Privacy Policy

 

During the arbitration on March 21, 1995, myself and three other COT Cases, namely Ann Garms, Graham Schorer, and a witness from Ballarat, were all found to be suffering from psychological stress disorder (PSD) due to the unlawful monitoring of our private and business telephone conversations by Telstra and its employees without proper authorization from law enforcement agencies. The witness from Ballarat, whose identity I have chosen to withhold, provided a distressing account of the negative impact on his life after learning about Telstra's unauthorized surveillance.

I also presented evidence documenting Telstra's recording of my private telephone conversations with the former Prime Minister of Australia, with critical information redacted upon release under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act. Notably, seven senators, including Cooney, Spindler, Ellison, Evans, Vanstone, McKiernan, and O'Cheer, were present during the discussion of the “Telecommunications (Interception) Amendment Bill 1994.”

In the Senate Gallery, Superintendent Detective Sergeant Jeff Penrose of the Australian Federal Police was in attendance, having visited my business twice in February and September 1994 to address privacy issues promised to be resolved by the AFP for the four COT Cases. Additionally, Garry Ellicott, an ex-Queensland Detective Sergeant of Police and acclaimed National Crime Investigator, was compensated $57,000.00 from my overall $300,000.00 arbitration cost for elucidating the profound impact of the unauthorized monitoring of my telephone conversations.

The Letter of Claim, which was submitted to the Arbitrator on June 15, 1994, was slated to be evaluated, and an official written response from the Arbitrator was expected on or before May 11, 1995. It is now July 2024, and despite the government's advisory communication to the Arbitrator on April 13, 1994, emphasizing the necessity for an official written finding on this matter, no decision has yet been rendered.

Blowing the whistle 

 

The government did not provide the promised FOI documents.

This website offers in-depth insights into criminal activities involving government agencies and public servants. It is revealed that a Senator responsible for investigating telephone issues affecting citizens had been engaged in raping children in his Parliament House office in Canberra. When the government was asked to release documents related to the pending arbitrations this Senator had facilitated, the government feared that releasing the wrong documents could expose the Senator's criminal conduct. Even further, those documents were not provided. The following letters are documented under reference paedophile activities /government / See File Ann Garms 104 Document, refer (RB.gy/divided). ​

The sexual abuse and the raping of Australian citizens in Parliament House Canberra during the period of the Casualties of Telstra mediation and then arbitrations is still very much in the public eye in 2024, as the following  Kangaroo Court website https://shorturl.at/svwI5 shows.

Subsequently, the arbitrations for the COT cases were compromised. The website provides 1,700 government and arbitration-related exhibits that validate our claims and more, available for free download.

The reprehensible behaviour of a government minister has resulted in the denial of the right to a transparent arbitration process for numerous Australian citizens. While it is regrettable to report this fact, it is imperative to disclose the unethical conduct of this senator due to the far-reaching implications it has caused.

My 3 February 1994 letter to Michael Lee, Minister for Communications (see Hacking-Julian Assange File No/27-A) and a subsequent letter from Fay Holthuyzen, assistant to the minister (see Hacking-Julian Assange File No/27-B), to Telstra’s corporate secretary, show that I was concerned that my faxes were being illegally intercepted.

An internal government memo, dated 25 February 1994, confirms that the minister advised me that the Australian Federal Police (AFP) would investigate my illegal phone/fax interception allegations. (Hacking-Julian Assange File No/28)

The internal government memo dated 25 February 1994 confirms that the Minister for Communications and the Arts had written to advise that the Australian Federal Police (AFP) would investigate my allegations of illegal phone and fax interception ([document | 742]). It is clear that the Labor Party, in power at the time, was penalizing our arbitration claims, and it is evident that the government was intent on protecting Senator Bob Collins's paedophile activities, regardless of his appalling actions. As COT Cases, we were undoubtedly collateral damage in this situation. 

The fax imprint across the top of this letter dated 12 May 1995 (Open Letter File No 55-A) is the same as the fax imprint described in the January 1999 Scandrett & Associates report provided to Senator Ron Boswell (see Open Letter File No/12 and File No/13), confirming faxes were intercepted during the COT arbitrations. One of the two technical consultants attesting to the validity of this January 1999 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)

Telstra is run by 'thugs in suits' 

Telstra threats carried out. 

Page 180 ERC&A, from the official Australian Senate Hansard dated November 29, 1994, outlines Senator Ron Boswell's inquiry to Telstra's legal directorate concerning withholding my 'Freedom of Information' documents during arbitration. These events stem from my cooperation with the AFP in their investigations into Telstra's interception of my telephone conversations. I was also asked about my knowledge of any paedophile activities by a Senator and the responses, if any, to the false fax header information I uncovered on May 14, 1994. These serious matters remain unresolved and necessitate further investigation. The paedophile activities of Senator Collins should not have empowered Telstra to believe they could escape accountability for their threatening actions of thirty years ago.

“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?” Senate Evidence File No 31)

Despite my full cooperation with the Australian Federal Police (AFP) in their investigation into the unauthorized interception of telephone conversations and arbitration-related facsimiles, I am still awaiting their conclusions on the initial evidence I provided. The AFP's lack of information adversely affected the transparency of the arbitrator's investigations into the same phone and fax hacking issues. Of concern was the necessity for me to simultaneously provide evidence supporting my claims to the AFP and the arbitrator during the thirteen-month period of my arbitration.

In simpler terms, when compelled as a citizen to aid both the AFP and the arbitrator, who were independently investigating the same matters, the directive to cooperate with both entities concurrently was issued without due consideration. The fact that there is no finding against Telstra for having made and carried out their threats against me that directly impacted the outcome of the commercial side of my arbitration claims is further testament that arbitration in Australia is not the place to receive justice.

The lack of any ruling against Telstra for their threats, which directly impacted the outcome of my arbitration claims, is compelling evidence that justice cannot be attained through arbitration in Australia.

 

 On 10 February 1994 AUSTEL wrote to Telstra's Steve Black,  who was Telstra's principal Fast Track Settlement Proposal (FTSP defence officer), stating:

“Yesterday we were called upon by officers of the Australian Federal Police in relation to the taping of the telephone services of COT Cases.

“Given the investigation now being conducted by that agency and the responsibilities imposed on AUSTEL by section 47 of the Telecommunications Act 1991, the nine tapes previously supplied by Telecom to AUSTEL were made available for the attention of the Commissioner of Police.” (See Illegal Interception File No/3)

The NINE TAPES. were the crucial 'nine smoking guns' that would undoubtedly bolster our claims against Telstra. On February 15, 1994, Senator Richard Alston raised the nine audio tapes in the Senate on notice (Main Evidence File No/29 QUESTIONS ON NOTICE). Senators Ron Boswell and Richard Alston expressed concerns about the possibility the paedophile activities in Parliament House Canberra had been recorded on these nine COT Cases-related tapes. This could be the reason we, as COT Cases, were being denied access to these tapes.

On 15 February 1994, in the Senate, Senator Alston asked Telstra:

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?

The nine tapes (the nine smoking guns) mentioned were never released to the four COT Cases, despite FOI requests to all involved parties. The arbitrator made no finding regarding Telstra's unlawful conduct in intercepting my telephone conversations and arbitration-related faxes, even though it was clearly defined in my Letter of Claim that these privacy issues were part of that claim.

Told below and elsewhere on absentjustice.com is my story after the arbitrator, for reasons never explained, did not force Telstra to fix the ongoing telephone problems that brought me to arbitration in April 1994. The government's written findings to that arbitrator on April 13, 1994, and also provided to the Minister for Communications, The Hon Michael Lee MP, was clear Telstra had to be able to prove to the arbitrator there were no more phone problems affecting these services of the COT Cases who chose to have their claims arbitrated on. My arbitration was completed on May 11, 1995, and nothing had changed. The phone problems were worse than when I went into arbitration. The new owners of my business, which they purchased in December 2001, were affecting their business until November 2006, eleven years after the arbitrator concluded his findings, only awarding me losses up to the beginning of my arbitration.

 

I continued to assist AUSTEL (now ACMA) with the 1800 systemic billing problems. 

