Chapter Five - The Eighth Damning Letter

Some unethical lawyers disguise themselves as accredited arbitrators and mediators, contributing to a troubling practice known as legal abuse. This form of legal bullying manifests particularly when these unqualified individuals draw up confidentiality agreements, which serve to obscure their lack of proper credentials and experience in arbitration and mediation processes.

A notable example of this concerning behavior is Dr. Gordon Hughes, an official COT arbitrator, who continued to preside over several arbitration cases while simultaneously preparing for his grading exams. This raises significant ethical questions and highlights a serious breach of trust, as parties involved rely on the competence and integrity of arbitrators to resolve their disputes fairly. Such actions not only undermine the foundational principles of trust but also severely compromise the overall integrity of the arbitration and mediation fields, potentially leading to unjust outcomes and further eroding confidence in these essential processes.

I refer to the Senate Hansard records from 20 September 1995, which capture a profoundly emotional speech delivered by Senator Ron Boswell. In this compelling address, he passionately highlighted the significant injustices endured by the four claimants involved in the COT case—Ann Garms, Maureen Gillan, Graham Schorer, and me—during what were inaccurately labeled as government-endorsed arbitrations. His words conveyed our pain and frustration and underscored the more significant systemic issues at play. It is essential to draw attention to the remarks made by Senator Boswell regarding the TIO and his annual report, as they shed light on the broader implications of our experiences and the need for accountability.

“...Eleven years after their first complaints to Telstra, where are they now? They are acknowledged as the motivators of Telecom’s customer complaint reforms. … But, as individuals, they have been beaten both emotionally and financially through an 11-year battle with Telstra"

“Then followed the Federal Police investigation into Telecom’s monitoring of COT case services. The Federal Police also found there was a prima facie case to institute proceedings against Telecom but the DPP (Director of Public Prosecutions), in a terse advice, recommended against proceeding".

“Once again, the only relief COT members received was to become the catalyst for Telecom to introduce a revised privacy and protection policy. Despite the strong evidence against Telecom, they still received no justice at all".

“These COT members have been forced to go to the Commonwealth Ombudsman to force Telecom to comply with the law. Not only were they being denied all necessary documents to mount their case against Telecom, causing much delay, but they were denied access to documents that could have influenced them when negotiating the arbitration rules, and even whether to enter arbitration at all. …

"This is an arbitration process not only far exceeding the four-month period, but one which has become so legalistic that it has forced members to borrow hundreds of thousands just to take part in it. It has become a process far beyond the one represented when they agreed to enter into it, and one which professionals involved in the arbitration agree can never deliver as intended and never give them justice."

"I regard it as a grave matter that a government instrumentality like Telstra can give assurances to Senate leaders that it will fast track a process and then turn it into an expensive legalistic process making a farce of the promise given to COT members and the unducement to go into arbitration. “Telecom has treated the Parliament with contempt. No government monopoly should be allowed to trample over the rights of individual Australians, such as has happened here.” (See Senate Hansard Evidence File No-1)

Senator Boswell’s statement, which is supported by professionals involved in the arbitration process and highlighted in the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) annual report, suggests that the arbitration process was already condemned as of September 20, 1995. This raises a critical question: Why did Mr. Pinnock and Dr. Hughes conspire eight months later to mislead Laurie James about the validity of my claims, which had been formally registered with the president of the Institute of Arbitrators Australia?

It is profoundly distressing to realize that the deceit originated from individuals who held the authority and responsibility to investigate but chose to ignore the truth. This emotional toll is compounded for the new owners of my business, who purchased my holiday camp in December 2001. Despite their numerous complaints to the Communications Minister’s office, my local Federal Member of Parliament, and Mr. Pinnock himself from January 2002 through September 2006, they faced the same persistent phone issues I had endured since 1987. Alarmingly, no one took the initiative to re-investigate the problems during my arbitration. This negligence allowed the arbitrator’s resource unit to unnecessarily extend the timeframe, claiming they needed additional weeks to complete their findings.

This situation reveals a troubling pattern of negligence and misconduct, highlighting the deep-rooted corruption and systematic failure of accountability among those in power. The actions of corrupt politicians and lawyers in Australia have tragically undermined the chances of a fair arbitration hearing in the COT Cases. The words “shameful,” “hideous,” and “treacherous” only begin to capture the extent of the wrongdoing committed by these individuals, who seem more concerned with protecting their own interests than with seeking truth and justice for those affected. This betrayal not only impacts individuals but also undermines the integrity of the arbitration process and erodes public trust in a system that is supposed to protect the rights of all citizens.

