Immediately below are 15 examples from the 156 catchwords used in our absentjustice.com narrative:
📘 Outside the Ambit of the Procedures
On 26 September 1997, at the beginning of the Senate Committee hearing that prompted the Senate to start their investigation, the second appointed Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, John Pinnock, who took over from Warwick Smith, formally addressed a Senate estimates committee, refer to page 99 COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA - Parliament of Australia and Prologue Evidence File No 22-D). He noted:
“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.”
That statement is staggering.
There is no amendment attached to any agreement signed by the first four COT claimants—including myself—that allowed the arbitrator to conduct our arbitrations entirely outside the ambit of the agreed procedure. Nor was it ever disclosed to us that the arbitrator would have no control over critical aspects of the process once we signed those agreements.
So I ask: How can the arbitrator and the TIO continue to hide behind a confidentiality clause, when the very agreement they invoke never mentioned that the arbitration would be conducted outside its own framework?
This wasn’t just a breach of trust. It was a breach of contract, of ethics, and of the fundamental principles of justice.
We were told we’d have access to documents under the FOI Act. We were told the process would be fair, transparent, and governed by the rules we signed. But behind closed doors, the rules were rewritten—and the arbitrator was stripped of control.
📘 Thirty Years Stolen
This revelation, spoken aloud in Parliament, confirms what we suspected all along: the arbitration was never truly independent. It was engineered to protect Telstra—not to deliver justice.
So I ask again: Why did Dr Gordon Hughes and John Pinnock mislead and deceive Laurie James, the President of the Institute of Arbitrators Australia, concerning my claims that Hughes had not conducted the arbitrations in accordance with the agreed procedures?
Why did they lie?
Why did they collude?
Why did Mrs Hughes become part of this machinery of distortion?
Their actions—deliberate, coordinated, and sustained—have cost me and my partner, Cathy, thirty productive years of our lives. Thirty years of lost opportunity, emotional exhaustion, and relentless struggle. Thirty years spent fighting a system that was never designed to hear us.
We were promised fairness. We were promised transparency. We were pledged to a process that would restore what Telstra had taken.
Instead, we were handed a theatre of justice—where the script was written in advance, and the outcome was sealed before the curtain rose.
But I am still here. And I will not let their lies stand unchallenged.
On 23 March 1999, after most of the COT arbitrations had been finalised and business lives ruined due to the hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees to fight Telstra and a very crooked arbitrator, the Australian Financial. Review reported on the conclusion of the Senate estimates committee hearing into why Telstra withheld so many documents from the COT cases:
“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 have defied the Senate working party. Their conduct is to act as a law unto themselves.”
Eggleston, Sen Alan – Bishop, Sen Mark – Boswell, Sen Ronald – Carr, Sen Kim – Schacht, Sen Chris, Alston and Sen Richard)
The six senators referenced in the Senate Hansard should have initiated an investigation into all of the twenty-one COT arbitration and mediation processes rather than focusing solely on the five test cases that collectively received more than 18 million dollars in punitive damages.
Before you had a chance to scroll down the homepage of absentjustice.com, I wanted you to feel the weight of what happened. I wanted you to see the betrayal, the manipulation, and the institutional rot that defined the COT arbitrations. I wanted you to be as angry as the two editors working on my soon-to-be-published books—both of whom were stunned by the depth of this terrible but true story.
If you’ve made it this far, then I have partly succeeded in bringing attention to our COT story.
And if you’re thinking, there must be more to this COT story—you’re absolutely right. There’s much more. What you’ve read is only the surface. Beneath it lies a vast archive of evidence, timelines, witness statements, and government records that expose the machinery of concealment and the human cost of corporate protectionism.
So please, keep reading. The truth deserves to be known. And those who lived it deserve to be heard.
📘 Threats and thuggery
On July 4, 1994, amidst the complexities of my arbitration proceedings, I confronted serious threats articulated by Paul Rumble, a Telstra representative on the arbitration defence team. Disturbingly, he had been covertly furnished with some of my interim claims documents by the arbitrator—a breach of protocol that occurred an entire month before the arbitrator was legally obligated to share such information. Given the gravity of the situation, my response needed to be exceptionally meticulous. I invested considerable effort in crafting this detailed letter, carefully selecting every word. In this correspondence, I made it unequivocally clear:
“I gave you my word on Friday night that I would not go running off to the Federal Police etc, I shall honour this statement, and wait for your response to the following questions I ask of Telecom below.” (File 85 - AS-CAV Exhibit 48-A to 91)
When drafting this letter, my determination was unwavering; I had no intention of submitting any additional Freedom of Information (FOI) documents to the Australian Federal Police (AFP). This decision was significantly influenced by a recent, tense phone call I received from Steve Black, another arbitration liaison officer at Telstra. During this conversation, Black issued a stern warning: should I fail to comply with the directions he and Mr Rumble gave, I would jeopardise my access to crucial documents pertaining to ongoing problems I was experiencing with my telephone service.