 

 

The following statement by DMR & Lane at point 2.23 in their 30 April 1995 official arbitration report to the arbitrator has haunted me ever since the conclusion of my arbitration, i.e.;  

“Continued reports of 008 faults up to the present. As the level of disruption to overall CBHC [Cape Bridgewater Holiday Camp] service is not clear, and fault causes have not been diagnosed, a reasonable expectation that these faults would remain "open",”  (File 45-c - File No/45-A) (not my emphasis)

The absence of a directive compelling Telstra to address the persistent 1800 billing irregularities during my arbitration is deeply concerning. The arbitrator's technical consultants explicitly warned on April 30, 1995, File 45-c - File No/45-A) that failing to investigate these ongoing 1800 problems would leave the faults unresolved. "Open". 

Furthermore, the arbitrator's alignment with another legal entity to advocate for resolving similar 1800 telephone malfunctions raises serious questions. AUSTEL, the government communications regulator, directly communicated its concern to the arbitrator during my arbitration on December 8 and 16, 1994, asking whether he intended to investigate these crucial matters. If not, the government would be forced to intervene due to the systemic nature of these 1800 problems and their impact on other Telstra subscribers. Astonishingly, AUSTEL informed me (in writing) that they had received no response regarding these 1800 issues from the arbitrator, Dr. Gordon Hughes.

I had previously notified Dr Hughes that Telstra's Bell Canada International Inc (BCI) testing conducted at Cape Bridgewater did not indicate any 1800 problems. Yet, the problems were still affecting my business. As this was the case, the BCI tests had to be flawed. Telstra knew that BCI could not conduct their specialised testing at Cape Bridgewater, as the only exchange in the area capable of using the up-to-date CCS7 testing equipment was Warrnambool, located 120 kilometres away.

Fraud, misleading and deceptive conduct plagued the arbitration.

At least someone in Canada was listening. 

I contacted the Canadian Government, providing evidence that a Canadian telecommunications company, Bell Canada International, had allowed their flawed report, which they had advised Telstra was flawed, to be submitted to an arbitration process conducted in Australia. This process destroyed any chance of those who participated in the arbitrations from receiving justice.

The relevant Canadian Minister, Mr. Helm, suggested I write to Bell Canada International to express my concerns.

Bell Canada International made no written, transparent attempt to rectify this injustice.

As a result, my ongoing telephone faults continued for a further eleven years, as my story proves in Chapter 4, The New Owners Tell Their Story. Telstra's current Corporate Secretary, Sue Laver, allowed Telstra's false testimony to persist. Her involvement continued into 2024, and she was present between 1997 and 1998 when Telstra submitted further falsified information to conceal their original false submission to the arbitrator. If the arbitrator had been informed that my telephone problems were ongoing, he may have been unable to complete his arbitration findings. This could have allowed me to keep my Cape Bridgewater holiday camp and compelled Telstra to address the issues, which they appeared to have done in 2009, eleven years after my arbitration. The Bell Canada International report was just one of the four falsified reports used by Telstra on December 122, 1994, to prevent the arbitrator from finding that my phone complaints were systemic, along with those of over 120,000 other Telstra subscribers (refer to Taking on the Establishment).

The way it was - not how the government archives show it to be!

Public servants discarded small business operators as collateral damage.  

An example of the corroded copper wire that the COT Cases and some 120,000 COT-type Australian citizens were experiencing, i.e.:> Worst of the worst: Photos of Australia’s copper network | Delimiter.

 

Two Alan Smiths (not related) living in Cape Bridgewater.

The billing problems continued

I formally addressed the possibility that another Australian citizen, Alan Smith, residing in the Discovery Bay area of Cape Bridgewater, might have received my arbitration correspondence. This circumstance made me suspect that my lack of arbitration-related communication may have originated from this source. Regrettably, no inquiry was pursued on this essential matter. Furthermore, I duly informed the arbitrator and arbitration administrator of the intimidations I faced from the legal representatives of Telstra, specifically Freehill Hollingdale & Page (see Prologue Evidence File 1-A to 1-C) leading up to and during the arbitration process. I also underscored that the aforementioned individual, who shares the same name and resides in Cape Bridgewater, had encountered similar intimidations from Telstra’s legal representatives, who were presently representing Telstra in my arbitration. Despite these disclosures, no subsequent investigation into these intimidations ensued. Moreover, despite the acknowledgement of these matters by a Senate Committee, no proactive measures were undertaken by the arbitrators to stop these threats from being carried out.

Commonwealth Ombudsman records on this website for downloading show these threats were duly carried out.

I presented Alan Smith's billing information, obtained through the FOI, to the arbitrator as evidence of the threats he received from Telstra and their lawyers. In my experience, Alan contested the billing accounts for calls he did not make.

In early 2000, Telstra's CEO, on pages 132 and 133 of his publication Managing in Australia (See File 122-i—CAV Exhibit 92 to 127), discussed the problems Telstra had with its 008/1800 billing problems. 

The following link Evidence - C A V Part 1, 2 and 3 -Chapter 4 - Fast Track Arbitration Procedure confirms Frank Blount, Telstra’s CEO, after leaving Telstra in he co-published a manuscript in 1999. entitled Managing in Australia. On pages 132 and 133, the author exposes the problems Telstra were hiding from their 1800 customers:

• “Blount was shocked, but his anxiety level continued to rise when he discovered this wasn’t an isolated problem. 
• The picture that emerged made it crystal clear that performance was sub-standard.” (See File 122-i - CAV Exhibit 92 to 127)

Frank Blount's Managing Australia https://www.qbd.com.au › managing-in-australia › fran can still be purchased online. 

 ⇔ A click on the Absent Justice Book image to the left of the page provides access to a comprehensive chronology of events, portraying the complete COT story from its inception. As I started researching for my publication and "The Briefcase" (not yet edited), it became apparent that many problems the COT cases experienced originated from either negligence or deliberate malfeasance by several government agencies. Therefore, we have used page 3 of the Australian Herald Sun newspaper dated 22 December 2008, written under Bad bureaucrats, as proof that government public servants had not been acting in the best interest of Australia. 

“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“

On 23 May 2021, Peta Credlin, Barrister, Solicitor and onetime Chief of Staff to The Hon Tony Abbott (Prime Minister of Australia), now a high-profile Australian media guru and TV host, wrote a fascinating article in the same 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 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 article pertains directly to the issues raised by the COT Cases and their interaction with "the faceless bureaucrats who are often more powerful in practice than the elected politicians." Peta Credlin's assessment in this article is remarkably apt. I not only identify with the information she conveys, but I can also draw direct parallels to the numerous bureaucrats and politicians I have encountered in the lead-up to, during, and following my government-endorsed arbitration (refer to absentjustice.com), all of whom have persistently chosen to disregard the evidence now linked to this website.

Absentjustice.com - the website that triggered a deeper exploration into the world of political corruption. It stands shoulder to shoulder with any true crime. Corruption in the seat of arbitration in Australia is being manipulated to conceal the non-graded arbitrators who have been earning top dollar when not even qualified to demand such fees. In several of Australia's arbitration processes, exploitation, extortion, and fraud, referred to as graft, malfeasance, and nepotism, have been hidden by crooked public servants with their own agenda (as Open Letter File No/41/Part-One and File No/41 Part-Two show.

The following government-secured website, SENATE official Hansard – Parliament of Australia, is one of many examples of how this Telstra Corporation defrauding has been kept quiet by Australia's public servants, the Pen Pusher powerful bureaucrat discussed by Peta Credlin below.

 

Criminal Conduct Example 

“COT Case Strategy” 

As shown on page 5169 in Australia's Government SENATE official Hansard – Parliament of Australia, Telstra's lawyers Freehill Hollingdale & Page devised a legal paper titled “COT Case Strategy” (Prologue Evidence File 1-A to 1-C) instructing their client Telstra (naming me and three other businesses) on how Telstra could conceal technical information from us under the guise of Legal Professional Privilege even though the information was not privileged. 

This COT Case Strategy was to be used against me, my named business, and the three other COT case members, Ann Garms, Maureen Gillan and Graham Schorer, and their three named businesses. Simply put, we and our four businesses were targeted even before our arbitrations commenced. The Kangaroo Court was devised before the four COT Cases signed our arbitration agreements. 