Learn about the horrendous crimes and unscrupulous criminals, as well as the corrupt politicians and the lawyers who control the legal profession in Australia, who went about destroying the COT Cases' chance for a fair arbitration hearing. Shameful, hideous, and treacherous are just a few words that describe these lawbreakers.

Why was this critical letter withheld from me?

I was legally entitled to see this important letter

One of those documents, dated 18 April 1995, appears to have been secretly screened and withheld from the claimants and only provided to them seven years after the arbitrations concluded (See Prologue Evidence File No 22-A). This three-page letter from the arbitration project manager to Warwick Smith (arbitration administrator) and copied to Dr Hughes (the arbitrator) advised:

“It is unfortunate that there have been forces at work collectively beyond our reasonable control that have delayed us in undertaking our work.” (See Call For Justice DCITA File No 9).

The four COT claimants were never told about these forces at work, nor were they warned that these unnamed forces were allowed to infiltrate and manipulate the arbitration process under the noses of the TIO, his legal advisor and the arbitrator. When these three legal experts, namely Dr Gordon Hughes, Warwick Smith and Peter Bartlett, allowed this crucial 18 April 1995 letter to be concealed from the four COT cases, they directly assisted those “forces at work” to carry out their intended disruption of the four COT cases’ arbitrations.

5 May 1995: The arbitrator wrote to me, noting:

“I refer to your telephone message of 4 May and your facsimiles of 4 and 5 May 1995 and advise I do not consider grounds exist for the introduction of new evidence or the convening of a hearing at this stage.”

And he reiterated his previous instructions:

“...any comments regarding the factual content of the Resource Unit reports must be received … by 5.00 p.m. on Tuesday 9 May 1995″. (see Arbitrator File No/48)

The telephone calls and faxes referenced by the arbitrator are closely tied to my persistent efforts to submit two detailed reports, which I meticulously crafted from a comprehensive collection of 24,000 Freedom of Information (FOI) documents that Telstra had been negligent in providing. In my communications with the arbitrator, I conveyed that both my technical consultant, George Close, and my principal claims advisor, Garry Ellicott, were unwavering in their assertion that a thorough log of my fault complaints had been sent from Queensland to his office in June 1994.

It is essential to emphasize that the arbitration agreement mentioned by Dr. Gordon Hughes in his letter to Warwick Smith dated 12 May 1995 was not an independent creation; rather, it was covertly drafted by Telstra, the defendant in this case. This document, instead of the independently prepared agreement ratified by all stakeholders, including various government representatives, became the final version used in the initial four arbitrations. The Telstra-authored agreement provided numerous advantages to the defense, including insufficiently allocated time for "inevitable delays associated with the production of documents, obtaining further particulars, and preparing technical reports."

One must seriously consider how the Australian government could engage in negotiations with the arbitrator, the administrator, and Telstra Corporation—an entity currently under investigation by the Australian Federal Police for alleged wrongdoing against the claimants. This situation raises alarming questions about how a corporation could be permitted to draft its own agreement, which delineates the terms of its investigation by the same arbitrator who had previously guided both the claimants and the government regarding preparing such an agreement.

On 12 May 1995, thirteen months into my arbitration process, and just one day after delivering my award, Dr. Hughes openly condemned the Telstra-drafted arbitration agreement he had utilized in my case, labeling it as an unworthy document for the proceedings. Despite this harsh critique, he applied it detrimentally to my position as a claimant, all while offering counsel to the first Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, who was also responsible for administering my arbitration. This sequence of events raises profound concerns about fairness and transparency in the proceedings.

The 12 May 1995 letter notes in part that:

“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)

The fax imprint across the top of this letter (Open Letter File No 55-A) is the same as the fax imprint described in the Scandrett & Associates report (see Open Letter File No/12 and File No/13), confirming faxes were intercepted during the COT arbitrations. The question the Telecommunication Industry Ombudsman (TIO) and the Federal Attorney-General has still not answered is:

Was this letter actually faxed to my office by the TIO to assist me in any pending appeal process? If not, why was such an important letter deliberately kept from me during my designated appeal period?

If I had received a copy of this letter declaring the agreement used in my arbitration process was not credible, I would have appealed the arbitrator’s award. After all, how could an appeal judge argue against the arbitrator’s own findings that the agreement was not credible, even though he used it anyway?

