Learn about government corruption and the dirty deeds used by the government to cover up these horrendous injustices committed against 16 Australian citizens.
Chapter 1
No Fault Found
Have you ever had a reason to complain about your phone bill?
Has a friend insisted they have telephoned you, and you had not answered, even though you know you were right beside the phone at the time?
Has anyone expressed amazement at how much time you spend on the phone or prospective clients rebuked you for being unprofessional and not answering your phone when you know it has not rung for days and you have hardly made any outgoing calls?
If you have experienced even one of these situations, you will understand why I sometimes feel I have lived through a nightmare. I experienced all these problems and more for almost ten years. I am still seeking an equitable resolution of them.
The 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 in 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 and family groups as well as schools.
The camp was a phone-dependent concern: the phone was the preferred access to us for city people – and our big mistake when we fell in love with the place was failing to look at the telephone system. In those days, there was no mobile coverage, and business was not done via the internet or by email. It transpired that the business was connected to a phone exchange installed more than 30 years before and explicitly designed for ‘low-call-rate’ areas. This antiquated and unstaffed telephone exchange had only eight (8) lines to service (66 families), equating to 132 adults plus children, so if four of those adults or their teenage children were dialling out of Cape Bridgewater or were taking a call into their residence in Cape Bridgewater, that left only four free lines for the remaining 128 adults and their children.
In blissful ignorance, we went ahead with the sale of our home in Melbourne, and I took early retirement benefits to raise the money to invest in what we expected to be a new and exciting venture.
I knew this was a business I could run successfully
I knew this was a business I could run successfully. From the age of 15, when I went to sea as a steward on English passenger/cargo ships, I worked in areas that prepared me for the hospitality trade. In 1963 I jumped ship in Melbourne to work as an assistant chef in one elite hotel after another, then two years later, I joined the Australian Merchant Navy. By 1975, I had been a chef on many Australian and overseas cargo ships and now returned to land.
Faye and I had married in Melbourne in 1969, and I worked freelance in the catering industry and on tugboats while I studied for a hotel/motel management diploma. I had already taken on the management of one hotel/motel and pulled it out of receivership to be re-leased. By 1987, at the age of 44, I had enough experience behind me to be confident that I had the skills and knowledge to turn a simple school camp into a successful multifaceted concern.
I made personal visits to almost 150 schools and shires to extol the virtues of the Camp, and in February 1988, had some 2000 colour brochures printed and distributed. Then we waited for the phone to ring with inquiries, in vain. There was not even a modest 1% inquiry rate as a result of this marketing exercise.
By April we were beginning to realise the problem might lie with the telephone service. People asked why we never answered our phone or were suggesting we install an answering machine to take calls when we were away from the office. We had an answering machine, but even after installing a new one, the complaints continued, coupled with comments about long periods when the phone was giving the engaged signal.
As time went on, call 'drop-outs' added to our problems when the line just went dead in the middle of a call. If the caller hadn't yet given us contact information and didn't ring back, we lost that contact. Between 19 April 1988 and 10 January 1989, Telstra logged nine separate complaints from me about the phone service plus several letters of complaint. A typical response to my 1100 call (the number you called when there was a problem) was a promise to check the line. A technician was sent out on rare occasions, whose response was inevitable 'No fault found' while my problems continued unabated.
Eventually, we discovered that the business's previous owner had endured the same problems and had complained equally unsuccessfully about them. In 1988, when I was beginning to marshal my case against Telstra, I obtained several documents through the Freedom of Information Act (FOI). According to a document headed 'Telstra Confidential: Difficult Network Faults — PCM Multiplex Report', with a sub-heading '5.5 Portland — Cape Bridgewater Holiday Camp', Telstra was aware of the faults in early 1987.
Harry, our next-door neighbour, sympathised; his daughter, ringing from Colac, often complained about how difficult it was to get through to her parents. Fred, another local and once the owner of Tom the Cheap grocery chain, suffered from similar problems to ours for many years. He commiserated, saying, 'But what can you expect from Telstra when we're in the bush?' Well, I expected better than this, and certainly, we were promised better than this.