It is paramount that the visitor reading absentjustice.com understands the significance of page 5169 at points 29, 30, and 31 of the SENATE official Hansard – Parliament of Australia. When leaving absentjustice.com to view the SENATE official, Hansard, please remember you will visit a safe government website whose records show what the government has accepted as factual.    

I informed the arbitrator, Dr Gordon Hughes, about my distressing visit to Telstra's union offices in Collingwood, Melbourne, where I spoke to union official Peter Aberheart. I clarified with Mr Aberheart that the COT Cases were not targeting regular Telstra technicians but Telstra's internal arbitration defence management team, which had threatened me. Despite this, the arbitrator, administrator, and legal counsel involved in the arbitration failed to take any action to support me. I cautioned that if the threats continued, I would take the matter directly to Telstra technician Gordon Stokes in Portland.

In accordance with my undertaking, I visited Mr Stokes, who, in the presence of witnesses, attested that he was not the solitary Telstra employee in Portland engaging in the surveillance of my telephonic communications. 

Lastly, I reported these troubling occurrences to the Australian Federal Police. Question 81 in the following AFP transcripts (see Australian Federal Police Investigation File No/1 confirms that the AFP told me that the Government Communications Authority (AUSTEL), their General Manager of Consumer Affairs,  John MacMahon, had supplied the AFP evidence my phones had been bugged over an extended period noting: 

"... it does identify the fact that, that you were live monitored for a period of time. See we're quite satisfied that, there are other references to it".

I had a phone conversation with Ann Garms, one of the four COT Cases, who, along with me and two of the other COT Cases, had been targeted by Denise McBurnie Telstra's lawyers (see  (Prologue Evidence File 1-A to 1-C), so we four COT Cases could not prove our claims. During Ann's arbitration appeal period, which cost her more than $600,000.00 in legal fees, Ann became emotional. She repeatedly asked why the arbitrator, Dr. Hughes, didn't help her access vital sabotage evidence against Telstra.

The statement on this Telstra File 1122 - AS-CAV 1103 to 1132:

Customer - 'TIVOLI THEATER RESTAURANT' Line 1 NDT NRR SUSPECT SABOTAGE ?????--LOOKS LIKE A JOB FOR SUPER SLEUTH SHERLOCK KELLY ???????. 

This document shows even Telstra officials thought Ann's business had been sabotaged. File 1123 - AS-CAV 1103 to 1132 should be read in conjunction with File 1122 and file Prologue Evidence File 1-A to 1-C because it looks like Telstra is implementing a strategy similar to the one used by Freehill Hollingdale & Page (Telstra's Arbitration Layers) who singled the 'Tivoli Theatre Restaurant/Ann Garm and my Cape Bridgewater Holiday Camp /Alan Smith and the other two COT businesses.

The following Telstra internal email dated 21 April 1993, FOI folio C04094, from Greg Newbold to numerous Telstra executives and discussing “COT cases latest”, states:-

“Don, thank you for your swift and eloquent reply.  I disagree with raising the issue of the courts.  That carries an implied threat not only to COT cases but to all customers that they’ll end up as lawyer fodder.  Certainly that can be a message to give face to face with customers and to hold in reserve if the complaints remain vexacious [sic].” (File 75 GS-CAV Exhibit 1 to 88.

The content featured in the aforementioned documents illustrates firsthand the perspective of government-owned corporations in Australia and their public servants regarding the grievances of ordinary citizens, irrespective of their validity. These were the individuals engaged in the arbitration of the COT Cases.

Criminal Conduct Example 

Stop the COT Cases at all cost

Worse, however, the day before the Senate committee uncovered this "COT Case Strategy", they were also told under oath, on 24 June 1997 see:- pages 36 and 38 Senate - Parliament of Australia, from an ex-Telstra employee, turned -Whistle-blower, Lindsay White, that, while he was assessing the relevance of the technical information which the COT claimants had requested, he advised the Committee that:

Mr White  "In the first induction - and I was one of the early ones, and probably the earliest in the Freehill's (Telstra’s Lawyers) area - there were five complaints. They were Garms, Gill and Smith, and Dawson and Schorer. My induction briefing was that we - we being Telecom - had to stop these people to stop the floodgates being opened."

Senator O’Chee then asked Mr White -  "What, stop them reasonably or stop them at all costs - or what?"

Mr White responded by saying -  "The words used to me in the early days were we had to stop these people at all costs".

Senator Schacht also asked Mr White - "Can you tell me who, at the induction briefing, said 'stopped at all costs" .

From Mr White's statement, it is clear that he identified me (Alan Smith) and three of the other COT Cases named in Freehill Hollingdale & Page COT Case Strategy (Prologue Evidence File 1-A to 1-C), namely Ann Garms, Mauree Gillan and Graham Schorer, as four of the five COT claimants that Telstra had to be ‘stopped at all costs’ from proving our claims. 

Criminal Conduct Example 

It was not of Mr Joblin's hand 

It bore no signature of the psychologist

As shown in government records, the government assured the COT Cases (see point 40 Prologue Evidence File No/2), Freehill Holingdale & Page would have no further involvement in the COT issues the same legal firm which when they provided Ian Joblin, clinical psychologist's witness statement to the arbitrator, it was only signed by Maurice Wayne Condon, of Freehill's. It bore no signature of the psychologist.

In my arbitration in 1994, I revealed to Mr. Joblin that Telstra had been monitoring my daily movements since 1992 and that FOI documents showed Telstra had redacted those recorded conversations. This revelation greatly troubled Mr. Joblin, who realized he had been deceived by Telstra's lawyers, Freehill Hollingdale & Page. I presented evidence that Freehill Hollingdale & Page had provided him with a false report regarding my phone problems before he interviewed me. Mr. Joblin acknowledged that his findings would address this concern. Nonetheless, there were no adverse findings against Telstra or Freehill Hollingdale & Page.

My Joblin was adamant that he would mention in his findings to Freehill Hollingdale & Page that Telstra's treatment of me was not proper and fit and that Telstra's methods of assisting me needed to be reviewed. There were no adverse findings against Telstra nor Freehill Hollingdale & Page. 

Did Maurice Wayne Condon remove or alter any reference to Ian Joblin's initial writing about me being of sound mind? 

On 21 March 1997, twenty-two months after the conclusion of my arbitration, John Pinnock (the second appointed administrator to my arbitration), wrote to Telstra's Ted Benjamin (see File 596 - AS-CAV Exhibits 589 to 647 asking: 

1...any explanation for the apparent discrepancy in the attestation of the witness statement of Ian Joblin [clinical psychologist’s].

2...were there any changes made to the Joblin statement originally sent to Dr Hughes [the arbitrator] compared to the signed statement?" 

In 2014, I personally have still not received any response to John Pinnock's letter File 596 to Telstra's Ted Benjamin. 

Public servants often have their own agenda.

Open Letter File No/41/Part-One and File No/41 Part-Two.

After a thorough review of both Open Letter File No/41/Part-One and File No/41 Part-Two, it is evident that the exhibits and evidence appended to the report presented by the Hon David Hawker MP and myself to Senator Richard Alston, subsequently forwarded to his staff manager Paul Fletcher for examination, hold substantial weight. Had Mr. Fletcher undertaken an investigation into this report in June 1996, it is plausible that the majority, if not all, of the issues raised on absentjustice.com would have been resolved in that same year.

The Hon. Paul Fletcher, Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities, and the Arts in the 2022 Morrison government, was approached by my Federal Member of Parliament, The Hon Dan Tehan MP, to assess my outstanding COT issues. Regrettably, Paul Fletcher chose not to pursue an investigation.

ExhibitAbsentjustice-Introduction File 495, dated 22 September 1994, is a transcript from an oral interview at the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s Office with two government communications authority representatives, Bruce Matthews and John McMahon. On page 7 of this manuscript, the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s officer, John Wynack, asked: "What was the date the report was issued, the AUSTEL report"? And Mr Matthews replied:

"The final report was April – I can’t remember the date in April, but April 1994. The draft report was produced in March 1994, and Telecom received their copy then".

