Absent Justice Book 2
This website is a work in progress last edited April 2024.
Welcome to Absent Justice!
Continued from - Who We Are -
“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?”The withholding of relevant documents significantly impacted my submission to the arbitrator. Despite cooperating with the Australian Federal Police (AFP) in their investigation into the illicit interception of phone conversations and arbitration-related faxes, no one has looked into where my intercepted faxes ended up. (Senate Evidence File No 31)
FOOD AND TRADE IN LATE MAOIST CHINA, 1960-1978
Pages 54 and 55 refer to footnotes 82 - 85 in a paper submitted by Tianxiao Zhu to - The Faculty of the University of Minnesota titled Secret Trails: Food and Trade In Late Maoist China, 1960-1978, etc → Requirements For The Degree Of Doctor Of Philosophy - Christopher M Isett June 2021
In September 1967, a group of British merchant seamen quit their ship, the Hope Peak, in Sydney and flew back to London. They told the press in London that they quit the job because of the humiliating experiences to which they were subjected while in Chinese ports. They also claimed that grain shipped from Australia to China was being sent straight on to North Vietnam. One of them said, “I have watched grain going off our ship on conveyor belts and straight into bags stamped North Vietnam. Our ship was being used to take grain from Australia to feed the North Vietnamese. It’s disgusting.” 83 (my emphasis). The Minister of Trade and Industry received an inquiry about the truth of the story in Parliament, to which the Minister pointed out that when they left Australia, the seamen only told the Australian press that they suffered such intolerable maltreatment in various Chinese ports that they were fearful about going back. But after they arrived in London, Vietnam was added to their story. Thus the Minister claimed that he did not know the facts and did not want to challenge this story, but it seemed to him that their claims about Vietnam seemed to be an “afterthought.”84--The reason why China became a big market for Australia partially resulted from the competition with the Americans in the world market because of the P. L. 480 plans. Since the U.S. was still on a full embargo with China in the 1960s, Australia had to grab the opportunity. What upset many ordinary Australians in the wheat deals was that the price of wheat sold to China was low, at least lower than the price paid to Australian growers. In April 1965, a resident in Western Australia wrote to the Parliament, saying that “I was surprised to learn recently that a large sale of wheat had been made to communist China at a price of 13/7 per bushel. I understand that the guaranteed price to the farmer is 1/- per bushel above this price and that the Commonwealth Government (ourselves) needed to find an amount of £4,000,000 to make up the difference...We have apparently reached the stage where we are prepared to supply cheap wheat to strengthen an enemy who has sworn to destroy us.” 89
The following three statements taken from a report prepared by Australia's Kim Beasly MP on 4 September 1965 (father of Australia's former Minister of Defence Kim Beasly) only tell part of this tragic episode concerning what I wanted to convey to Malcolm Fraser, former Prime Minister of Australia when I telephoned him in April 1993 and again in April 1994 concerning Australia's wheat deals which I originally wrote to him about on 18 September 1967 as Minister for the Army.
Vol. 87 No. 4462 (4 Sep 1965) - National Library of Australia https://nla.gov.au › nla.obj-702601569
"The Department of External Affairs has recently published an "Information Handbook entitled "Studies on Vietnam". It established the fact that the Vietcong are equipped with Chinese arms and ammunition"
If it is right to ask Australian youth to risk everything in Vietnam it is wrong to supply their enemies. The Communists in Asia will kill anyone who stands in their path, but at least they have a path."
Australian trade commssioners do not so readily see that our Chinese trade in war materials finances our own distruction. NDr do they see so clearly that the wheat trade does the same thing."
My 3 February 1994 letter to Michael Lee, Minister for Communications (Hacking-Julian Assange File No/27-A) and a subsequent letter from Fay Holthuyzen, assistant to the minister (Hacking-Julian Assange File No/27-B), to Telstra’s corporate secretary, show that I was concerned that my faxes were being illegally intercepted after I had signed my Fast Track Settlement Proposal (FTSP) on 23 November 1993, with Telstra
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)
This internal, dated 25 February 1994, is a Government Memo confirming that the then-Minister for Communications and the Arts had written to advise that the Australian Federal Police (AFP) would investigate my allegations of illegal phone/fax interception during my FTSP /arbitration process (AFP Evidence File No 4)
On 3 March 1994, this article appeared in the Portland Observer newspaper (File 773-b - AS-CAV Exhibit 765-A to 789), noting:
“Federal Police officers are investigating allegations of possible illegal activity on the part of Telecom Australia.