Page 12 of the AFP transcript of my second interview (Refer to Australian Federal Police Investigation File No/1) shows Questions 54 to 58, the AFP stating:-
“The thing that I’m intrigued by is the statement here that you’ve given Mr Rumble your word that you would not go running off to the Federal Police etcetera.”
Essentially, I understood that there were two potential outcomes: either I would obtain documents that could substantiate my claims, or I would be left without any documentation that could impact the arbitrator's decisions regarding my case.
However, a pivotal development occurred when the AFP returned to Cape Bridgewater on 26 September 1994. During this visit, they began to pose probing questions regarding my correspondence with Paul Rumble, demonstrating a sense of urgency in their inquiries. They indicated that if I chose not to cooperate with their investigation, their focus would shift entirely to the unresolved telephone interception issues central to the COT Cases, which they claimed assisted the AFP in various ways.
I contacted the arbitrator by correspondence, including copying it to the administrator, Warwick Smith, and requesting that they demand answers to why Telstra had so much power over the process. Why were we COT Cases not being provided with the promised documents to support our claims? I received no response.
I was alarmed by these non-responses and contacted Senator Ron Boswell, National Party 'Whip' in the Senate. As a result of this situation, I contacted Senator Ron Boswell, who subsequently brought these threats to the attention of the Senate. This statement underscored the serious nature of the claims I was dealing with and the potential ramifications of my interactions with Telstra.
Threats made
Threats Carried Out
Senator Boswell raised our document issues in the Senate on 29 November 1994, noting:
“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?” (See Senate Evidence File No 31)
This was not merely a government-endorsed arbitration; it was a matter of national integrity. Yet, the COT case that brought the truth to the government's attention was treated with contempt.
🔍 Absent Justice — A Free Resource for Truth-Seekers
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This gripping exposé unveils the dark underbelly of the Casualties of Telstra (COT) case, revealing a web of criminality and unethical conduct that is both alarming and deeply troubling. Through a meticulously curated archive of images, evidence files, and firsthand documentation, I lay bare the treacherous actions of those who oversaw the COT arbitrations—individuals who engaged in deceptive practices designed to shield Telstra Corporation from the scrutiny it rightfully deserved.
These unlawful manoeuvres were not incidental. They were calculated, insidious, and executed with precision to protect corporate interests at the expense of justice, transparency, and public trust. The implications stretch far beyond the arbitration itself, threatening the integrity of critical privatisation legislation that underpins our national economy.
Even the U.S. Securities Commission, as expressed in→ Chapter 6 - US Securities Exchange - pink herring expressed concern over the unethical behaviours documented in this case—underscoring the global significance of the threat posed to democratic accountability and institutional integrity.
This is more than a story. It’s a call to action.
Together, we can expose what was meant to stay hidden.
⚖️ The Arbitration Agreement That Was Never Meant to provide equal justice for all:
On 10 January 1994, Telstra’s soon-to-be arbitration defence lawyers, Freehill Hollingdale & Page, covertly faxed a draft arbitration agreement to Warwick Smith, head of the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO). At that time, Smith was also about to become the administrator of the first four Casualties of Telstra (COT) arbitrations—including mine.
The $250,000 liability clauses found in points 25 and 26 of the Confidentiality Agreement were removed at the request of Dr Gordon Hughes. This decision was made to protect his arbitration technical and financial consultants from being sued for negligent acts that have become standard practice during the COT arbitrations, as indicated by the information in this image.
This agreement, riddled with legal deficiencies, was never intended to offer fair protection to claimants. It was crafted behind closed doors, without transparency, and handed to Dr Gordon Hughes, the soon-to-be arbitrator, as the framework he would use to decide our cases.
Dr Hughes used that very agreement when he handed down his first award—my case. I was forced to operate under its flawed terms: see Dr Hughes's letter 12 May 1995, spelling out these deficiencies to Warwick Smith (Open Letter File No 55-A)
“the time frames set in the original Arbitration Agreement were, with the benefit of hindsight, optimistic;
“in particular; we did not allow sufficient time in the Arbitration Agreement for inevitable delays associated with the production of documents, obtaining further particulars and the preparation of technical reports; …
“In summary, it is my view that if the process is to remain credible, it is necessary to contemplate a time frame for completion which is longer than presently contained in the Arbitration Agreement.”