We encouraged people to write, but the telephone culture was endemic. People wanted an immediate response. As bookings dwindled instead of increasing, I began to feel I hadn't properly researched the pros and cons before moving to Cape Bridgewater. I was beginning to question what I had done, asking Faye to agree to sell the family home so that I could satisfy my ambition to run my own business. It was not the fun I had anticipated. I was operating in a state of constant anger, a very unamusing Basil Fawlty.
We went touring South Australia to sell the concept of our Camp through the Wimmera area, but responses were few. Was it the phone to blame? How could we be sure? The uncertainty itself added to the stress.
Attacking one's character
It was our fault, not Telstra's
Sometimes, the culprit was blindingly obvious. I was soon labelled a vexatious litigant, and my claims frivolous. On a shopping expedition to Portland, 20 kilometres away, I discovered I had left the meat order list behind. I phoned home from a public phone box, only to get a recorded message telling me the number was not connected! I phoned again to hear the same message. Telstra's fault centre said they would look into the matter, so I went about the rest of the shopping, leaving the meat order to last. Finally, I phoned the Camp again, and this time the phone was engaged. I decided to buy what I could remember from the list and hope for the best; however, I was not surprised when I got home to learn the phone had not rung once while I had been out.
Anyone who uses a telephone has at some time reached a recorded voice announcement (known within the industry as RVA): 'The number you have called is not connected or has been changed. Please check the number before calling again. You have not been charged for this call.' This incorrect message was the RVA people most frequently reached when trying to ring the Camp. While Telstra never acknowledged what I later discovered among 1994 FOI documents, an internal Telstra memo stating: -
'This message tends to give the caller the impression that the business they are calling has ceased trading, and they should try another trader.' AS-CAV Exhibit 1 to 47
Another Telstra document referred to the need for
a very basic review of all our RVA messages and how they are applied … I am sure when we start to scratch around, we will find a host of network circumstances where inappropriate RVAs are going to line. AS6 file AS-CAV Exhibit 1 to 47
For a newly established business like ours, this was a major disaster. Still, despite the memo's acknowledgement that such serious faults existed, Telstra never admitted the existence of a fault in those first years. And with my continued complaints, I was treated increasingly as a nuisance caller. This was rural Australia, and I was supposed to put up with a poor phone service — not that anyone in Telstra was admitting that it was poor service. In every case, 'No fault found' was the finding by technicians and linesmen.
The frustration was immense, coupled with uncertainty. Were our problems no more than general poor rural service compounded by the congestion on too few lines going into an antiquated exchange? The Camp was, at that stage, the only accommodation business being run in Cape Bridgewater. Obviously, we relied on the phone more than most people in the area. But if there was some specific fault, why weren't the technicians finding it?
The business was in trouble, and so were we. By mid-1989 we were reduced to selling some shares for our operating costs. Here we were, a mere 15 months after taking over the business, and we were beginning to sell off our assets instead of reducing the mortgage. I felt like a total failure. Neither of us was able to lift the other's spirits.
I decided to do another round of marketing in the city. I would give it all I had. We both went. Was it masochism that made me ring the Camp answering machine via its remote access facility to check for any messages so that I could respond to them promptly? Whatever it was, all I could get was the recorded message: 'The number you are calling is not connected or has been changed. Please check the number before calling again. You have not been charged for this call.' On the way home, just outside Geelong, we stopped at a phone box, and I tried again. Now, the line was engaged. Perhaps somebody was leaving a message, I thought. Ever hopeful.
There were no messages on the answering machine. And nothing to be gained by asking why I had received an engaged signal. How many calls had we lost during the days that we were away? How many prospective clients had given up trying to get through because a recorded message told them the phone was not connected? Anger and frustration were very close to the surface.
Near the end of October 1989, our twenty-year marriage ended. I had already been taking prescribed drugs for stress; that afternoon, I added a quantity of Scotch and hunkered down in one of the cabins. Faye, understandably, was seriously concerned and called the local police, who broke into the cabin to 'save' me from me. They took me to a special hospital, and I am forever grateful to the doctors who confirmed that I wasn't going 'nuts' and who sent me home the following day.