How could Dr Gordon Hughes even contemplate making a statement like: “…as far as I could observe, both Telecom and Smith co-operated in the Smith arbitration”, let alone decide to include it in his 12 May letter when he and the Senate had already been warned that Telstra was threatening to withhold further relevant documents from me, simply because I had agreed to assist the Australian Federal Police with their investigations into Telstra’s unauthorized interception of my phone conversations and faxes and, even worse than that level of Telstra treachery, Telstra then actually carried out those threats?

And what about the advice that Dr Gordon Hughes and Warwick Smith had received on 18 April 1995, which stated clearly that there had been ‘forces at work’ that had ‘derailed’ my arbitration? This 12 May statement shows that Dr Hughes chose to protect those ‘‘forces at work, regardless of the serious problems created for me.

Interception of this 12 May 1995 letter by a secondary fax machine:

Whoever had access to Telstra’s network, and therefore the TIO’s office service lines, knew – during the designated appeal time of my arbitration – that my arbitration was conducted using a set of rules (arbitration agreement) that the arbitrator declared not credible. There are three fax identification lines across the top of the second page of this 12 May 1995 letter:

The third line down from the top of the page (i.e. the bottom line) shows that the document was first faxed from the arbitrator’s office on 12-5-95, at 2:41 pm to the Melbourne office of the TIO – 61 3 277 8797;
The middle line indicates that it was faxed on the same day, one hour later, at 15:40, from the TIO’s fax number, followed by the words “TIO LTD”.
The top line, however, begins with the words “Fax from" and then the correct fax number for the TIO’s office (visible).

Consider the order of the time stamps. The top line is the second sending of the document at 14:50, nine minutes after the fax from the arbitrator’s office; therefore, between the TIO’s office receiving the first fax, which was sent at 2.41 pm (14:41), and sending it on at 15:40, to his home, the fax was also re-sent at 14:50. In other words, the document sent nine minutes after the letter reached the TIO office was intercepted.

The fax imprint across each of the documents and letters provided to two well-recognised technical telecommunications specialists both made sworn statements that the fax imprint described in the Scandrett & Associates report (see Open Letter File No/12 and File No/13) was all captured by a secondary fax machine, the report states:

“We canvassed examples, which we are advised are a representative group, of this phenomena .

“They show that

the header strip of various faxes is being altered

the header strip of various faxes was changed or semi overwritten.

In all cases the replacement header type is the same.

The sending parties all have a common interest and that is COT.

Some faxes have originated from organisations such as the Commonwealth Ombudsman office.

The modified type face of the header could not have been generated by the large number of machines canvassed, making it foreign to any of the sending services.”

One of the two technical consultants attesting to the validity of this fax interception report emailed me on 17 December 2014, stating:

“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)

It is also clear from Front Page Part One File No/1, File No/2-A to 2-E, File No/3, File No/4 and Front Page Part One File No/5, that numerous documents faxed from my office to the arbitrators office did not reach their intended destination.

Interception of this 12 May 1995 letter by a secondary fax machine is discussed in more depth in our Australian Federal Police Investigations page

TIO Media Release 12 May 1995

Warwick Smith, the administrator of my arbitration and the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, was supplied the same written advice on 18 April 1995 from John Rundell, the arbitration project manager, who exposed these “forces at work” that derailed the process. Could these same “forces at work” have been the same force that hijacked Dr Hughes' 12 May 1995 letter, which was later faxed to me but never made it as so many documents have since been shown to have been the case?

Instead, a little more than two hours after Warwick Smith (the TIO and administrator of the process) received Dr Hughes’ 12 May 1995 letter, he put out a media release stating:

“The Administrator noted that the arbitration process, under the direction of the independent Arbitrator Dr Gordon Hughes, appointed with the agreement of the parties, had been run in accordance with principals of natural justice.” (See Open Letter File No 55-B)

Why didn't Warwick Smith inform the communications minister, Michael Lee MP, and the public about Telstra's refusal to provide documents because I had assisted the Australian Federal Police (AFP) with their investigation into the possibility of Telstra intercepting my arbitration-related faxed documents and Telstra employees admitting to listening in on my telephone conversations? Why didn't Warwick Smith disclose that Telstra had made those threats and acted upon them?

Telstra made threats

These threats were carried out.

