Unscrupulous conduct and horrendous crimes committed by corrupt politicians and the lawyers who control the legal profession in Australia. 

 

Chapter 2

Casualties of Telstra

Back to July 1992, when Sister Maureen Burke IBVM, the Principal of Loreto College in Ballarat, visited the holiday camp to discuss the activities I had organised for the Children, Karen, my partner who had joined me three years after my marriage break up to Faye, had heard of a restaurant in Melbourne suffering the same phone problems that were crippling my business. It seemed then that Sister Maureen Burke IBVM was around at some of my very difficult times when trying to run a telephone-dependent business without a reliable phone service.

I felt a great comfort in hearing this and knew I needed to meet the owner. Making phone contact with the restaurant was difficult; eventually, I got through to Sheila Hawkins, proprietor of The Society restaurant in Bourke Street, in the centre of the city. We arranged to meet, and I travelled to Melbourne in early August.

It was so good to talk to someone who experienced similar problems. And there were more of us. Sheila knew of Ann Garms, who ran the Tivoli Theatre Restaurant in Brisbane, who was also having serious telephone problems. Back in Cape Bridgewater, I rang Ann to discover she was coming to Melbourne the following week to register her own complaints with Austel, the Australian Telecommunications Regulator. We arranged to meet together with Sheila. I went into the city again for the meeting, where Ann mentioned another Brisbane business in similar trouble — a car parts company run by Maureen Gillen. Like Ann's business, Maureen's was trunked off the Fortitude Valley exchange. Sheila, meanwhile, had contacted Graham Schorer, who somehow ran the Golden Courier Service out of North Melbourne — despite a very bad phone service.

Finally, our little group gathered together at Sheila's restaurant in Bourke Street, except for Maureen, who couldn't make the journey from Brisbane. It was Sheila who suggested we call ourselves COT — Casualties of Telstra. This was one of her last actions with the group as she withdrew shortly after due to ill-health.

At the top of the list of problems we held in common were those three little words: 'No fault found.' It wasn't just that we all had to put up with ongoing service faults. Telstra's evasion of responsibility in this regard made those faults a nightmare. Telstra had a duty to deliver us service up to a recognised network standard, and by failing to 'find' their faults, they were effectively avoiding carrying out their statutory obligation.

In October 1992, COT had its first official meeting with Telstra at the Ibis Hotel in Melbourne. We were a united and optimistic group of small-business telephone users on our way down the path to justice. We had no idea what a long haul we were in for. Indeed, this first meeting felt eminently successful. Telstra sent three executives; they treated us courteously, and we felt that our claims were being taken seriously. We were seen and treated as a concerned group of small-business people who Telstra had consistently ignored. We asked for Austel (the government regulator) to be the 'honest broker' in our matters, and the executives agreed to this. They took the documentary evidence we had brought, and at the end of the meeting, we were left with a sense that it was all soon to be resolved.

After that initial meeting, there were a number of meetings with Telstra and Austel. Based as he was in the city, Graham Schorer was the COT representative. Under pressure from Austel, Telstra was acknowledging that faults existed, though they still held back from admitting the scale of faults we knew to be true — and indeed, as it turned out, that they too knew it to be true.

Guaranteed to Network standard

Meanwhile, in July 1992, I was obliged to ask Telstra to guarantee that my phone service was up to standard. A bus service wanted such a guarantee (in case of urgent communication needs) before it would contract to bring groups to the Camp. Although I did not see how Telstra could guarantee such a thing based on current performance, I thought a guarantee might have some use as leverage.

Not one but two guarantees eventually arrived (in the event both were too late to secure the contract with the bus company). The first stated that my phone service was indeed 'up to network standard':

Whilst our recent tests indicate that your service is now performing to normal network standards, I am initiating a further detailed study of all the elements of your service and the tests which have been conducted. 1 September 1992 AS12 file AS-CAV Exhibit 1 to 47 

The second stated:

We believe that the quality of your service can be guaranteed and although it would be impossible to suggest that there would never be a service problem we could see no reason why this should be a factor in your business endeavours. 18 September 1992 AS13 file AS-CAV Exhibit 1 to 47 

Now I need to jump ahead of myself here. Material that I did not have access to at the time now reveals something of what was going on in the telephone exchange while my business was sinking.

In 1994 we COT members all ended up involved in arbitrations with Telstra. According to the rules of arbitration, Telstra had a legal obligation to provide us with relevant documents under the Freedom of Information Act.

You will hear a lot more about this in due course, not least about the unreasonable time it took for FOI document requests to be delivered (often years too late). Enough to say here, that in an FOI release in mid-1994, I received documents referring to the general congestion problem at Cape Bridgewater.