When I took refuge in the cabin on the afternoon of 26 October 1989, only to find my refuge attacked by a Police rescue team, I was transported straight back to China in 1967. After some heavy discussions with my wife and my ‘saviours’ who, in my confused state, seemed more like the Red Guard soldiers than anything else, I was taken to hospital — in a straight jacket.
I will be forever grateful to the doctors who confirmed that I wasn’t going ‘nuts’ and who allowed me to return to the camp the following day, accompanied by my mate’s wife, Margaret. I will also be forever grateful to Jack for sending Margaret to ‘bail me out’ so to speak. The fun, however, had just begun.
At this point, I need to fill in some details regarding an incident that occurred back in 1967 during the Cultural Revolution in China. At that time, many young Australians were supporting the American fight against Communism in Vietnam, and this young man was sailing with the Merchant Marines out of Australia. We were headed to China from Port Albany in Western Australia with a cargo of wheat, although the Australian Labor Party was against our ship leaving. A brief explanation of this China issue is highlighted in Chapter 7- Vietnam-Vietcong and Bribery and Corruption My Story Warts & All
While I was in this particular hospital in Warnambool (southwest Victoria), my friends Margaret and Jack from Melbourne, who were well aware of what had happened to me in China, decided that Margaret would come to Warnambool and take me home for the holiday camp which was 110 kilometres away 'bail me out'. The fun, however, had just begun for me and Margaret.
Margaret and I arrived back at the Camp to be confronted with a disaster area. Faye had left the night before, following advice from various people that she needed to be in a 'safe house'. Doors had been left unlocked, meat from the deep freeze was left out on benches, and various items had mysteriously vanished. And according to the Camp diary, 70 students from Monivae Catholic College in Hamilton were due to arrive in two days, booked in for five days and four nights. Without Margaret's assistance, I would have been wiped out.
Mourning the end of my marriage, the very thought of shopping was a mountain I didn't want to climb. What to feed 70 students plus staff? By the time I got my head around what to order, it was Sunday evening, and the Monivae group were due the following day. Then the hot water service broke down!
The staff were not happy about the cold showers! Even so, Monivae College returned two and sometimes three times a year for the next five years. Their support throughout this awful period helped me keep trading.
And, of course, Margaret's support. She carried so much through that first week. Aware that I was holding on by my fingernails, she suggested Brother Greg, one of the Monivae teachers, come to the house to talk to me. It was an inspired suggestion, and we talked well into the night, Margaret too, working through many things, from early childhood experiences to the end of twenty years of marriage.
I began to keep a log
In the weeks that followed, my phone problems continued unabated. I began keeping a log of phone faults, recording all complaints I received in an exercise book, along with names and contact details for each complaint and a note regarding the effect these failed calls were having on both the business and me.
One day the phone extension in the kiosk was dead. The coin-operated gold phone in the dining room, which was on a separate line, had a normal dial tone, so I dialled my office number, only to hear the dreaded:
'The number you have called is not connected or has been changed. Please check the number before calling again. You have not been charged for this call.'
I was charged for the call because the phone did not return my coins! Five minutes later, I tried again. This time, the office phone appeared to be engaged (it wasn't), and the gold phone happily regurgitated my coins.
I used this testing routine frequently over the next months and registered every fault I found with Telstra. The situation was beginning to tell on me. Why was this still happening after so many complaints? Could Telstra really be this incompetent? Or was there something worse going on? Had I made too much of a nuisance of myself? But that was ridiculous. Under the circumstances, I had behaved impeccably politely … when in fact, I had fantasies of sheer violence at times.
Now I was no longer one half of a working husband and wife team, and I started 1990 digging into my pitifully low financial reserves to pay staff or risk losing everything. I was suffering what is commonly known in the world of finance as a 'consequential resultant loss' — Faye was no longer contributing her unpaid labour. I now had to pay her a yearly dividend on her financial investment in the business.