What makes this even more damning is what happened next. The other three COT claimants—Maureen Gillan, Ann Garms, and Graham Schorer—were granted more than thirteen months longer than I was to prepare their claims and respond to Telstra. Why? Because by then, it was clear the original agreement was not credible. It had to be quietly adjusted to avoid further embarrassment.
But no one came back to fix what had already been done to me. I was left to fight under a broken system, while others were given the time and flexibility I was denied. This wasn’t just procedural unfairness—it was institutional betrayal. What adds to the ire of this situation is the insidious act of withholding a crucial letter from me—a letter dated May 12, 1995—during my official appeal process. It was only after a gruelling seven years that I finally managed to retrieve this vital document, long after the statute of limitations had silently elapsed. This treacherous oversight stripped me of the chance to wield the letter in my battle before the Supreme Court of Victoria, a legal fight fraught with exorbitant costs—an untenable weight for a solitary individual forced to navigate this treacherous labyrinth alone.
📘 A Voice in the Senate – Ron Boswell’s Reckoning
I refer to the Senate Hansard records from 20 September 1995, which capture a profoundly emotional speech delivered by Senator Ron Boswell—a man who dared to speak the truth about what we endured.
In that compelling address, Senator Boswell passionately highlighted the injustices suffered by the four COT claimants: Ann Garms, Maureen Gillan, Graham Schorer, and me. He didn’t sugarcoat it. He didn’t hide behind bureaucratic language. He spoke of our pain, our frustration, and the betrayal we faced during arbitrations that were falsely labelled.
“...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)
🧭 The Last Man Standing
Ann Garms and Maureen Gillan have now long gone to a more peaceful land. Graham Schorer, the third member of our original COT Cases group, lives with advanced dementia. That leaves me—alone with the bureaucrats who allowed this travesty to unfold. Some of them, I suspect, wish I’d disappear too. That I’d stop writing, stop remembering. Stop fighting.
Well, I have news for them.
I will not go quietly. I will expose what they and their predecessors allowed to transpire. I will show the world how Telstra’s lawyers, with the silent blessing of government officials, planned to destroy us eight months before we even signed our government-endorsed arbitration agreements. That plan—the COT Case Strategy—is not a matter of speculation. It’s documented. It’s real. And it’s damning.
My claims are valid. My evidence is irrefutable. And my voice will not be silenced.
They may have buried the truth beneath layers of legal privilege and bureaucratic indifference. But I am still here. And I will keep digging.
COT Case Strategy – The Blueprint for Betrayal
Before our arbitrations had commenced, Telstra’s legal advisors—Freehill Hollingdale & Page—had already drawn up a covert plan to sabotage our claims. This wasn’t speculation. It’s documented on page 5169 of the SENATE official Hansard – Parliament of Australia, a legal paper titled COT Case Strategy (Prologue Evidence File 1-A to 1-C).
That strategy named me and three other COT claimants—Ann Garms, Maureen Gillan, and Graham Schorer—alongside our businesses. It instructed Telstra on how to withhold technical documents from us under the guise of Legal Professional Privilege (LPP), even when those documents were technical documents that were not protected by LPP and should have been released under FOI or the soon-to-be introduced discovery process. It was a deliberate act of concealment, designed to cripple our ability to present evidence and defend our positions.
This wasn’t a defence mechanism—it was a pre-emptive strike. The strategy was crafted before our arbitrations had even begun. We were targeted from the outset. The legal framework was rigged before we entered the ring.
What followed was not arbitration. It was a Kangaroo Court. The rules were written by Telstra’s lawyers, endorsed by the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, and enforced by an arbitrator who used a flawed agreement to deliver my award—while quietly allowing the other three claimants more than thirteen months longer to prepare their cases.
Freehill Hollingdale & Page, the architects of this betrayal, now operate under the name Herbert Smith Freehills Melbourne - Herbert Smith Freehills. However, the legacy of their involvement in the COT arbitrations remains etched in the public record—and in the lived experience of those who endured it.
This episode stands as one of the most disturbing examples of legal manipulation within the COT arbitration process. Despite government assurances—documented in point 40 of Prologue Evidence File No/2—that Freehill Hollingdale & Page would have no further involvement in COT matters, the same firm played a pivotal role in submitting a clinical psychologist’s witness statement that bore no signature from the psychologist himself, Ian Joblin. Instead, it was signed solely by Maurice Wayne Condon, Telstra’s lawyer.1. Why was there a discrepancy in the attestation of Ian Joblin’s witness statement?2. Were any changes made to the original statement sent to Dr Hughes compared to the signed version?