The second paragraph of a document titled 'Subject PORTLAND – CAPE BRIDGEWATER PCM HBER' of 12 July 1991 was of particular interest:

When the 'A' direction of system 2 was initially tested, 11,000 errors per hour were measured. In the 'B' direction, approximately 216 errors per hour were measured, 72 errors per hour is the specified number allowable.

This level of error was, in fact, known at least as early as February 1990, the very time my complaints were being stonewalled. And nor was it acknowledged to me at the time of writing (July 1991). And in the new exchange, the problems continued, as another document, titled 'Portland — Cape Bridgewater — RCM System' showed, referring to the information logged in March 1993, long after Telstra had first reported these massive error rates:

Initial error counter readings, Portland to Cape Bridgewater direction:
	System 1	System 2	System 3
SES	0	0	0
DM	45993	3342	2
ES	65535	65535	87
At this stage we had no idea over what period of time these errors had accumulated. 12 July 1993 (AS30 file AS-CAV Exhibit 1 to 47

The second page of this document explains why they 'had no idea over what period of time these errors had accumulated':

The alarm system on all three RCM systems had not been programmed. This would have prevented any local alarms being extended back to Portland.

They didn't know how long these errors had been accumulating because, from 18 August 1991, when the new exchange (RCM) was installed at Cape Bridgewater, the fault alarm system had been left unconnected. Since this was an unmanned exchange, no one could know when faults occurred — except, of course, us poor, defenceless customers.

Meaning that in September 1992, when Telstra management had written to me stating that the quality of my telephone service was guaranteed as up to network standard, they had failed to realise that this alarm had not been connected. Even the local telephone technicians were oblivious to the call loss due to the unconnected alarm system in the exchange. What kind of investigation into the faults I had reported over several years does this demonstrate? A farcical one. How, for several years, could they fail to notice that the alarm wasn't connected?

A compensation deal

The formation of COT had come not a moment too soon for me. The frustration of struggling with problems that seemed immune to complaints and about which I could do nothing but complain could finally be shared. I had lost faith in my own judgement by this time; I had let down two different partners who had trusted me, and I was now borrowing from friends just to keep the Camp running on a day-to-day basis. Through all of this, of course, the phone faults implacably continued.

The COT group continued to negotiate with Austel and Telstra.  In late 1992, our combined pressure finally produced results: Telstra approached me with a proposal for a compensation payout, which included a confidentiality agreement to the effect that I would not disclose the value of any settlement which resulted from this. I signed this agreement on 11 December 1992, and I have honoured my word not to disclose the amount of the payout without prior approval by Telstra.

That same day, I went to Telstra's city fault centre, where the area general manager and I began a long discussion regarding the extent of my financial losses over the four and a half years since I first complained about the phones. This manager and I were the only people involved in this discussion. I provided her with copies of numerous letters I had received from clients and tradespeople, describing their experiences trying to ring me. I explained how I had calculated the sum of my losses.

On a number of occasions, the manager left me alone to examine the documents she had given me. As she left on the first occasion, she explained that she would close the door so I could read in private and added that I was free to use the telephone if I needed to discuss anything with my advisors. There was a direct outside line available at all times, so I wouldn't need to speak to an operator within the building. I made use of the phone a couple of times to ring Karen and talk over the offer; together, we calculated how much I needed to repay her.

The documents provided by the manager were mostly hand-written and included copies of the so-called 'guarantees' I had received. According to one of the documents. Points 73 to 109 AUSTEL’s Adverse Findings shows there was only a 'single' fault, lasting only three weeks, that triggered the recorded message (RVA) that my number was not connected. This document claimed that the RVA probably caused me to lose only about 50% of all incoming calls over these three weeks. Other documents referred to a minor fault in the phone exchange at Heywood, plus some other minor faults which may have contributed to some call loss. The manager told me Telstra agreed to accept responsibility for these faults if I agreed to their offer.

I protested and reeled off again the continuing and constant complaints I had been getting from customers. Her response was a simple 'take it or leave it': this was Telstra's last offer, she told me, and the only other avenue I could follow would be court proceedings. Her final comment was along the lines that, 'Telstra has more time than you have money to fund court proceedings.' Reluctantly, but feeling I had no other choice, I accepted. My reluctance was well justified.