Officers from the Federal Police visited Portland last week and interviewed Cape Bridgewater Holiday Camp proprietor, Alan Smith, who is one of the four original members of COT (Casualties of Telecom).”
This letter of 18 March 1994 from Steve Black, Telstra’s appointed arbitration liaison officer to my arbitration process, wrote to Robin Davey, Chairman of AUSTEL AFP Evidence File No 6 under the heading Tape Recorders – Use In Locating Fax Faults noting: 25 February 1994: When this letter to Telstra’s Corporate Secretary from Fay Holthuyzen, Assistant to the Minister for Communications, Michael Lee, is compared to the letter dated 3 February 1994 Exhibit that I sent to the Minister’s office it is clear that I had every reason to be concerned that my faxes were being illegally intercepted (AFP Evidence File No 5)
“In a small number of cases, where the customer indicates that the problem is specific to transmission between two particular facsimile machines then, with the consent of the customers controlling those facsimile machines, the test transmission between these facsimiles machines will be taped and analysed.
In these cases, recording would be carried out in circumstances where:
the customer’s consent has been confirmed in writing by facsimiles or otherwise;
the recording would be of signals generated by a test message;
there is no B party involved.” (AFP Evidence File No 6)
I was never warned, either prior to signing my FTSP on 23 November 1993 or during my arbitration, which the arbitrator prematurely brought down on 11 May 1995, or during the seven years after my arbitration, that Telstra was intercepting my faxes as part of their testing process – or for any other reason for that matter – and neither did I ever provide Telstra with written permission for this interception to occur, even though this letter to Mr Davey (AFP Evidence File No 6) is quite clear that it was mandatory for Telstra to apply for written permission to use tape recorders when intercepting phone calls and/or faxes.
In the year 2024, I am still yet to receive any justification from the Australian Federal Police AFP, Victorian State Police, or the Federal Government regarding the lack of accountability for Telstra senior management. Their authorization of the intrusion into my personal and professional life, both before and after my 1993 arbitration for a further six/seven-year period, is a clear violation of Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, i.e.'
"No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks."
Despite the passage of time, I remain resolute in my pursuit of justice in this matter.
On 26 September 1997, Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman John Pinnock formally addressed a Senate estimates committee refer to page 99 COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA - Parliament of Australia and Prologue Evidence File No 22-D), noting:
“In the process leading up to the development of the arbitration procedures – 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 the ambit of the arbitration procedures.”
Despite the government that endorsed the COT arbitrations being officially advised that the process had failed those COT Cases that had gone through the arbitration process, the government only allowed the Senate to assist in the remaining five COT Cases that had yet to go through the process. As a result, 18 million dollars of punitive damages were awarded between those five, while the rest of us, including me, are still waiting to receive the arbitration documents promised to us. In September 1994, I informed the Australian Federal Police that Telstra was withholding my requested FOI documents because I had helped the AFP with their investigations into Telstra's unauthorized interception of my telephone conversations and arbitration-related facsimiles during the arbitration.
I have not received any gratitude from the AFP for my assistance during their investigations from 1994 to 1995. Additionally, they have not helped me demand Telstra provide the necessary documents that would have helped me prove to the arbitrator that the telephone issues that led me to arbitration were still negatively impacting my business's viability.
During the second Australian Federal Police interview with me at my business on 26 September 1994, while they were investigating these bugging issues, they asked me 93 questions Australian Federal Police Investigation File No/1 transcripts from their interview surrounding the interception of my telecommunication services conversations. I told the AFP that John McMahon had told me of the documents AUSTEL had uncovered and confirmed that my phone conversations had been bugged over a long period. It is confirmed from question 81 that the AFP disclosed to me they had evidence before them confirming AUSTEL's John MacMahon, had supplied the AFP evidence my phones had been bugged.