Page 180 ERC&A, from the official Australian Senate Hansard, dated November 29 1994, reports Senator Ron Boswell asking Telstra's legal directorate why my FOI documents were being withheld from me during my arbitration:

“Why did Telecom advise the Commonwealth Ombudsman that Telecom withheld FOI documents from Alan Smith because Alan Smith provided Telecom FOI documents to the Australian Federal Police during their investigation?”

After receiving a hollow response from Telstra, which the senator, the AFP and I all knew was utterly false, the senator states:

“…Why would Telecom withhold vital documents from the AFP? Also, why would Telecom penalise COT members for providing documents to the AFP which substantiate that Telecom had conducted unauthorised interceptions of COT members’ communications and subsequently dealt in the intercepted information by providing that information to Telecom’s external legal advisers and others?” (See Senate Evidence File No 31)

Perhaps Warwick Smith was concerned that if he did raise these problems with the Hon. Michael Lee MP or reveal them to the public, then there would have been an instant demand for answers to questions like:

Why didn’t he and the arbitrator, Dr Hughes, contact the Supreme Court of Victoria and/or the relevant authorities to request a proper investigation into the situation that the COTs had found themselves in, through no fault of their own, when it first became clear that Telstra was acting as a law unto themselves?

This raises even more questions, particularly concerning Warwick Smith’s media release.

Why did he:

Collude with the arbitrator by allowing the defendants to draft their own arbitration rules instead of providing the independently drafted agreement that both Warwick Smith and the arbitrator assured the media, politicians and claimants would be prepared.
Refuse to supply the COT cases with a copy of Telstra’s preferred rules of arbitration as soon as questions arose about the possibility that the arbitration agreement was based on Telstra’s version.
Would it be possible for the defendants to attend monthly TIO board and council meetings, where various COT case arbitrations were discussed?
Will Dr Hughes be allowed to continue using an arbitration agreement that he stated was not credible and needed revising (for the remaining claimants), even though Dr Hughes used it through my COT arbitration, and the result was allowed to stand?
Would you allow Dr Hughes and his arbitration technical unit to assess and investigate less than 11 percent of my legally submitted claim documents?
Would Dr Hughes allow me to assess only losses from my school customers, who were the least lucrative customers, while ignoring the more lucrative over-40s singles-club losses?
Would I allow the defendants to have access to my claim material during my arbitration before it was submitted to the arbitrator?
Organise, with the defendants, that the TIO-appointed resource unit and the defendants would decide which arbitration procedural documents would be passed on to the arbitrator for assessment and which would be concealed from the process altogether (something which is not mentioned anywhere in the official arbitration agreement)?
Deliberately hide all these facts from the public in his 12 May 1995 media release?
Also withheld from the public was that, although the arbitration consultants wanted extra weeks to address my ongoing billing problems, these extra weeks were not allowed.

Download Attachments

Prologue Evidence File No/2 - Prologue Evidence File No/2 AUSTEL's Chairman Robin Davey notes: "...I would be more than a little concerned if they were to have a continuing role".

Prologue Evidence File No/3 - Prologue Evidence File No/3 Telstra's Corporation Limited "Fast Track" Proposed Rules of Arbitration.

Prologue Evidence File No/4 - Prologue Evidence File No/4 Confirmation I was still registering my phone complaints (during my FTSP) with Telstra's outside lawyers who then went onto becoming Telstra's arbitration defence lawyers to my claim.

Prologue Evidence File No/5 - Prologue Evidence File No/5 “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”.

Prologue Evidence File No/6-A to 6-I - Prologue Evidence File No/6-A to 6-I Confirmation that the 008/1800 billing issues raised in my arbitration claim were should have been investigated during my arbitration. They were not investigated during my arbitration.

Prologue Evidence File/No 7 - Prologue Evidence File/No 7 Telstra’s Arbitration Liaison Officer wrote to the TIO in 11 July 1994 stating: “Telecom will also make available to the arbitrator a summarised list of information which is available, some of which may be relevant to the arbitration. This information will be available for the resource unit to peruse. If the resource unit forms the view that this information should be provided to the arbitrator, then Telecom would accede to this request”.

Prologue Evidence File No/8-A to 8-E - Prologue Evidence File No/8-A to 8-E This letter to me dated 10 January 1996 from John Pinnock (TIO) was sent during my pending appeal process stating: "...I do not propose to provide you with copies of any documents held by this office".