By August 1993 came my first bundle of FOI documents from Telstra. In it, astonishingly, it was a Telstra minute of 2 July 1992, which revealed that local Telstra technicians regarded my complaints as correct about the 'service disconnected' RVA on my line. Not only that, the observation was made that the problem 'is occurring in increasing numbers as more and more customers are connected …' Senator Alston raised this document in Senate Estimates in February 1994, demanding a response from Austel. No response was forthcoming, and nowhere else did this revelation gather any advance for my cause, i.e.:

Ericsson AXE faulty telephone exchange equipment (2)

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

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

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

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

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

And two years later, I received a copy of an FOI document headed by Telecom Secret.  AS5 file AS 1 to 47 This was a copy of the notes brought by the manager to the settlement meeting. The opening page, reproduced here, shows all too clearly that Telstra knew how solid my case was. The manager had blatantly misled me into agreeing to sign.

My acceptance of the offer notwithstanding, I continued to experience faults in my phone service. Particularly call drop-outs when part-way through a conversation, the line would simply go dead, and short duration rings when the phone would ring once or twice and then stop, with no one there if we picked up the receiver. Finally, in October of 1992, the area general manager arranged for two testing machines (called 'Elmi' machines) to be installed, one at the local Cape Bridgewater exchange and the other at my office.

When the COT Cases exposed this Ericsson AXE call loss rate to AUSTEL (the then government communications regulator), AUSTEL (now ACMA) instigated an investigation into these AXE exchange faults and uncovered some 120,000 COT-type complaints were being experienced around Australia. Exhibit Introduction File No/8-A to 8-C) shows AUSTEL’s Chairman Robin Davey received a letter from Telstra’s Group General Manager, suggesting he alter that finding:

For example, at point 4 on page 3, Telstra writes:

“The Report, when commenting on the number of customers with Cot-type problems, refers to a research study undertaken by Telecom at Austel’s request.  The Report extrapolates from those results and infers that the number of customers so affected could be as high as 120,000.

However, at point 2 on page 1 of Telstra’s letter 9 April 1994, Telstra writes:

“In relation to point 4, you have agreed to withdraw the reference in the Report to the potential existence of 120,000 COT-type customers and replace it with a reference to the potential existence of “some hundreds” of COT-type customers”.

The fact that on this occasion, on 9 April 1994, Telstra (the defendants) were able to pressure the Government Regulator to change their original findings in the formal April 1994 AUSTEL COT Case report is alarming, to say the least. Worse is that when AUSTEL released it into the public domain, the report states that AUSTEL only uncovered 50 or more COT-type complaints.

50 COT-type customer AXE complaints in comparison to 120,000 COT-type customer AXE complaints is one hell of a lie told by the government to its citizens who voted them into power.

False Reporting  

For a government regulator to reduce their findings from 120.000 COT-type complaints to read just 50 or more COT-type customer complaints is one hell of a lie told to its citizens. Were the government's downplaying of the Ericsson AXE fault complaints part of the overall collusion, which involved the purchasing of Lane Telecommunications Pty Ltd, who often worked on government contracts? 

Because the faulty Ericsson AXE telephone equipment played such an important part in the COT Cases 1994 to 1999 arbitration procedure, I have introduced it here along with the selling off of Lane Telecommunications Pty Ltd (the arbitration technical unit) to Ericsson, the very corporation it had been commissioned to investigate, during the COT arbitrations.

How can an Australian company like Lane be sold off during an Australian government-endorsed arbitration to a Swedish International telecommunications company it is investigating? If this is not collusion and corruption of the worst possible kind, then what is? 

Australia must be the only country in the Western world that allows a witness (Lane Telecommunications Ptd Ltd) was a witness to what the COT claimants and arbitrator had uncovered against Ericsson to be purchased by the very same company who were officially under investigation. This purchase bought the silence of Lane once the money was in the bank. The career politician again had closed their eyes to this collusion, regardless of how unethical all this had become, with one aim in mind to ensure the COT Cases were "stopped at all costs" from proving their arbitration claims pages 36 and 38 Senate -Senate - Parliament of Australia. 

I believe the Australian government should answer the following questions: How long was Lane Telecommunications in contact with Ericsson, the major supplier of telecommunication equipment to Telstra, before Ericsson purchased Lanes? Is there a link between Lane ignoring my Ericsson AXE claim documents and the purchase of Lane by Ericsson during the COT arbitration process? Is there a sinister link between the government communications media regulator ACMA denying me access to the Ericsson AXE documentation, which I lawfully tried to gain access to during my two government Administrative Appeal Tribunal hearings in 2008 and 2011 Chapter 9 - The ninth remedy pursued and Chapter 12 - The twelfth remedy pursued?

The latest 2019/2020 5G Ericsson partnership with Telstra is relevant to all Australian Telstra subscribers; however, it is also relevant that the same subscribers visit my website, absentjustice.com, where you can see that my claims against Telstra and Ericsson are valid.