The future looked grim. Telstra did not attempt to remedy the faults or at least no attempt that made any difference. The constant refrain of 'No fault found' was wearing very thin. I found it hard not to dwell on how many prospective customers might be lost because they couldn't reach me by phone. Nor was it long before the legal vultures were circling. I hadn't met my financial agreement with Faye, and her solicitor was demanding money. I was having trouble meeting my own legal costs, let alone finding any extra. My son's school fees were overdue, and to pay some of the mounting debts, I sold the 22-seater school bus I had originally used to ferry customers around and purchased a small utility in its place.
On the positive side, I had met a woman called Karen, who lived in Warrnambool. Our relationship developed to become quite serious. When Karen knew I was about to wind up my business because I couldn't raise funds to make any more payments to Faye, she put her house up as security for a loan, thereby giving me two years of breathing space. She believed in me, and she believed in the capacity of the Camp to succeed. She wanted to be a partner in it. This was early in 1991.
Things were starting to look up, especially when I discovered that a new exchange was to be installed later in the year at Cape Bridgewater. I was hoping this would alleviate all the problems of congested lines. It was just a question of time. Karen moved in with me, and we worked together with new energy to pull the business out of the doldrums.
In August that year came another joy when I got the first confirmation from someone within Telstra that they knew my phone problems were real. I felt such a relief that the faults were, at last, being acknowledged, and I asked for my new friend's name. I was so happy; I didn't even really register any perturbation when all he could tell me was that he worked at the fault centre in Hamilton.
According to Telstra's own file note:
Alan Smith rang 15/8/91 re service 267 267. Incoming callers are receiving engaged signal when it's not engaged …
This has been a continuing problem and he is losing a lot of business.
I said it appears from the fault history that the problem may be in the exchange and that the next RCM exchange 21/8 would solve these problems but that I would check this out with the techs.
I also said we would have a look at the service now to try and get it working correctly until cutover. AS4 file AS-CAV Exhibit 1 to 47.
At last, someone in Telstra had given me something to hang on to. When Karen sold her house, a part of the proceeds went towards paying my legal fees and my debt to Faye. I paid Faye out, and Karen's name was now officially on the title to the business. We counted the days to the installation of the new exchange.
But the triumph of a new exchange when it came at the end of August 1991 was the briefest of victories. It made not the slightest difference. The telephone problems continued just as before. However, now exacerbated by the dreadful disappointment that the war wasn't over at all. Increasingly, people reported complaints of recorded voice announcements, and I continued to complain to Telstra about faults, which seemed to me to be getting worse, not better. I asked technicians if a new exchange didn't correct the problems, then where could the faults lie? Their response was unbelievable: 'No fault found.' They simply refused to engage with my question. I cursed the fact that I had no contact details for the one person who had acknowledged that there were faults. I did not see the file note he wrote until 1995.
New bookings continued to be rare. The Camp was getting in need of painting and upgrading. The business looked sad and bedraggled, and so people who passed by were not interested in stopping. And when we did have a booking, cash flow was a problem, making it tricky to put food on the table. We somehow always managed, but it was very stressful. Karen was starting to see her investment going down the drain, and the strain on her came to a head while we were in the middle of organising a charity camp for underprivileged children.
Despite the financial precariousness of the enterprise, I had from the start sponsored the stays of under-privileged groups at the Camp. It was no loss to me, really: sponsored food was provided through the generosity of a number of commercial food outlets, and it cost me only a small amount in electricity and gas.
In May 1992, we held a charity week for kids from Ballarat and South-West Victoria, organised largely by Sister Maureen Burke, IBVM, Principal of Loreto College in Ballarat. Arrangements regarding food, transport, and any special needs the children might have had to be handled over the phone, and of course, Sister Burke had enormous problems making phone contact. The Calls were either ringing out, or she was getting a deadline — no sound at all. Finally, after trying in vain all through one week, she decided to drive the 3½ hours to make the final arrangements.