Question 81 in the following AFP transcripts, Australian Federal Police Investigation File No/1, confirms that the AFP told me that AUSTEL's John MacMahon had supplied the AFP evidence that my phones had been bugged over an extended period. Why did the arbitrator not award me in his official findings concerning this evidence after he was supplied with these AFP transcripts?
"... 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".
When a very young Julian Assange [the hackers] told COT Cases spokesperson Graham Schorer there were forces at work that were acting illegally against during our arbitration, did the hackers mean they had uncovered what the four arbitrations professionals had been doing, or were they referring to only Telstra or both? This electronic surveillance (invasion into the COT Cases' private and business lives) continued for three years after the AFP made no ruling on the evidence we COT Cases had been subjected to. In simple terms, Telstra also had power over the AFP during a government-endorsed arbitration set up to investigate this type of conduct.
Call for Justice
My name is Alan Smith. This is the story of my battle with a telecommunications giant and the Australian Government. This battle has twisted and turned since 1992 through elected governments, government departments, regulatory bodies, the judiciary, and the Australian telecommunications giant, Telstra, or Telecom, as it was known when this story started. The quest for justice continues to this day.
We have broken up our COT story, which consists of over 180 A4 pages of information. This website now supports it from documented evidence in our absentjustice.com downloads. I have had to jump from one year here to another year back and two forward in an attempt to run the story in a chronological format. The full story can be downloaded from the two advertised books.
Until the late 1990s, Telecom was the name of the Australian government’s telephone network and communication carrier. At the end of the last century, Telecom was privatised and became Telstra. Under its government auspices, Telecom held a monopoly on communications. Still, its mismanagement on all levels let the network fall into disrepair and resulted in grossly deficient service to customers who depended on Telecom to run their businesses and provide customer services.
A government-endorsed arbitration process was set up for the business owners to rectify their communication problems and fix the faulty telephone services. However, it turned into an uneven battle between the COT cases and the government-backed Telecom, which we, the four claimants, could not win. Our ongoing telephone and fax problems were compounded as our costs and losses increased because our deficient services were not repaired, nor were our concerns directly addressed as they should have been.
Our personal integrity was attacked, business reputations undermined, and crimes were committed against us in order to ruin our livelihoods as Telecom sought to avoid responsibility for their own ineptitude and mismanagement by directing blame onto these small businesses that had been severely disadvantaged and destroyed by the lack of communication services between business owners and potential clients.
We, the COT claimants, lost millions of dollars, our mental health declined, and our livelihoods collapsed in ruins. Yet, those in government - the architects of this injustice, this corruption and who had perpetuated these crimes against ordinary citizens - are still in positions of power today. Our stories are still covered and buried in bureaucratic red tape.
My fundamental rights were not only ignored by Telstra and their forensic psychologist during my arbitration interview conducted in the saloon bar of the Portland Richmond Hotel; it was ignored by the AFP when they declined to officially provide the arbitrator they received from the government communications regulator AUSTEL. evidence confirming my phone conversations had been bugged over an extended period.
It has since been reported that the Australian Federal Police (AFP) dropped all charges against Telstra due to pressure from the Director of Public Prosecutions.Senate Evidence File No 1 20-9-95 Senate Hansard A Matter of Public Interest. This incident raises concerns that the Australian Government, via Telstra and the AFP, may have the ability to influence the outcome of arbitration cases. Specifically, the arbitrator hearing my case against Telstra (the defendant in the arbitration) may be limited in what they can find against Telstra. Additionally, there have been reports that Telstra intercepted Supreme Court legal appeal documents related to the COT Cases arbitration after they left the Legal Chambers of Owen Dixon in Melbourne. This suggests that Telstra may have undue influence over the Australian legal system when it is being challenged.