Purchasing all of Lane Telecommunications' COT-related arbitration files (during the COT arbitrations) was a most significant coup for both Telstra and Ericsson because all of the arbitration technical information Lane had acquired as a witness during the COT arbitrations, which were stored in Lane's computer system as well as in hard copy records belonged to Ericsson once they owned Lane.

What the Australian government appears not to have considered when they allowed Lane to be sold off during our government-endorsed arbitrations is that Lane had signed a Confidentiality Arbitration Agreement in which each of the COT claimants also signed agreeing under no circumstances, they would disclose to a third party any information they obtained during the COT arbitrations. Here, Lane is the main arbitration witness allowed to sell that confidential acquired information to Ericsson, whom Lane had been assigned to investigate.

it is on record that when Lane together with Telstra and I visited the Portland Ericsson AXE telephone exchange and the Cape Bridgewater unmanned switching exchange on 6 April 1995, both Lane and Telstra would not allow me to view the Portland Ericsson AXE log book. It is most important I attach here the following link. Although dated 1996, all Ericsson exchanges had their own logbooks (see page 20 > http://www.wedophones.com/Manuals/EricssonNotInService/AXE%20Operation%20And%20Maint%. It is also on record that the arbitrator would not access this logbook under the arbitration discovery process. Even the Commonwealth Ombudsman (during my arbitration) tried to acquire this same logbook using my FOI applications but was unsuccessful. 

If the hackers mentioned on our webpage  Hacking Julian Assange/Chapter One were Julian Assange and his friend, and it is very likely it was them, then why hasn't the Australian Government understood what the hackers wanted to share with us COT cases? He did not ask for payment in sharing what he and his friends had uncovered concerning Telstra’s ailing copper wire network, as would have been the case if he had been a common criminal. He wanted us to have a fair arbitration hearing, and that was all. Had we used the information on offer, then the arbitrator would have been compelled to demand that Telstra fix its degraded Ericsson exchange equipment instead of bringing down his findings, which did not disclose the true extent of the corroded network that was destroying the COT cases' businesses and numerous other telephone dependent businesses throughout Australia.

This part of the story is of my battle with the first and second Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman and the Australian Government, a battle that has twisted and turned since 10 November 1993 through elected governments, government departments, regulatory bodies, the judiciary and the Australian telecommunications giant Telstra. This part of the COT story commenced on December 1993 TIO Evidence File No 3-A, 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 – 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, he appears to have also compromised his own future position as the official independent administrator of the process.

I reported four calls dropping out at 1.20, 1.40, 2.00 and 3.00

Why didn't AUSTEL investigate the ELMI Tapes I provided them in August 1993, which were inadvertently left in Telstra's Briefcase on 3 June 1993, which confirmed on 13 October 1992 that Telstra had lied about the ongoing drop-out calls to my business which the ELMI tapes show arrived. Still, Telstra stated the Tapes did not record this activity when the tapes show otherwise. Who within the government communications regulatory office concealed these wrongs by Telstra (see directly below)? 

On 13 October 1992, I reported four calls dropping out at 1.20, 1.40, 2.00 and 3.00, and an occasion when I had answered the phone to find a deadline. Despite the Elmi machines, the Telstra technicians found no faults that they could detect as they had in so many instances before. What was going on?

I raised these Elmi non-connected calls with AUSTEL (as a matter of public interest) twelve months later after I proved to AUSTEL's John MacMahon that Bell Canada International Inc (BCI tests) could not have possibly conducted their testing at the Cape Bridgewater Addendum RCM switching exchange. And here Telstra was again lying about their testing at the Cape Bridgewater RCM switching exchange, this time regarding the failed Elmi testing AS11 file AS 1 to 47.

It was two years before I got any elucidation from Telstra, and even then, it shed no light on the matter. In 1994, in a bundle of FOI documents I received was a hand-written file note stating: -

'We had the Elmi disconnected at the RCM and were installing it at Mr Smith's house, and the CCAS showed no evidence of above 1.20, 1.40, 2.00 and 3.00.' AS11 file AS 1 to 47.

This was simply not the case at all; I knew they were not installing it at my house at this time; it was already installed. So I asked Telstra to supply their Elmi print-outs from September–October 1992. Some weeks later, many documents arrived, including tapes that show that the call drop-outs and deadlines that I had experienced appeared on Telstra's monitoring equipment (CCAS) records as answered calls at approximately 1.30 pm and 3 pm.

I could not fathom why a local technician would state that the Elmi equipment was disconnected at the exchange and installed at my house when these two print-outs show that it was installed and operating at both locations incorrectly. I could only assume that all this reflected the competence and capacity of Telstra's fault centre, as well as the accuracy of their records and reportage. That thought alone was very worrying when you are reliant on the telephone.