Only Telstra was given a copy of AUSTEL’s Adverse Findings, dated March 1994. This document confirmed that AUSTEL (now known as ACMA), the former government communications authority, found my claims against Telstra regarding my ongoing telephone problems valid. The arbitrator's decision on compensating my financial losses would have been significantly higher if he had been provided with this AUSTEL’s Adverse Findings. In simpler terms, AUSTEL only provided Telstra with a copy of AUSTEL’s Adverse Findings in March 1994, just six weeks before commencing my government-endorsed arbitration process. This greatly favoured Telstra in preparing for their defence during my 1994-1995 arbitration. It enabled Telstra to decide which important documents should be concealed from the arbitration process and which ones should be disclosed.

For some inexplicable reason, only Telstra was given a copy of AUSTEL’s Adverse Findings, dated March 1994, confirming that AUSTEL, the former government communications authority (now known as ACMA), investigated my persistent telephone issues and substantiated my claims against Telstra from Points 2 to 212. The investigation acknowledged that my efforts to establish a dependable phone system for my business had also benefitted many others in my region over several years, as evidenced by the following examples:

Point 115 –“Some problems with incorrectly coded data seem to have existed for a considerable period of time. In July 1993 Mr Smith reported a problem with payphones dropping out on answer to calls made utilising his 008 number. Telecom diagnosed the problem as being to “Due to incorrect data in AXE 1004, CC-1. Fault repaired by Ballarat OSC 8/7/93, The original deadline for the data to be changed was June 14th 1991. Mr Smith’s complaint led to the identification of a problem which had existed for two years.”

Point 130 – “On April 1993 Mr Smith wrote to AUSTEL and referred to the absent resolution of the Answer NO Voice problem on his service. Mr Smith maintained that it was only his constant complaints that had led Telecom to uncover this condition affecting his service, which he maintained he had been informed was caused by “increased customer traffic through the exchange.”  On the evidence available to AUSTEL it appears that it was Mr Smith’s persistence which led to the uncovering and resolving of his problem – to the benefit of all subscribers in his area”.

Point 153 –“A feature of the RCM system is that when a system goes “down” the system is also capable of automatically returning back to service. As quoted above, normally when the system goes “down” an alarm would have been generated at the Portland exchange, alerting local staff to a problem in the network. This would not have occurred in the case of the Cape Bridgewater RCM however, as the alarms had not been programmed. It was some 18 months after the RCM was put into operation that the fact the alarms were not programmed was discovered. In normal circumstances the failure to program the alarms would have been deficient, but in the case of the ongoing complaints from Mr Smith and other subscribers in the area the failure to program these alarms or determine whether they were programmed is almost inconceivable.”

Point 209 – “Cape Bridgewater Holiday Camp has a history of service difficulties dating back to 1988. Although most of the documentation dates from 1991 it is apparent that the camp has had ongoing service difficulties for the past six years which has impacted on its business operations causing losses and erosion of customer base.”

One does not have to be a genius to understand that had the arbitrator been provided AUSTEL’s Adverse Findings, his award on my financial business losses would have been substantially higher than he awarded. 

AUSTEL's actions were a blatant abuse of process. Allowing me to commence arbitration/legal proceedings against Telstra without the necessary documents to support my claim was unjust. Moreover, spending over $300,000 in arbitration fees over thirteen months, attempting to prove something the government had already established against Telstra, was completely unacceptable. AUSTEL and its 'so-called' independent-minded public servants breached their statutory obligation to me as a citizen of Australia.

The phone problems were brought to our attention by tourists passing by. 

 

 

Upon calling the phone number on the holiday camp street sign, the tourists were shocked to hear a recorded message from Telstra, implying that the camp was no longer in operation.

The telephone saga began in late 1987 when my wife Faye and I bought a holiday camp accommodation business perched high above Cape Bridgewater, near Portland on the southwest coast of country Victoria. The Cape Bridgewater Holiday Camp had been run as a school camp, and we intended to turn it into a venue for social clubs, family groups, and schools.

The camp relied heavily on landline phones as the only means of communication other than passing trade. When we first fell in love with the place, we never thought to run a series of test calls to the business to see if the phone lines were fault-free. We were unaware the phone system was an outdated telephone RAX facility that should have been replaced years before. In those days, there was no mobile coverage, and business was not conducted using the Internet or email until the late 1990s. The camp was connected to a roadside switching facility, which was then routed to the central telephone exchange in Portland, 20 kilometres away.

This telecommunications infrastructure, installed over 30 years before we purchased it, was designed for low-call-rate areas and had only eight lines to serve 66 families, totalling 132 adults and children. This meant there were only four free lines for the remaining 128 adults and their children during peak times. During weekends and holidays, when more people visited the seaside resort, the demand for making and receiving calls increased significantly, causing the lines to become jammed.

My beloved Cape Bridgewater Holiday Camp was certainly in a pristine location.

 

What possibly could go wrong?

Before the late 1990s, the Australian government owned Telecom, the country's telephone network and communications carrier, which was later privatized and renamed Telstra. Telecom held a monopoly on communications, allowing the network to deteriorate. When four small business owners faced severe communication problems, they participated in a government commercial assessment process known as the "Fast Track Settlement Proposal" (FTSP).  All four claimants and Telstra accepted and signed this process in November 1993.

The claimants were promised access to Telstra and government documents to prove ongoing telephone problems and faults affecting their businesses. However, very few documents were provided after signing the FTSP, leading to a stalemate. Other people joined our group of four. By the time arbitration was forced upon the COT Cases, sixteen Australian citizens had signed up for arbitration and mediation under the promise that the government and Telstra would release the necessary documents. These promised documents were used to entice the signing of the arbitrations and mediations, but once signed, the COT Cases were left on their own.

In my case, the arbitrator accepted Telstra's NINE WITNESS STATEMENTS, concluding that no ongoing problems were affecting my business. With no documents to prove otherwise, Telstra was in a win-win situation. After seven years of no one visiting my business to fix the ongoing problems and being told by the arbitrator, the process administrator, and Telstra that the problems had been resolved, I sold the business in 2001 for its land value only. Subsequently, the ongoing telephone problems negatively impacted the new owners of my business Chapter 4 The New Owners Tell Their Story.

Folios C04006, C04007, and C04008, headed TELECOM SECRET Exhibit Front Page Part Two 2-B, serve as undeniable proof that Telstra was fully aware of the extent of my telephone problems. Despite this knowledge, nine Telstra employees knowingly committed perjury by submitting nine arbitration Witness Statements to the arbitrator under oath, falsely claiming that no such phone problem had existed.

“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.”

The world of political corruption 

Graft, malfeasance, and nepotism

The documented evidence indicates that Telstra's CEO and the entire board possessed foreknowledge of millions of dollars being unlawfully withdrawn from government funds. These funds were utilized to exert control over 45 prominent legal firms, thereby obstructing ordinary citizens with claims against Telstra from pursuing legal remedies. This crucial information is publicly available on absentjustice.com, shedding light on pervasive unethical practices and erroneously billed accounts.

Senator Mark Bishop's denouncement of Telstra's utilization of these 45 prominent legal firms against ordinary Australian citizens and small business operators, who had lodged complaints solely regarding inadequate service, is accessible at parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/displaychamberhansards1999-03-11. His condemnation of this unjust practice underscores the enormity of a government-owned entity, Telstra, employing public funds in opposition to the public interest, constituting an abuse of power. The enduring absence of an investigation into this scandalous matter is noteworthy.

Many of the documents were unreadable. 

Telstra was the CAT, and the COT Cases were the mouse.

In the case of Dr Gordon Hughes, the COT arbitrator, it is important that he should have disclosed to the COT Cases and their legal representatives that he operated as an 'ungraded arbitrator' and achieved graded status only after the conclusion of my arbitration. Additionally, he should have informed the COT Cases and their legal representatives that his Sydney-based firm was examining the business affairs of the NSW (Sydney) arm of several Telstra employees. It is also important to note that he should have disclosed that the faxes intended for the COT Cases sent to his Melbourne office were rerouted to his Sydney office outside of standard business hours and during weekends.

When the arbitrator returned the claim documents we had submitted after our arbitrations, we were surprised to discover that many documents and reports were stapled together with unrelated material. Some of the documents even belonged to a different claimant. Despite reporting the issue to the arbitrator and arbitration administrator, John Pinnock, no investigation was conducted as our arbitrations had concluded.

