberate efforts to discredit anyone who stood in its way during the COT arbitrations.

Unravel the complex web of foreign bribery and insidious corrupt practices, including manipulating arbitration processes through bribed witnesses who shield the truth from the public eye. This narrative encompasses egregious acts of kleptocracy, deceitful foreign corruption programs and the troubling involvement of international consultants whose fraudulent reporting has enabled the unjust privatisation of government assets—assets that were ill-suited for sale in the first place.

After almost two decades, the British public and several British politicians have been saying that this matter is of public interest and should not be concealed (hidden) by the government. It is essential for England's interest that this matter be thoroughly investigated. Click here to watch the Australian television Channel 7 trailer for 'Mr Bates vs the Post Office', which went to air in Australia in February 2024. The British Post Office public servants knew that the Fujitsu Horizon computer software was responsible for the incorrect billing accounting system, as evidenced in this YouTube link:  https://youtu.be/MyhjuR5g1Mc.

Click here to watch Mr Bates vs the Post Office

To understand the broader implications of institutional betrayal, I strongly recommend exploring the Alan Bates website. His campaign to expose the British Post Office scandal has drawn widespread media attention. Numerous YouTube videos and detailed reports offer a sobering look at how systemic failures were concealed—just as Telstra buried its own computer software billing faults.

By studying Alan Bates’s story, the parallels become clear. Both cases reveal how powerful entities manipulated data, suppressed evidence, and targeted whistleblowers to protect their reputations. Whether it was Telstra’s cover-up of billing system flaws or the British Post Office’s concealment of Horizon’s defects, the pattern is unmistakable: truth was sacrificed to preserve institutional power.

As I approach my 82nd year, I am inspired to document my experiences with the convoluted Telstra arbitration issues and the various unscrupulous lawyers and forensic accountants who exploited the plight of the COT arbitrations for their own gain. This entire experience serves as a poignant reminder of the inner strength required to confront daunting obstacles and the relentless resilience needed to pursue justice, even in the face of overwhelming uncertainty and adversity. Through my writing, I hope to illuminate the complexities of our struggle and inspire others to stand firm against injustice.

 

 

In essence, a troubling disparity exists in the application of legal standards within the Australian business landscape, where individuals with strong connections to the government, such as Rupert Murdoch, are afforded different treatment compared to those who lack such privileges.

While I acknowledge the necessity of safeguarding Foxtel's substantial financial investment in its cable infrastructure, as well as the numerous hidden costs associated with the Murdochs' expansive media operations, I also wish to highlight my significant contributions. Over the years dedicated to building my business, I invested considerable resources into establishing a vibrant agency that served Melbourne, Ballarat, and Mount Gambier in South Australia. This agency was explicitly designed to manage incoming bookings for my Over Forties Single Club efficiently. This lively community hub offers a space for singles over forty to form connections and cultivate companionship. This initiative became a hallmark of community engagement, consistently generating between $6,000 and $7,000 each weekend—an impressive indicator of its popularity and the demand for social opportunities among this demographic.

This was not just a failure of oversight. It was complicity. A coordinated effort to protect the powerful and bury the truth. The watchdogs appointed to oversee the arbitrations—the so-called umpires—turned a blind eye. The arbitrator refused to act. The system was rigged from the start.

Helen saw it. She recoiled from it. And she wanted Rupert to see it too.

•  1987: Transition from maritime life to land-based hospitality.

•  Purchase of Cape Bridgewater Holiday Camp near Portland, Victoria.

•  Initial excitement and vision for a thriving school holiday business.

•  Early signs of trouble: customers and suppliers unable to reach the camp by phone.

•  Realisation that the phone service was unreliable—crippling for a hospitality business.

•  Attempts to resolve the issue through Telstra (then Telecom) met with denial and delay.

•  Mounting business losses and emotional toll.

•  Discovery that other rural business owners were facing similar telecommunications failures.

•  Formation of the Casualties of Telecom (COT) group—united by shared injustice.

•  Initial optimism: calls for a Senate inquiry into Telecom’s conduct.

•  Government offers arbitration as an alternative to investigation.

•  Acceptance of arbitration in good faith, believing technical faults would be addressed.

•  Early signs of deception: promised documents withheld, technical faults ignored.

 

•  Arbitration begins under the guise of fairness and resolution.

•  Telstra’s failure to provide critical documents despite legal obligations.

•  Claimants discover their fax lines are being intercepted—illegal surveillance during arbitration.

•  Evidence mounts: missing faxes, dual time stamps, unexplained delays.

•  Arbitrator refuses to allow resubmission of lost documents.

 

•  Attempts to challenge the arbitration outcome blocked by confidentiality clauses.

•  Legal gag orders prevent public disclosure of misconduct.

•  FOI requests were launched to obtain the missing documents.

•  Government departments stonewall or heavily redact responses.

•  Emotional and financial toll on claimants intensifies.

•  Growing suspicion of collusion between Telstra, government regulators, and legal overseers.

 

•  Evidence emerges of systemic corruption: Telstra’s internal knowledge of faults, concealed from claimants.

•  Senate Hansard records reveal Telstra’s board knowingly entered into contracts it couldn’t fulfill.

•  Revelation of Rupert Murdoch’s $400 million compensation deal with Telstra.

•  Helen Handbury’s reaction: horror at the scale of injustice and betrayal.

•  Contrast between Murdoch’s payout and the suffering of ordinary Australians.

•  Telstra’s dual role: sabotaging claimants while rewarding the powerful.

•  The machinery of collusion exposed—government, corporation, and legal system intertwined.