And now I began to suspect that there might not be a simple answer to the phone faults, just waiting to be discovered and fixed. It looked as if the problems were endemic throughout the organisation and its infrastructure.  

As I struggled from the end of 1992 to the New Year of 1993, I began to wonder if 'settling' with Telstra had been such a good idea. Nothing had changed. I had been forced to re-finance, incurring more set-up fees, and because I still couldn't afford to maintain the Camp properly the place was looking decidedly abandoned. I felt as if I had been abandoned too. Both the buildings and I were tired, run-down and in need of a facelift!

The other COT members were no better off. Maureen and Ann had also accepted settlements directly from Telstra, while Graham had his through the courts. And for each of us, poor and faulty phone service continued unabated.

My only source of strength at this time was from my fellow COT members. One Saturday evening, a couple of Scotches left me in tears of complete frustration. I knew I was easily capable of running the Camp as I pictured it, but instead, I was trapped in a vicious cycle. Without customers, I would soon be completely broke, but the customers couldn't reach me because the phones didn't work. Right then, Graham Schorer rang, urging me to hang in there, convinced that we would win out in the end.

Yes, some calls did get through, in what proportion I shall never know, though perhaps the rate is indicated by the following story. In personal desperation, I decided to ring Don Burnard, a clinical psychologist the COT members had contacted when we started creating the group. Dr Burnard had written a report regarding our individual conditions, noting the breakdown in our psychological defences due to the excessive and prolonged pressures we endured:

All of these clients have been subjected to persistent environmental stress as a result of constant pressure in their business and erratic patterns of change in the functioning of their telephones which were essential to the success of their businesses.

I rang Dr Burnard for support, but my conversation with his receptionist was interrupted three times by phone faults. Later I received a letter from his office, saying:

I am writing to you to confirm details of telephone conversation difficulties experienced between this office and our residence mid-morning this day, 5 May 1993. At approximately 11.30 am today Mr Alan Smith telephoned this office requesting to speak with Don Burnard. Mr Burnard was not available to take his call. During this time the telephone cut out three times. Each time Mr Smith telephoned back to continue the call.

Ann Garms and Graham Schorer had, by now, become my comrades in arms in this war we were fighting, and we had many group discussions as we tried to find a way to deal with the evasions and deceptions of Telstra management. But we were simply three small business people struggling against the might of a huge corporation. Not encouraging odds! We wondered if we could ever be in a position to expose Telstra's unethical corporate strategies and continued and apparently deliberate mishandling of our complaints. And Ann, like myself, had begun to suspect that our phone lines were being bugged. I will return to this later once we are able to provide evidence that our concerns are valid.

Early in 1993, as a spokesperson for COT, Graham Schorer met with Robin Davey, the chairman of Austel (the telecommunications industry regulator), to discuss our way forward. Austel was sympathetic to our situation. It recognised we had been let down in our settlements and sought to establish a standard of service against which Telstra's performance could be objectively measured in any future settlements.

Meanwhile, COT decided it was time to try to inform the Australian Senate of our plight. We sent submission after submission, with supporting FOI documents, and followed through with visits to Canberra, financed from our already depleted pockets, to meet with ministers who were sympathetic to our case.

By now, I had accumulated more than seventy letters from customers who had been unable to reach me by phone. This example, from a Year 7 co-ordinator for Hamilton High School (now Bainbridge College), who brought his group along every February from 1990, is typical:

“I wish to acknowledge in writing the repeated difficulty I have had contacting Alan Smith at the Cape Bridgewater convention centre by telephone. In the week 1st to 5 March, I made 5 or 6 attempted phone calls to Alan but I was unable to get through, indeed the line was 'dead'. This was extremely frustrating and had I not been aware of Alan's phone problems, I would have used another camp site”.

Astonishingly, one letter, dated 17 May 1993, was from a senior Telstra technical engineer, who wrote regarding his own experience of trying to ring me:

“On the 24/2/93, I received a phone call from a technician at Portland who stated he had been given a fault from (1100 fault dept.) indicating a customer in Ballarat had trouble calling your business 055 267 267. I then attempted to ring 055 267 267 myself, the ring was tripped after several bursts, i.e. 'answered', and I received a loud noise similar to a radio carrier noise and a very faint 'Hello'’.

At last, a second person inside Telstra acknowledged that I had a problem with the phone service! The engineer had even given me his name. Yet, in the course of their defence of my arbitration claims, Telstra proffered a Witness Statement from this man (made in December 1994) that included no reference to my ongoing telephone problems.

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