This document mixing-up occurred one month into my arbitration after I received documents and reports from Telstra under Freedom of Information (FOI). The FOI documents did not match the accompanying text and fax-header sheets in several instances. Realizing the seriousness of the issue, I sought intervention from Superintendent Detective Sergeant Jeff Penrose of the Australian Federal Police on May 14, 1994.

He encouraged me to provide evidence of this misconduct to the arbitrator and administrator through a statutory declaration, which I promptly did. Refer to File 76 and 77 - AS-CAV Exhibit 48-A to 91. Despite providing the arbitrator and the administrator with a copy of Statutory Declaration File 76 - AS-CAV Exhibit 48-A to 91), which had been given to the Federal Police, neither investigated the FOI document issue.

Concerning document 77 - AS-CAV Exhibit 48-A to 91, Sue Harlow, Deputy (TIO) Ombudsman, was entrusted with evidence regarding 56 reports that had been tampered with to the extent that they were indecipherable. Notably, the issues relating to tampered arbitration documents from 1994 and 1995 remain uninvestigated as of 2024.

It is deeply concerning that neither Dr. Gordon Hughes (the arbitrator) nor Warwick Smith (the administrator to the arbitrations) saw fit to investigate why Telstra was engaging in such questionable practices when supplying FOI documents. In my case (File 76 - AS-CAV Exhibit 48-A to 91), I confirmed I found that '56 reports' fax header introduction pages' were stapled with information irrelevant to the attached content. This blatant disregard for proper document handling was unacceptable and warranted immediate attention. It received no response whatsoever.

 

Heavy-handed tactics 

$24 million of moneys being used to crush these people 

On March 11, 1999, after Dr Gordon Hughes and Warwick Smith utilized heavy-handed tactics to handle the COT Cases, their arbitrations were concluded, with less than 11 per cent of the claims being met. Senator Kim Carr criticized the handling of the COT arbitrations, as evidenced in the following Hansard link shows:

Addressing the government’s lack of power, he said:

“What I do make a comment on is the question of civil liberties and the rights of citizens to approach this parliament and seek redress for their grievances when corporate power, particularly in a publicly owned corporation, has been abused. And there can be no question that that is what is at the heart of this issue.”

And when addressing Telstra’s conduct, he stated:

“But we also know, in the way in which telephone lines were tapped, in the way in which there have been various abuses of this parliament by Telstra—and misleading and deceptive conduct to this parliament itself, similar to the way they have treated citizens—that there has of course been quite a deliberate campaign within Telstra management to undermine attempts to resolve this question in a reasonable way. We have now seen $24 million of moneys being used to crush these people. It has gone on long enough, and simply we cannot allow it to continue. The attempt made last year, in terms of the annual report, when Telstra erroneously suggested that these matters—the CoT cases—had been settled demonstrates that this process of deceptive conduct has continued for far too long.” (See parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/displaychamberhansards1999-03-11)

Telstra's misuse of public funds, which should have gone to the Australian government instead of paying yearly retainers to 45 leading legal firms, is concerning. Moreover, during the COT arbitrations, they spent an additional $24 million to suppress sixteen Australian small business operators, hindering their efforts to prove events over two decades. This also affected around 120,000 similar COT cases, where individuals were fighting Telstra for a reassessment of their wrongly billed accounts. Senator Kim Carr's statement about the $24 million is deeply troubling for COT cases. 

 

The Arbitrator 

Dr Gordon Hughes, Warwick Smith - Order of Australia

However, the following statement by John Pinnock (the second administrator to the COT arbitrations) on the 26th of September 1997, two years after most of the arbitrations had been concluded, including mine. ( Prologue Evidence File No 22-D) states that:  

"...In the process leading up to the development of the arbitration procedures—and I was not a party to that, but I know enough about it to be able to say this—the claimants were told clearly that documents were to be made available to them under the FOI Act."

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

I must take the reader forward fourteen years to the following letter dated 30 July 2009.

 

Dr Gordon Hughes 

According to this letter dated 30 July 2009, from Graham Schorer (COT spokesperson) and ex-client of the arbitrator Dr Hughes (see Chapter 3 - Conflict of Interest) wrote to Paul Crowley, CEO Institute of Arbitrators Mediators Australia (IAMA), attaching a statutory declaration (see" Burying The Evidence File 13-H and a copy of a previous letter dated 4 August 1998 from Mr Schorer to me, detailing a phone conversation Mr Schorer had with the arbitrator (during the arbitrations in 1994) regarding lost Telstra COT related faxes. During that conversation, the arbitrator explained, in some detail, that:

"Hunt & Hunt (The company's) Australian Head Office was located in Sydney, and (the company) is a member of an international association of law firms. Due to overseas time zone differences, at close of business, [the company's] Melbourne's incoming facsimiles are night switched to automatically divert to Hunt & Hunt Sydney office where someone is always on duty. There are occasions on the opening of the Melbourne office, the person responsible for cancelling the night switching of incoming faxes from the Melbourne office to the Sydney Office, has failed to cancel the automatic diversion of incoming facsimiles." Burying The Evidence File 13-H.

The fact that Dr Hughes did not officially disclose these faxing problems between his Sydney and Melbourne offices before he was appointed an arbitrator to seven arbitrations, all coordinated collectively over a twelve-month period, where COT claimants, two in Brisbane and five in Melbourne, often complained of the arbitrator's office not responding to faxes, is hinging on criminal negligence. 

Please take note:

You will be redirected to the government archives if you click on the following Australian Government Hansard records. This will only take around half a minute. The records are from the SENATE official Hansard – Parliament of Australia, pages 5163 to 5168. These pages expose that Telstra employees have been embezzling millions of dollars from Telstra shareholders, including the government and Australian citizens who were Telstra owners. This misappropriation of public funds was not limited to NSW alone; similar activities were also occurring in other states. Astonishingly, the Telstra CEO and board were aware of this illegal extraction of millions of dollars from the government coffers. There are even claims that the amounts involved could reach into the billions.

Was there a more sinister reason for Dr Hughes not disclosing that his company was also working with Telstra employees when he accepted his commission as the commercial assessor to the first COT Cases Fast Track Settlement Proposal (FTSP)? This means that Telstra management would have had to know that Dr Hughes was working for them when they accepted him as the FTSP (assessor), which six months later became the Fast Track Arbitration Procedure FTAP.

 

CONFLICT OF INTEREST - Dr Hughes and Graham Schorer (refer to document File 567 - GS-CAV 522 to 580 ).

 

On 21 November 2012, Graham produced a letter of understanding that included:

“During the period that I retained Landers & Rogers, at no stage was I informed by Gordon Hughes or any other member of Landers & Rogers staff, that Telecom or the Australian Government Solicitor contacted them with information regarding the North Melbourne exchange.

“Furthermore, had I known that Gordon Hughes had concealed knowledge of such an important document from me, I would not have accepted his appointment as the arbitrator in my arbitration process” (refer File 567 - GS-CAV 522 to 580 ).

Upon reviewing "Chapter 3 - Conflict of Interest," it is abundantly clear that Dr. Hughes neglected to disclose crucial court documents while representing Mr. Graham Schorer in a Federal Court Action against Telstra, a full two years before assuming the role of FTSP assessor, which eventually transitioned into Telstra's intricate Fast Track Arbitration Procedure. If I had been aware of Dr Hughes' prior representation of COT Cases spokesperson Graham Schorer, I would have adamantly refused to accept him as the assessor for FTSP or arbitrator for FTAP.

Those who delve into this disturbing tale of deception will unmistakably identify Dr. Gordon Hughes's biased treatment of Mr. Schorer. The arbitrator's egregious unethical behaviour is well-documented in the numerous files for public download from the website. They vividly recount the events as they unfolded. As the author of the COT story, I find the evidence on absentjustices.com incontrovertible.

 

The Brotherhood 

Organised Crime within Telstra and the ACMA

 

In the Senate Hansard records dated 20 September 1995, under the heading "A MATTER OF PUBLIC INTEREST," Senator Ron Boswell passionately discussed the injustices suffered by myself and the other three COT claimants (Ann Garms, Maureen Gillan, Graham Schorer) before, during, and after our government-endorsed arbitrations.