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 7 January 1999 Scandrett & Associates fax interception report provided to Senator Ron Boswell Open Letter File No/12 and File No/13), confirming faxes were intercepted during the COT arbitrations The letter attached as Open Letter File No 55-A dated 12 May 1995, is directly related to the failure of my arbitration and the advice in this letter from Dr Gordon Hughes (the arbitrator) to Watwick Smith (the administrator) advising him where the arbitrations rules failed me.
Sadly, Dr Gordon Hughes (the arbitrator) and Wawrwick Smith (the administrator) concealed Open Letter File No 55-A from me during my designated appeal process.
One of the two technical consultants attesting to the validity of this 7 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)
This illegal operation of withholding documents from the arbitration process or altering the faxed documents once in Telstra's possession, such as leaving a page missing after page 2 and then going to page 5, made the arbitration claim document useless to the resource unit, viewing it as a whole claim document. This illegal act allowed Telstra (the defendants) to minimize the claimant's claim. The Australian Federal Police had never heard of such a process, i.e., allowing the defence to access official claim documents before the arbitrator viewed them.
Worse, we had been tricked into signing a confidentiality clause that has hampered our efforts since. I may be breaking the provisions of that clause by making this information public, but what choice do I have?
The next part of our journey was to do everything in our power to obtain the promised but withheld documents through Freedom of Information (FOI). We know the evidence is there to make our case that the lines were not working and had not been properly tested according to agreed protocols. But for those documents to be of any use to us, we have to obtain them.
What do you think? Are we imagining it, or has there really been massive corruption and collusion on the part of public servants, politicians, regulatory bodies, and Telstra itself to protect Telstra to the detriment of Australian rural businesses?
Please read the following Chapters 1 to Chapters 12 - Thank you.
Chapter 1
Learn about government corruption and the dirty deeds used by the government to cover up these horrendous injustices committed against 16 Australian citizens
Chapter 2
Betrayal deceit disinformation duplicity falsehood fraud hypocrisy lying mendacity treachery and trickery. This sums up the COT government endorsed arbitrations.
Chapter 3
Ending bribery corruption means holding the powerful to account and closing down the systems that allows bribery, illicit financial flows, money laundering, and the enablers of corruption to thrive.
Chapter 4
Learn about government corruption and the dirty deeds used by the government to cover up these horrendous injustices committed against 16 Australian citizens. Government corruption within the public service affected most if not all of the COT arbitrations.
Chapter 5
Corruption is contagious and does not respect sectoral boundaries. Corruption involves duplicity and reduces levels of morality and trust.
Chapter 6
Anti-corruption policies need to be used in anti-corruption reforms and strategy. Corruption metrics and corruption risk assessment is good governance
Chapter 7
Bribery and Corruption happens in the shadows, often with the help of professional enablers such as bankers, lawyers, accountants and real estate agents, opaque financial systems and anonymous shell companies that allow corruption schemes to flourish and the corrupt to launder their wealth.
Chapter 8
Corrupt practices in government and the results of those corrupt practices become problematic enough – but when that corruption becomes systemic in more than one operation, it becomes cancer that endangers the welfare of the world's democracy.
Chapter 9
Corruption in government, including non-government self-regulators, undermines the credibility of that government. It erodes the trust of its citizens who are left without guidance are the feel of purpose. Bribery and Corruption is cancer that destroys economic growth and prosperity.
Chapter 10
The horrendous, unaddressed crimes perpetrated against the COT Cases during government-endorsed arbitrations administered by the Telecommunication Industry Ombudsman have never been investigated.
Chapter 11
This type of skulduggery is treachery, a Judas kiss with dirty dealing and betrayal. This is dirty pool and crookedness and dishonest. This conduct fester’s corruption. It is as bad, if not worse than double-dealing and cheating those who trust you.&a
Chapter 12
Absentjustice.com - the website that triggered the deeper exploration into the world of political corruption, it stands shoulder to shoulder with any true crime story.
Summary of Events
Read about the corruption within the government bureaucracy that plagued the COT arbitrations. Learn who committed these horrendous crimes and where they sit in Australia’s Establishment and the legal system that allowed these injustices to occur.
Bribery and Corruption My Story Warts & All
The website that triggered the deeper exploration into the world of political corruption stands shoulder to shoulder with any true crime