Testimonials
Between April 1990 and when I sold the holiday camp in December 2001, I continued to partly sponsor underprivileged groups to stay at the camp during the weeks (that became years) when the phone problems continued to beset the holiday camp. At least some money was coming into the business. Those wanting a cheap holiday persisted by telephoning repetitively regardless of being told the camp was no longer connected to Telstra's network. These groups wanted a holiday, and if they had to drive for hours to make a booking as Loreto College did (see below), then a drive they did.
The holiday Camp could sleep around 90 to 100 persons in fourteen cabins. I arranged sponsored food purchases through the generosity of a number of commercial food outlets and these groups then just used the camp facilities — it didn’t actually cost me anything other than a small amount of electricity and gas. At one point around this time, May 1992, I had organised a charity week for kids from Ballarat and the South West, including Warrnambool, Hamilton and Portland. This group was organised by Sister Maureen Burke IBVM, the Principal of Loreto College in Ballarat, and I am sure she would not be offended to know that I think of her as the ‘mother’ of the project.
Arrangements regarding food, transport, and any special needs the children might have had to be handled over the phone, and of course, Sister Burke had enormous problems making phone contact, Calls were either ringing out, or she was getting a deadline or a message that the number she was ringing was not connected to the Telstra network. Sister Burke knew otherwise. On two particular occasions in 1992, after trying in vain all through one week, she decided to drive the 3½ hours to make the final arrangements for those camps.
Just as she arrived at the Camp, Karen took a phone call from a very angry man who wanted information about a singles weekend we were trying to set up. This caller was quite abusive. He couldn't understand why we were advertising a business but never answered the phone. Karen burst into tears. She had reached the end of her tolerance, and nothing I could say was any help. When Sister Burke appeared in the office, I decided absence was the better part of valour and removed myself, leaving the two women together. Much later, Sister Burke came out and told me she thought it probably best for both of us if Karen were to leave Cape Bridgewater. I felt numb. It was all happening again.
But it wasn't the same as it had been with Faye. Karen and I sat and talked. True, we would separate, but I assured her that she would lose nothing because of her generosity to me, that I would do whatever was necessary to buy her out. We were both relieved at that. Karen rented a house in Portland, and we remained good friends, though, without her day-to-day assistance at the Camp, which had given me space to travel around, I had to drop my promotional tours.
Twelve months later, in March of 1993, Sister Karen Donnellon, also from Loreto College, tried to make contact via the Portland Ericsson telephone exchange to arrange an annual camp. Sister Donnellon later wrote:
“During a one week period in March of this year I attempted to contact Mr Alan Smith at Bridgewater Camp. In that time I tried many times to phone through.
Each time I dialled I was met with a line that was blank. Even after several re-dials there was no response. I then began to vary the times of calling but it made no difference.” File 231-B → AS-CAV Exhibit 181 to 233
Some years later, I sent Sister Burke an early draft of my manuscript, Absent Justice My Story‘, concerning my valiant attempt to run a telephone-dependent business without a dependent phone service. Sister Burke wrote back,
“Only I know from personal experience that your story is true, otherwise I would find it difficult to believe. I was amazed and impressed with the thorough, detailed work you have done in your efforts to find justice” File 231-A → AS-CAV Exhibit 181 to 233
Of course, Sister Maureen Burke and Sister Karen Donnellon persisted with their continuing battle to find a way to get a proper telephone connection for the holiday camp, partly because it was a low-cost holiday for all concerned but also because these wonderful women were well aware that my business was continuing to exist, albeit ‘by the skin of its teeth, even though Telstra’s automated voice messages kept on telling prospective customers that the business did not exist or, alternatively the callers simply reached a dreaded silence that appeared to indicate that the number they had called was attached to a ‘dead’ line. Either way, I lost the business that may well have followed if only the callers could have been successfully connected to my office via this dreaded Ericsson AXE telephone exchange.
A letter dated 6 April 1993, from Cathy Lindsey, Coordinator of the Haddon & District Community House Ballarat (Victoria) to the Editor of Melbourne’s Herald-Sun newspaper, read:
“I am writing in reference to your article in last Friday’s Herald-Sun (2nd April 1993) about phone difficulties experienced by businesses.