“...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)

During my research into preparing the COT story for how arbitrations are conducted in Australia, I am still looking for a worse sheer neglect of duty than that of Dr Gordon Hughes, the arbitrator to at least six arbitrations and mediations. No one had ever sunk as low as Dr Gordon Hughes when he allowed John Pinnock, the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, to use Mr Hughes' good name to discredit me. I doubt that Mrs Hughes knows her husband, Gordon Hughes, used her credibility to protect his unethical actions during and after the COT arbitrations.

Misleading and Deceptive Conduct - Lies and more lies.

Chapter 4 - The Seventh Damning Letter

On 27 February 1996, as part of an official inquiry conducted by the Institute of Arbitrators Australia (IAA) concerning the alleged misconduct of Dr Gordon Hughes, who served as the arbitrator for my arbitration proceedings in 1994 and 1995, John Pinnock, the administrator of the arbitration, corresponded with Laurie James, President of the IAA, questioning my credibility. Mr. Pinnock deliberately provided Mr. James with false information, suggesting that I had made a 2 am phone call to the arbitrator's spouse, implying that my credibility was questionable, stating:

“Mr Smith has admitted to me in writing that last year he rang Dr Hughes’ home phone number (apparently in the middle of the night, at approximately 2.00 am) and spoke to Dr Hughes’ wife, impersonating a member of the Resource Unit.” (See page 3, Arbitrator File No /49)

When John Pinnock wrote, “Mr Smith has admitted to me in writing that last year he rang Dr Hughes’ home phone number (apparently in the middle of the night, at approximately 2.00 am)," why didn't he send a copy of my letter to Mr James? He couldn't because no such letter exists. I wrote no such a letter. 

John Pinnock's letter was also copied to Dr. Hughes. Why did Dr. Hughes allow such a letter to be sent when he must have known I did not telephone his wife at 2:00 a.m.? I telephoned at 8:02 p.m. to inform Dr Hughes of the fresh evidence that revealed Telstra had tampered with evidence (a collected telephone) after it left my business (refer to Tampering With Evidence).

Criminal Conduct Example 

Who poured the wet substance into the telephone after it left my promises?

Why did it take ten days to reach Telstra's laboratories? 

Tampering With Evidence

After Telstra's Ross Anderson completed his testing on 27 April, the phone took nine days to reach Telstra’s laboratory. It arrived on 6 May, and laboratory testing did not commence for another four days. Ray Bell, the author of the TF 200 report, was adamant at point 1.3, under the heading Initial Inspection, that:

“The suspect TF200 telephone when received was found to be very dirty around the keypad with what appeared to be a sticky substance, possibly coffee.” (Tampering With Evidence File No 3)

A second photo I received under FOI is taken from the front of the same TF200 phone, confirming a note I placed on the phone was quite clean when it was received at Telstra (see Open Letter File No/37 exhibits 3, 4, 5 and 6). Who within Telstra smeared grease or dirt over the front keypad of the TF200 phone as these three photos show was the case (File 636, 637 and 638  AS-CAV Exhibits 589 to 647).

 

Sore eyes made it impossible to observe such testing

Ongoing lock-up problems

Another disturbing side to this tapering with arbitration evidence by Telstra is that I volunteered for the Cape Bridgewater Country Fire Authority (CFA) for many years before this tampering occurred. The following chapters show that during my arbitration, Telstra twisted why I could not be present to test my TF200 telephone at my premises during a scheduled meeting on the morning of 27 April 1994. Telstra only reported in their file notes (later submitted to the arbitrator) that I refused to allow Telstra to test the phones because I was tired. There was no mention in these file notes that I advised the fault response unit that I had been fighting an out-of-control fire for 14 hours or that my sore eyes made it impossible to observe such testing by Telstra. I fought the fire the previous evening from 6 pm to 9 am the following morning.

It is clear from our Tampering With Evidence page that not only did Telstra set out to discredit me by implying I was just too tired to have my TF200 phone tested, but after Telstra removed the phone, it was tampered with before it arrived at Telstra’s Melbourne laboratories: someone from Telstra poured beer into the phone. In its arbitration defence report, Telstra then alleged that sticky beer was the cause of the phone’s ongoing lock-up problems, not the Cape Bridgewater network. This wicked deed and the threats I received from Telstra during my arbitration testify that my claims should have been investigated years ago. So, even though I carried out my civic duties as an Australian citizen, over and beyond, by supplying vital evidence to the AFP and fighting out-of-control fires, I was still penalised on both occasions during my arbitration.

Infringe upon the civil liberties.

Most Disturbing And Unacceptable 

On 27 January 1999, after having also read my first attempt at writing my manuscript absentjustice.com, the same manuscript I provided Helen Handbury, Senator Kim Carr wrote:

“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.” 

Senator Schacht was even more vocal:

 

Who had the authority in Australia to convince the senator to investigate and grant damages to only five of the twenty-one COT Cases with unresolved FOI issues?

“I rise to speak to this statement tabled today from the working party of the Senate Environment Communications, Information Technology and the Arts Legislation Committee—a committee I served on in the last parliament—that dealt with the bulk of this issue of the CoT cases. In my time in this parliament, I have never seen a more sorry episode involving a public instrumentality and the way it treated citizens in Australia. I agree with all the strong points made by my colleagues on both sides who have spoken before me on this debate. What was interesting about the Senate committee investigating this matter over the last couple of years was that it was absolutely tripartisan—whether you were Labor, Liberal or National Party, we all agreed that something was rotten inside Telstra in the way it handled the so-called CoT cases for so long.

The outcome here today is sad. There is no victory for citizens who have been harshly dealt with by Telstra.” (See parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/displaychamberhansards1999-03-11)

Criminal Conduct Example 

 

The COT Cases never had a chance.

 

Big Brother again wins in Australia as the following thirty-year battle shows.

TIO Evidence File No 3-A is an internal Telstra email (FOI folio A05993) dated 10 November 1993 from Chris Vonwiller to Telstra’s corporate secretary Jim Holmes, CEO Frank Blount, group general manager of commercial Ian Campbell and other important members of the then-government owned corporation. The subject is Warwick Smith, the first appointed Telecommunication Industry Ombudsman – COT cases, and it is marked as CONFIDENTIAL:

Exhibit TIO Evidence File No 3-A confirms that two weeks before the TIO was officially appointed as the administrator of the Fast Track Settlement Proposal FTSP, which became the Fast-Track Arbitration Procedure (FTAP), he was providing the soon-to-be defendants (Telstra) of that process with privileged, government party room information about the COT cases. Not only did the TIO breach his duty of care to the COT claimants, but he also compromised his own future position as the official independent administrator of the process.

It is highly likely the advice the TIO gave to Telstra’s senior executive, in confidence (that Senator Ron Boswell’s National Party Room was not keen on holding a Senate enquiry), later prompted Telstra to have the FTSP non-legalistic commercial assessment process turned into Telstra’s preferred legalistic arbitration procedure, because they now had inside government privileged information: there was no longer a significant threat of a Senate enquiry.

 

Legal Professional Privilege

The Firm - John Grisham 

It was while all this skulduggery and deception was taking place, and Denise McBurnie, along with Freehill Hollingdale & Page, had drained me of all my reserved energies to keep going, that I remembered the ruthless legal firm portrayed in John Grisham's 1991 novel The Firm.

Both Telstra’s 14 April 1994 letter to the Australian Federal Police (AFP), which admits at least one Telstra employee was intercepting my telephone conversations and my 9 September 1994 response concerning this unauthorised interception over an extended period, are now stamped “Protected AFP” material. The SENATE official Hansard refers to Telstra’s conduct, stand-over tactics and threats against the COT cases. 

Senate Hansard (records), the following AFP transcripts Australian Federal Police Investigation File No/1 of their conversations with me concerning these threats and the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s records all confirm Telstra carried out those threats against me. Yet, neither the arbitrator nor the TIO addressed this during my arbitration. Why has no one ever addressed this unethical conduct publicly? Why is there no record in the arbitrator’s award exposing these threats? Why was Telstra allowed to make these threats and commit similar unlawful acts against the COT cases leading up to and during our four arbitrations?