Prologue Evidence File No/9-A to 9-D - Prologue Evidence File No/9-A to 9-D Memorandum from the arbitration resource unit dated 30 March, 1995 to Warwick Smith states on page 2 that: "...Smiths claim was formally certified complete in November 1994. Smith has stated verbally to myself, that on 23 December 1994, he received 90 kilograms of FOI material. As his claim was "finalised" he did not have to ability to examine these documents and add to his claim".

Prologue Evidence File No/10-A to 10-F - Prologue Evidence File No/10-A to 10-F This letter dated 28 January 2003, from the TIO Office to Telstra discusses the phone problems that the new owners of my business was still having twelve months after the purchased my business.

Prologue Evidence File No/11-A to 11-C - Prologue Evidence File No/11-A to 11-C This letter written by me to John Pinnock on 26 June 1996, was returned to me in 2002 from the TIO office (under my request) for all arbitration related documents to be provided under the privacy act. This particular letter in the right hand bottom corner someone has hand written the following statement "...These are serious allegations. We need to respond to specific letters Smith says weren't received and provide answers on each". I never received a response

Prologue Evidence File No/12 - Prologue Evidence File No/12 Senate Estimates Hansard dated 26 September 1997

Prologue Evidence File No/13 - Prologue Evidence File No/13 AUSTEL's COT Cases Report of 13 April 1994, shows that the assessor/arbitrator could not bring down a finding until all parties to the arbitration was prepared to sign off that the telephone faults had been fixed.

Open Letter - Open Letter Senate Hansard dated 2 September 1993, showing at least one of Telstra's executive Mr Von Willer has not correctly advised the government concerning the telephone exchange problems experienced by COT Cases Ann Garms and Maureen Gillan. The statement made by Senator Boswell that: "...We have now heard from Mr Von Willer that the Valley exchange is just like every other exchange in Australia. We have tabled a document from Telecom saying it is the greatest embarrassment to Australia and Mr Von Willer comes in here and tells us there is nothing wrong with Telecom."

Prologue Evidence File No/15 - Prologue Evidence File No/15 Amendment C92 to the Glenelg Planning Scheme: expert witness statement dated April 2018, from Chris McNeill, director of Essential Economics Pty Ltd.

Prologue Evidence File No/16 - Prologue Evidence File No/16 It is clear from this Echo Tourism Venture (Appraisal by Cleaner Production Australia) that there was merit in my original Cape Bridgewater Holiday Camp tourism venture.

Prologue Evidence File No/17 - Prologue Evidence File No/17 This memorandum of 30 March 1995, provided to Warwick Smith, Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (administrator to my arbitration), by Susan Hodgkinson of FHCA. We document the relevance of this attachment again because the bullets on page two and three of this memorandum discuss Telstra’s defence of my claim, and do not, in any way, coincide with AUSTEL’s adverse findings regarding my matters (see Open Letter File No/4, File No/5, File No/6 and File No/7)

Prologue Evidence File No/18 - Prologue Evidence File No/18 It is also reasonable to conclude AUSTEL representatives NEVER released their adverse findings on my matters to the Department of Communications Information, Technology and the Arts (DCITA), otherwise that information would have been finally provided to me under FOI from the DCITA. As ACMA has been the only government agency to release the more adverse findings against Telstra on my matters under my FOI requests, one can only conclude the DCITA never received a copy of those adverse findings as they were legislated to under Section 342 of the Act.

Prologue Evidence File No/19-A to 19-B - Prologue Evidence File No/19-A to 19-B Page 38 of the award prepared by the arbitrator, Dr Gordon Hughes, resulting from my Telstra-related arbitration.

Prologue Evidence File No 20

Prologue Evidence File No 21 - Prologue Evidence File No 21 The costs just continue to rise and rise and still all my claim documents have not been addressed through arbitration, particularly Short duration and incorrectly charged calls and recorded voice announcement faults. Who pays for this continuing saga, which is supposed to have been settled, even to this day? Why are the authorities so reluctant to investigate my claims? After all, if I am lying it would be so easy to prove".

Prologue Evidence File No 22-A to 22-D

Prologue Evidence File No 23

Prologue Evidence File No 24 to 39

Prologue Evidence File No 40 to 55-C

Prologue Evidence File No 56

Prologue Evidence File 1-A to 1-C

Prologue Evidence File No 57-A to 57-C

Prologue Evidence File 58-A to 58-F

Arbitrator False Evidence File 1

Cape Bridgewater Eco-Tourism Venture - Cape Bridgewater Eco-Tourism Venture Cape Bridgewater Eco-Tourism Venture

My Story Evidence File 1

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