My YouTube Video

  

In the four-minute video below, I look at a pivotal legal document known as "The COT Strategy." This document was meticulously crafted by Telstra’s arbitration lawyers from Freehill Hollingdale & Page (see Prologue Evidence File 1-A to 1-C). Its primary aim was to target four businesses, mine included, to obstruct our access to crucial Freedom of Information (FOI) documents. The lawyers sought to do this by invoking legal professional privilege. This tactic significantly impeded my ability to effectively demonstrate that the telephone faults I was experiencing were ongoing issues affecting my business operations adversely.

The COT Strategy document explicitly outlined the owners' names of the four businesses it sought to suppress. Notably, it was issued on 10 September 1993, which is significant considering that the arbitration process did not commence until April 1994. Despite the considerable time that has elapsed and the pending arbitration proceedings, no pertinent FOI documents have ever been made available to the four claimants involved in this case. This lack of access disadvantaged us, as we could not obtain vital evidence to support our claims.

In addition to the information in the video, you will encounter the official page 5169 in SENATE official Hansard – Parliament of Australia from 24 June 1997. This record holds particular significance because it includes testimony from a whistleblower within Telstra. During a Senate Committee hearing, this individual spoke under oath and disclosed that Telstra had actively instructed him to take steps to prevent the COT Cases—of which I was a participant—from substantiating our arbitration claims against the company. This shocking revelation underscores the lengths to which Telstra was willing to go to undermine our pursuit of justice and fair resolution, revealing a pattern of obstruction designed to protect their interests at the expense of fair arbitration.

 

 

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Arbitration 

The arbitrator, whose actions seemed designed to shield the government during the COT case arbitrations, asserted that there were no ongoing issues impacting the operations of the Cape Bridgewater Holiday Camp. However, in his award issued on May 11, 1995, the arbitrator only referenced historical and anecdotal faults associated with Telstra, failing to acknowledge the ongoing and significant problems that persisted. Had the arbitrator been informed of the staggering 120,000 ongoing faults reported throughout Telstra’s network, he might have pursued further investigation by his arbitration technical consultants to verify whether my claims regarding these persistent telephone faults were legitimate.

This situation raises critical questions about whether the approximately 120,000 COT-type customers scattered across Australia—detailed in Falsification Report File No/8—were facing comparable significant disruptions. These ongoing problems could be directly linked to issues concerning the Ericsson AXE telephone exchange, which had garnered attention from AUSTEL, as well as complications arising from both the CAN and AXE systems (as referenced in Falsification Report File No/8).

Moreover, the response of Telstra’s General Manager to the two letters dated April 8 and 9, 1994, addressed to Robin Davey of AUSTEL, was troubling and should have been handled differently. Acting on these letters in the manner he did—essentially minimizing the scope and severity of the reported faults—was inadequate and potentially damaging. By concealing the true scale of the problems affecting countless individuals within Telstra’s service area, the GM's actions negatively impacted many lives.

Additionally, the issue of households being overcharged for telephone calls was merely one dimension of a much larger crisis. Many of these 120,000 COT-type customers were not just regular residential users but included vital businesses. The interruptions and lost calls experienced by these businesses often had dire financial consequences, leading to bankruptcies. This was particularly evident in the twelve COT cases that are currently under arbitration, highlighting the urgent need for a fair and thorough examination of the ongoing issues within Telstra's operations.

Ongoing telephone problems 

In the ongoing discourse surrounding the National Broadband Network (NBN) in Australia, a critical issue has yet to receive adequate attention: Did the country’s copper telecommunications network fulfil the original mandatory regulatory requirements set by the government at the time of Telstra's privatization?

In my specific case, the COT arbitrator was presented with nine separate sworn witness statements from Telstra. These statements asserted that my telephone service was compliant with the established network standards, indicating that there were no continuing issues. This raises an essential question: were these nine sworn testimonies truthful or misleading?

An honest answer to this inquiry is of profound significance; it has the potential to influence billions of dollars in Commonwealth spending and could suggest that Telstra provided false information to the arbitrator during the course of my case to limit its financial liability. It is particularly concerning that, despite the arbitrator ruling in Telstra's favour, my phone issues persisted for an additional eleven years, suggesting that the network problems had not been resolved as vividly detailed in Chapter 4, The New Owners Tell Their Story, and Chapter 5, Immoral - Hypocritical Conduct.

 

"Worst of the worst: Photos of Australia’s copper network | Delimiter."

 

On June 23, 2015, I contended that if the arbitrator responsible for evaluating my arbitration claims had conducted a thorough and impartial investigation of all the evidence I supplied, he would have concluded that my claim ought to be recognized as an ongoing issue rather than a historical one, which is how it was ultimately categorized in his final decision.

Moreover, it is crucial to draw attention to external evidence that underscores this ongoing problem. For instance, a report highlighted in the article titled “Unions raise doubts over Telstra's copper network; workers using ...” reveals significant concerns regarding the reliability of Telstra’s copper network. When this report is read alongside Chapter 1 - Can We Fix The CAN," published in March 1994, it becomes glaringly evident that the faults associated with the copper-wire network have been prevalent for more than 24 years, raising critical questions about the maintenance and regulatory oversight of this essential infrastructure.

9 November 2017: Sadly, many Australians in rural Australia can only access a second-rate NBN. This didn’t have to be the case: had the Australian government ensured the arbitration process it endorsed to investigate the COT cases’ claims of ongoing telephone problems was conducted transparently, it could have used our evidence to start fixing the problems we uncovered in 1993/94. This news article https://theconversation.com/the-accc-investigation-into-the-nbn-will-be-useful-but-its-too-little-too-late-87095 and absentjustice.com/Introduction again shows that the COT Cases claims of ailing copper wire network were more than valid.  

Almost two decades after this cover-up had been executed, with the government spin doctors successfully branding my claims as frivolous and me as a vexatious litigant, I have been left the government stopped financing the roll-out of the National Broadband Network (NBN), which still utilises part of the existing, seriously degraded copper network. The “… state of the copper network is considerably worse than expected, leading to extensive work beyond the node,” say leaked documents.

28 April 2018: This ABC news article regarding the NBN see >NBN boss blames Government's reliance on copper for slow ... needs to be read in conjunction with my own story because these lies told under oath by so many Telstra employees had not occurred then the government would have been in a better position to evaluate just how bad the copper-wire Customer Access Network (CAN) really was just four years ago.

Sadly, many Australians living in rural Australia can only access a second-rate NBN. This wouldn’t have been the case if the Australian Government had ensured the arbitration process they endorsed to investigate the COT cases’ claims of ongoing communication problems had been conducted transparently.