Neither the TIO nor the arbitrator came to my aid or asked why a corporation could take control over arbitrations in a government-endorsed process.

By this time, the four cases were being forced into a highly legalistic, government-endorsed arbitration with the threat that they either accept Telstra's new arbitration process or take the government (which entirely owned Telstra) to court. These four COT Cases - Ann Garms, Maureen Gillan, Graham Schorer and myself - were not told that the FTSP assessor, Dr Gordon Hughes, and the FTSP administrator, Warwick Smith, had covertly been negotiating with Telstra to use their arbitration agreement prepared by their lawyers Freehill Hollingdale & Page.

The government communications authority AUSTEL had assured the COT Cases in writing that because of the terrible things that Freehill Hollingdale & Page had done to the four COT Cases. In my case, Telstra had refused to investigate my ongoing telephone problems unless they were first registered in writing with Denise McBurnie of Freehill Hollingdale & Page, with Frehill's refusing to respond to that registered written complaint on the grounds it was now considered Legal and Professional Privilege.

My lawyers were shocked and reported their disgust with AUSTEL. Then, AUSTEL promised the COT Cases Freehill would not be used in any process involving the four COT Cases. Confirmation of this can be verified by viewing the draft of the Fast Track Settlement Proposal (FTSP) dated 5 October 1993, from AUSTEL’s Robin Davey to Telstra's then most senior Commercial Business Manager, Ian Campbell states, at point 40:-

“Finally, if the attached letter (Attachment ‘D’) dated 7 July 1993 from Freehill, Hollingdale & Page to one of the COT Cases’ solicitors is indicative of the way that Freehill, Hollingdale & Page have approached the COT Cases in the past, I would be more than a little concerned if they were to have a continuing role.” (File GS-110 GS-CAV Exhibit 89 to 154(b) 

Not only did Dr. Gordon Hughes and Warwick Smith allow the Freehill Hollingdale & Page drafted Fast Track Arbitration Procedure (FTAP Agreement) to be used in all four arbitrations, but it was also used in my arbitration, aware it was grossly deficient. When Dr. Hughes uncovered this during the deliberation period of my arbitration, the other three claimants were granted more than thirteen months longer to prepare their new amended arbitration agreements than was allowed for me. My appeal lawyers, Law Partners of Melbourne, were not advised that the arbitration agreement we were about to challenge had been abandoned. This letter from Dr Hughes to Warwick Smith, written the day after my award was handed down, advises of its many deficiencies and can be read by clicking on Open Letter File No 55-A).

As shown in Part 2 →Chapter 5, Fraudulent Conduct, COT Cases, Ann Garms, Graham Schorer and I were in attendance when we were forced to exonerate the financial and technical consultants from any liability in our arbitration when the $250,000,00 liability caps in clauses 25 and 26 were removed from the arbitration agreement drafted by Telstra's lawyers. Additionally, we were compelled to exonerate the administrator's legal special counsel from any liability due to late changes made to clause 24.

Had we known that Telstra's lawyers had written the document and that Frank Shelton was only making superficial alterations to the Telstra-drafted agreement, we would not have exonerated Mr Shelton or the Legal Counsel from their involvement in using Telstra's drafted agreement instead of the independently agreed-upon one. Frank Shelton was appointed as a County Court Judge shortly after these events.

Fourteen and eighteen years after those arbitrations concluded, the Australian Communications Media Authority (ACMA), representing the government, continued to aid Telstra in concealing the crucial evidence that the COT Cases had been promised.   

I appeared before the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) on 3 October 2008 and 12 May 2011 in two separate instances. During these proceedings, I sought the release of Freedom of Information documents promised by the Australian government in 1994. These documents were integral to my 1994 arbitration claim against the government-owned Telstra Corporation, as they were essential in illustrating the detrimental impact of persistent telephone issues on the viability of my business during that period. At the 3 October 2008 AAT hearing (No V2008/1836), the senior member, Mr. GA Friedman, acting on behalf of the government, openly acknowledged the significance of my request while addressing government lawyers representing the Australian Communication Media Authority (ACMA) and the AAT Gallery.

 “Let me just say, I don’t consider you, personally, to be frivolous or vexatious – far from it.

“I suppose all that remains for me to say, Mr Smith, is that you obviously are very tenacious and persistent in pursuing the – not this matter before me, but the whole – the whole question of what you see as a grave injustice, and I can only applaud people who have persistence and the determination to see things through when they believe it’s important enough.”

In 1996, during my investigations into the 1995 final phase of my arbitration, I discovered that John Rundell, a current partner at KPMG, had communicated false information to John Pinnock, the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO), during an official TIO inquiry into the handling of my arbitration while Rundell was serving as the Project Manager. In 2024, the government has been urged to reconsider its ongoing use of KPMG and other auditing firms due to concerns about their influence within the public sector. The same public sector refuses to investigate my claims, now raised by absentjustice.com.

As outlined on absentjustice.com, John Rundell, who managed my dispute on behalf of the arbitrator, Dr Gordon Hughes, knew that important information had been omitted from the financial report provided to me (the claimant) and Telstra (the defendant). Despite this, we were instructed to respond to the report even though it was incomplete.

 

Criminal Conduct Example 

My forensic accountant wrote his concerns about John Rundell

 

Unable to discuss anything with me until the appeal period had expired

On 6 December 1995, Derek Ryan, my arbitration accountant, wrote to the Shadow Minister for Communications, Senator Richard Alston, stating:

“Over the last 2 years I have acted as an independent accountant for Alan Smith and I prepared the independent assessment of his losses and damages which formed part of his submission to the arbitrator, Dr G Hughes.

“In response to accounting documents and evidence submitted to the arbitrator, he appointed Ferrier Hodgson Corporate Advisory (Vic) Pty Ltd.(‘FHCA’) to support him in assessing the losses and damages.

“The FHCA report was inaccurate and incomplete. I have since been advised by a staff member of FHCA that a large amount of information was excluded from their final report at the request of the arbitrator. This has left the report in an incomplete state and it is impossible for anyone to re-calculate or understand how the FHCA loss figures were determined. This effectively meant that it was impossible to challenge the assumptions, calculations and the time periods used in the FHCA report.” (refer to File 45-E -Open letter File No/45-E)

On the 22 December 1995, Derek Ryan wrote to TIO John Pinnock, noting:

“The Ferrier Hodgson Corporate Advisory (Vic) Pty Ltd (‘FHCA’) report was dated 3 May 1995 and I received a copy of the report on 5 May. After discussions with Alan Smith it was decided that I should reply to the report as soon as possible.

“I worked all day Saturday and Sunday with Alan Smith trying to interpret the FHCA report. After this work I considered that the report was incomplete as the calculations of the FHCA loss figures were not included in their report. …

“In 17 May I telephoned John Rundell and he stated that he was unable to discuss anything with me until the appeal period had expired. … He then stated that he understood my problems and that FHCA had excluded a large amount of information from their final report at the request of the arbitrator.” (refer to File 45-E - Open letter File No/45-E)

To highlight the true deceptive nature of what transpired during my arbitration, I have been to use the following letter dated 9 March 1995 from Warwick Smith (TIO) to me in which he noted:

“Messrs, Read and Souter will assist Mr, Paul; Howell of DMR Group In (Canada) in technical assessment under the Fast Track Arbitration Procedure. Mr Howell the principal technical advisor to the Resource nit will be in Australia within two weeks. The technical enquiries will commence on Thursday 16th March, 1995.

However, John Rundell, the arbitration project manager, also advised the TIO that the director of the Canadian technical consultancy firm, appointed by the TIO as the Principal technical consultant who was supposed to take charge of the technical side of the arbitration, arrived in Australia on 13 April 1995, not in March 1995 as promised by the TIO in his 9 March 1995 letter. Mr Rundell’s true colours were exposed On 18 April 1995 on 18 April 1995, when he advised the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman TIO, Warwick Smith (who was also the administrator of the COT arbitrations) the arbitrator (Dr Gordon Hughes) and the TIO counsel (Peter Barlett) that: “Any technical report prepared in draft by Lanes will be signed off and appear on the letter of DMR Inc." (Prologue Evidence File No 22-A).