• Confirmation of what, if anything, was removed or altered from Ian Joblin’s original assessment—particularly any reference to me being of sound mind.• An explanation for why a legal firm was permitted to sign off on a psychologist’s expert witness statement, effectively attesting to its authenticity without the psychologist’s own signature.
• Legal Overreach: Telstra’s lawyers, despite supposed restrictions, continued to exert influence over the arbitration process—right down to controlling the narrative of expert testimony.• Procedural Breach: A witness statement from a clinical psychologist should never be accepted without the psychologist’s own signature. The fact that it was raises serious questions about the integrity of the arbitration.• Institutional Complicity: The silence from Telstra and the lack of corrective action from the arbitrator or the TIO administrator suggest a system more interested in protecting Telstra than in upholding justice.
🗂️ Note to Readers: Why This Story Is Told in Layers
Please note that a more comprehensive version of this homepage can be viewed by clicking on Chapter 1X below, titled 'A Government-backed Arbitration.'
This homepage separation wasn’t just editorial—it was strategic. The volume of evidence implicating public servants, government agencies, and legal operatives in the corruption of the COT arbitration and mediation process is staggering. To preserve clarity and ensure no detail was lost, I chose to divide the material.
The more extended version lays bare the full extent of the criminal activities that were allowed to fester under official watch. It documents the blatant denial of natural justice—not just in my case, but in the cases of sixteen other COT claimants who were systematically silenced, misled, and betrayed.
This isn’t just a story of technical faults. It’s a story of institutional rot. Of a government-backed process that promised resolution but delivered ruin. And of a group of ordinary Australians who refused to be erased.
Would you like me to help draft a companion page summary for A Government-backed Arbitration that guides readers through its key revelations? I can also help you build a visual timeline or index of implicated agencies and officials to make the scope of the betrayal unmistakable.
The Echoes of Interception
It was a fax dated May 12, 1995—ordinary on the surface, but damning in its impact. The timestamp across the top matched exactly with the one described in the 7 January 1999 Scandrett & Associates report submitted to Senator Ron Boswell. That report confirmed what many of us had long suspected: our faxes during the COT arbitrations were being intercepted.
Not just delayed. Not just misrouted. Intercepted.
The Dual Time Stamp
One of the technical consultants who reviewed the intercepted faxes emailed me on 17 December 2014. His words were clear and unwavering:
“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)
That dual timestamp was the fingerprint of tampering. It proved that someone—somewhere—was monitoring, copying, and resending our confidential communications.
The Listening Post
The breach extended far beyond just faxes. Exhibits 646 and 647 (refer to AS-CAV Exhibits 589 to 647) reveal Telstra's damning admission to the Australian Federal Police, dated 14 April 1994. They confessed that my private and business telephone conversations had been monitored and recorded for several months, but only when a specific officer was available—raising questions about the integrity of their oversight.
This same officer was implicated as the Telstra insider who handed over my clients' phone and fax numbers to a shadowy figure named Micky. It’s chilling to think that Telstra was essentially confirming that this officer was the chosen puppet master, eavesdropping on my conversations and possibly engaging in even more nefarious activities. This reeks of corruption and betrayal at the highest levels.
As if that made it acceptable.
Reflection: The Cost of Surveillance
This wasn’t just a technical fault. It was a violation of trust, privacy, and legal integrity. During an arbitration process—where Telstra was the defendant—they were intercepting the very documents and calls that formed the backbone of our claims.
It wasn’t just unethical. It was criminal.
And yet, the process continued. The arbitrator ruled. The regulators stayed silent. And the evidence—clear, timestamped, and admitted—was buried beneath layers of bureaucratic indifference.
The Shadow Network:
The Scandrett Report Exposed?
We must relentlessly construct a visual timeline of intercepted faxes and the sinister admissions of those entrenched in surveillance, anchored to the COT Cases FOI documents and evidence. It is imperative to continue peeling back the layers of this dark machinery behind the silence. Look no further than the Telstra Corporation of the 1990s, where the current Corporate Secretary, Sue Laver, still clutches damning evidence that she has shamefully withheld from the government since 1998, a travesty that continues into 2025.
Sue Laver holds the key—if she simply confesses to the Government that Alan Smith is correct, that Bell Canada International never conducted the Cape Bridgewater tests that Telstra used to fabricate its arbitration defence (see Telstra's Falsified BCI Report 2), it would shatter the façade they've maintained for decades. A mere admission in 2025 could grant my partner, Cathy, and me the sliver of peace we've desperately sought. Yet, whistleblowing comes at a grave cost—a life sentence that gradually dismantles the very individual who dared to expose the truth, thinking they would be heralded as a hero, only to find themselves ensnared in a web of deception and betrayal.