I wish to confirm that I have had problems trying to contact Cape Bridgewater Holiday Camp over the past 2 years.
I also experienced problems while trying to organise our family camp for September this year. On numerous occasions I have rung from both this business number 053 424 675 and also my home number and received no response – a dead line.
I rang around the end of February (1993) and twice was subjected to a piercing noise similar to a fax. I reported this incident to Telstra who got the same noise when testing.” Evidence File 10 B
During this same period, 1992 and 1993, Cathy Lindsey, a professional associate of mine Cathy, signed a Statutory Declaration, dated 20 May 1994, explaining a number of sinister happenings when she attempted to collect mail on my behalf from the Ballarat Courier Newspaper office (File 22 Exhibit 1 to 47). This declaration leaves questions unanswered as to who collected my mail and how did they know there was mail to be collected from the Ballarat Courier mail office. On both occasions, when a third person collected this mail, I had telephoned Cathy, informing her the Ballarat Courier notified me there was mail addressed to me waiting to be picked up.
On pages 12 and 13 transcript from the AFP inquiry into my allegations that Telstra unlawfully intercepted my telephone conversations, the AFP state at Q59 Australian Federal Police Investigation File No/1:-
“And that, I mean that relates directly to the monitoring of your service where, where it would indicate that monitoring was taking place without your consent?” File 23-A Exhibit 1 to 47
I also provided the AFP Telstra documents showing Telstra was worried about my telephone complaint evidence because if it ever reached an Australian court, I had a 50% chance of proving Telstra has systemic phone problems in their network, which meant in simple terms, Telstra was operating outside of their license to operate a telephone service where charging their customers for a service not provided.
21st April, 1993: Telstra internal email 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].” GS File 75 Exhibit 1 to 88
What these Telstra executives were forgetting is that Telstra was a publically owned corporation. Therefore, those executives were responsible for ensuring the integrity of Telstra's working conditions, something which Telstra has never even understood. Bribery and corruption, including misleading and deceptive conduct, destroyed the Australian economy while the powerful bureaucrats in Australia attempted to fight this fire with the talk of change. This bribery and corruption plagued the COT cases’ government-endorsed arbitrations.
Children's lives could be at risk
Comments made from the Herald Sun newspaper dated 30 August 1993, confirm just how damaging some of these newspaper articles were to my already ailing business with statements like:
“The Royal Children’s Hospital has told a holiday camp operators in Portland that it cannot send chronically ill children there because of Telecom’s poor phone service. The hospital has banned trips after fears that the children’s lives could be at risk in a medical emergency if the telephone service to the Portland camp continued to malfunction”.
The centre’s stand follows letters from schools, community groups, companies and individuals who have complained about the phone service at Portland’s Cape Bridgewater Holiday camp.”
Youths from the Royal Children’s Centre for Adolescent Health, who were suffering from “chronic illnesses”, visited the camp earlier this year.
Group leader Ms Louise Rolls said in a letter to the camp the faulty phones had endangered lives and the hospital would not return to the camp unless the phone service could be guaranteed” Arbitrator File No/90
After the Melbourne Children's Hospital recorded a near-death experience with me having to rush a sick child with cancer to the Portland Hospital 18 kilometres away from my holiday camp, Telstra finally decided to take my telephone faults seriously. None of the 35 children (all with cancer-related illnesses) had mobile phones, or the six or so nurses and carers. Mobile telephones could not operate successfully in Cape Bridgewater until 2004, eleven years after this event. With my coin-operated Gold Phone also plagued with phone problems, it took several tries to ring out of the holiday camp. An ambulance arrived once we could ring through to the Hospital.
It took this almost tragedy for Telstra, after five years, to send someone with real technical experience to my business. Telstra's visit happened on 3 June 1993, six weeks after the Children's Hospital vowed never to revisit my camp until I could prove my camp was telephone fault-free. No hospital where convalescent is a good revenue spinner has ever visited my business, even after I sold it in December 2001.
It was another fiasco that lasted until August 2009, when not-so-new owners of my business were walked off the holiday camp premises as bankrupts.
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