“Any technical report prepared in draft by Lanes will be signed off and appear on the letter of DMR Inc.” (Prologue Evidence File No 22-A)

The blog https://shorturl.at/KWBT4 and https://shorturl.at/Ip6vJ by Shane Dowling, author of the Kangaroo Court website, is featured here on Absent Justice because Australian citizens and several other media outlets are still discussing corruption within the public service https://shorturl.at/q4rL1.

In the course of my AAT government FOI hearings with ACMA in 2007 and 2008 (No V2008/1836) and during my subsequent AAT hearing in May 2011 (No 2010/4634), I expressed my apprehensions regarding acts of impropriety to the entire ACMA Board and the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, which was tasked with evaluating my assertions on behalf of the government. I unequivocally asserted that either the principals of KPMG, PWC, and Deloitte had participated in dubious conduct linked to my arbitration or that individuals employed by these three auditing firms were cognizant of the fundamental flaws in their submissions to my arbitration or leading up to it.

The corruption dates back to when the soon-to-be partner of KPMG became the Arbitration Project Manager for the COT arbitrations. As soon as he and his fellow arbitration advisors learned that FHCA had been covertly exonerated from all liability for negligence as administrators to the financial side of three of the first four arbitrations, John Rundell, the Arbitration Project Manager, allowed the wrong technical consultant, Lane Telecommunications Consultant, to assess the COT Cases' claims instead of the Principal Technical Expert, Paul Howell, who had flown in from Canada for that assessment.

As an increasing number of submissions in the COT Case arbitration shed light on the inherent faults of the Ericsson AXE equipment and the prior knowledge possessed by Telstra before the commencement of arbitrations, it has become evident that Lane Telecommunications Pty Ltd, comprising ex-Telstra officials, was tasked with investigating the failure of Ericsson's telephone exchange equipment. The draft report, authored by Lane and counter-signed by DMR (Canada), failed to include any written findings concerning my ongoing problems with Ericsson telephone exchange equipment. Shortly thereafter, while assessing the COT Cases claims, Lane was acquired by Ericsson for an undisclosed sum (Refer to  Chapter 5 - US Department of Justice vs Ericsson of Sweden).

In simple terms, John Rundell must explain why he allowed Lane to be the Principal Technical consultant instead of the agreed-upon DMR Inc.

Chapter 1—The Collusion Continues and Chapter 2—Inaccurate and Incomplete expose further untruths told by John Rundell while a partner of KPMG. We need to consider how the deception issues present in the COT arbitrations are exacerbated by the statements made by the young computer hackers who contacted Graham Schorer, as discussed below.

 

He did not ask for payment in sharing what he and his mates had uncovered. 

 

 

He wanted us to have a fair arbitration hearing and that was all

(Arbitrator File No/84)

At the commencement of the arbitrations, Graham Schorer, the designated spokesperson for the COT Case, received two phone calls from a group of young computer hackers who had gained access to Australia's Telecom/Telstra telecommunications centre in Melbourne. These individuals forewarned him of the impending unfair treatment of the COT Cases by the administrators of the COT arbitrations. Regrettably, their warnings were disregarded and their offer of documents rejected, as it was suspected to be a potential ploy orchestrated by either the government, Telstra, or both, with the intention of trapping the recipients in non-compliance with the agreed process of Freedom of Information or discovery. Subsequently, it was revealed that the hackers in question were Julian Assange and his associates Julian Assange - Absent Justice. Had the documents they offered, which were intended to substantiate our arbitration claims, been accepted, the adverse impact on the lives of the COT Cases in arbitration might have been averted. Five years after these events, an official twenty-month investigation conducted by the Commonwealth Ombudsman and a Senate working party substantiated the veracity of the information communicated by the hackers. 

Forced members to proceed with arbitration. 

On March 23, 1999, the Australian Financial Review conducted a thorough investigation into the conduct of twenty-one arbitration and mediation processes, including my own, which had been finalized almost five years prior. The findings of their investigation prompted the Senate Estimates Committee to issue a statement.

“A Senate working party delivered a damning report into the COT dispute. The report focused on the difficulties encountered by COT members as they sought to obtain documents from Telstra. The report found Telstra had deliberately withheld important network documents and/or provided them too late and forced members to proceed with arbitration without the necessary information,” Senator Eggleston said. “They [Telstra] have defied the Senate working party. Their conduct is to act as a law unto themselves.”  

It is crucial to remember that Telstra was the defendant in the COT arbitrations. They could not have compelled the COT Cases into arbitration without providing the necessary documents unless the arbitrator and administrator had agreed to this forceful tactic. It is vital to uphold impartiality in justice, ensuring all parties involved have equal opportunities to present their case. Hence, it is important to prevent such tactics in legal proceedings. The Senate findings indicate this discrepancy. So, why were Dr Hughes and Warwick Smith bestowed with the 'Orders of Australia' honours? This was a blatant disregard for justice, especially in light of John Pinnock, the second TIO overseeing the COT arbitrations, alerting a Senate Estimates Committee on the 26th of September 1997, two years after most of the arbitrations had been concluded, including mine. ( Prologue Evidence File No 22-D) that:  

"...In the process leading up to the development of the arbitration procedures—and I was not a party to that, but I know enough about it to be able to say this—the claimants were told clearly that documents were to be made available to them under the FOI Act."

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

The following six senators formally recorded how they believed Telstra had 'acted as a law unto themselves' throughout the COT arbitrations. Where were Dr Gordon Hughes and Warwick Smith when this disgraceful conduct towards the COT Cases was carried out?  

 

Eggleston, Sen Alan – Bishop, Sen Mark – Boswell, Sen Ronald – Carr, Sen Kim – Schacht, Sen Chris, Alston and Sen Richard) 

 

A shrewdly formulated confidentiality agreement effectively shielded the persisting unattended telephone issues from public and governmental scrutiny. Consequently, the sole beneficiaries were the arbitrators, mediators, and the incumbent government, which retained ownership of the Telstra corporation.

 

Treacherous and unconscionable conduct 

Numerous visitors to this website have drawn parallels between its content and an exhaustive portrayal of criminal activities encompassing fraud, bribery, and corruption, accompanied by immorality, depravity, sinfulness, and wickedness. Additionally, there are apprehensions concerning the diminishing efficacy of the arbitration system and the pervasive distortion of truth, leading to a perverted sense of justice. Notably, the arbitrator and the administrators involved in the government-endorsed arbitration facilitated clandestine modifications to multiple arbitration-related documents. This included the addition of a confidentiality annexe to the arbitration agreement, which was withheld from the claimant's legal representatives before they reviewed the final agreement. This manoeuvre is perceived as a form of coercion, the implications of which are significant. The identity and actions of the implicated parties, who persist in shielding their malpractices behind an inherently flawed confidentiality agreement, are revealed upon further examination.

 

The Casualties of the Telstra 008/800 billing saga continued

At point 3.2 (h) in the arbitrator's award, Dr Gordon Hughes (the arbitrator) states The claimant adds that he continued to suffer transmission problems after March 1993, "although since July 1994 he had relatively little cause of complaint."

Yet the formal DMR and Lane Report, at point 2.23 (File 45-c -File No/45-A) notes:

“Continued reports of 008 faults up to the present. As the level of disruption to overall CBHC [Cape Bridgewater Holiday Camp] service is not clear, and fault causes have not been diagnosed, a reasonable expectation is that these faults would remain ‘open’.”  (not my emphasis)

How could Dr Gordon Hughes (the arbitrator) write in his findings at point 3.2 (h) that there were no problems after July 1994 when his technical consultants DMR & Lave told him on 30 April 1995 they had not diagnosed the fault causes and therefore "these faults would remain "Open"? 

Furthermore, Dr. Hughes omitted to mention in his written findings that he received multiple letters from Telstra and AUSTEL during my arbitration.  These letters at 46-F to 46-J - Open letter File No/46-A to 46-L sought confirmation regarding his intention to investigate and address my ongoing faxing transmissions and the persistent issues with my ongoing 1800 problems. As evidenced on the absentjustice.com website, Dr Hughes's lack of response to Telstra and the government communications authority AUSTEL is concerning as Absent Justice Part 2 - Chapter 14 - Was it Legal or Illegal? shows