Chapter 2 - Julian Assange - Hacking - a lost chance

Corruption, misleading and deceptive conduct plagued the COT with the government's sanctions, which endorsed the arbitrations. Learn the names of those who participated in these horrendous crimes that equally corrupted arbitrators who covered up these atrocities 

Major Fraud Group - Victoria Police investigation 

In this chapter, we aim to show that, during the five litmus Senate estimates committee FOI investigations, errors were disclosed – such as the Bell Canada International Inc (BCI) testing process, which was shown to be deficient and, in my case, impracticable. At that time, all participating COT members were content to wait, believing the investigation of the litmus cases would flow onto the remaining 16 on the Senate schedule B list and none of the 16 COT cases was notified of the progress as the investigation proceeded. John Wynack, director of investigations assisting the Senate chair and the litmus cases, was also investigating my FOI issues and demanding Telstra provide the requested documents I originally sought in my 18 October 1995 FOI request.

Although the COT litmus-test cases received some 150,000 FOI documents, through the Senate estimates committee investigation (see Senate Evidence File No/11), I did not receive one single document as John Wynack’s records show. Mr Wynack’s letters, of 11 and 13 March 1997, show he did not accept Telstra stating it destroyed the arbitration file I sought to use in my pending appeal process.

All of the remaining other COT cases, whose names appear on the Senate schedule list B, also sought FOI documents from Telstra during their respective arbitration and mediation process, as did the litmus tests cases, all this was known by the Senate estimates committee and the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s office. This was the reason a litmus-test situation was set up. The Senate schedule A list named the litmus tests cases and the Schedule B listed the remaining 16 cases. If the litmus test cases proved their case, that Telstra had withheld relevant documents during their arbitrations and was still doing so, then the remaining 16 cases would automatically receive a similar outcome.

But, the Australian litmus cases were treated differently to the remaining 16 Australians citizens, who were dismissed. Why? The answer is simple: politics and time. It took almost two years, using numerous senators’ valuable time, just to obtain the documents for the five litmus cases. Some consider the pending Telstra privatisation may also have played a part in why the 16 were dismissed the way they were. This is possibly the worst multiple discrimination against 16 Australians citizens.

Litmus Tests

The coalition LNP government should have considered that they had a commitment as a government to all its citizens, not just those who had government influence and that all parties, such as the COT Cases, should have been treated on the same level playing field. This was not the case when the government disallowed the remaining 16 citizens of Australia the same justice that was provided to the five litmus test cases. The government had been warned between June and September 1997 through 1999 about what Julian Assange had exposed. These injustices, which Julian Assange revealed in 1994 to COT Cases spokesperson Graham Schorer, coincide with what was disclosed in Senate Hansard records, dated 24 and 25 June 1997, see:- (1) Senate - Parliament of Australia and:- (2) SENATE official Hansard – Parliament of Australia is incredible.

The LNP government knew that not only should the litmus-test cases receive their requested documents but so should the other 16. These Hansards, only three days a day apart, confirm the Telstra Corporation acted illegally against all 21 citizens, yet the government only sanctioned Telstra to pay compensation to the litmus cases, and not the remaining 16. The litmus cases (as stated above) also received 150,000, or more, previously withheld discovery documents (see Senate Evidence File No/11), which allowed them to appeal their arbitration process. But the remaining 16, who didn’t receive their withheld documents, we’re unable to appeal.

The following exhibit Senate Evidence File No 12) shows I have been threatened twice, once in 16 August 2001 and again in 6 December 2004, that if I disclose these 6 and 9 July 1998 In-Camera Hansard, the Senate will have me charged with contempt of the Senate, even though those documents could well have won sixteen arbitration and mediation appeals (see An Injustice to the remaining 16 Australian citizens)

Where is there justice in throwing me in jail for exposing the truth. I certainly do not want to end up in jail for exposing these Australian In-Camber Senate Hansard of 6 an 9 July 1998 which the Victoria Police Major Fraud Group supplied to me thinking my releasing them publically would bring about an appeal for the remaining sixteen COT Cases the government has discriminated against in the most deplorable fashion. 

 

In fact, after one National Party senator Ron Boswell verbally attacked a very senior Telstra arbitration officer, stating, “You are really a disgrace, the whole lot of you,” he then apologised to the chair of the Senate committee, stating:

“Madam, I withdraw that, but I do say this: this has got a unity ticket going right through this parliament. This has united every person in this parliament – something that no-one else has ever had the ability to do – and Telstra has done it magnificently. They have got the Labor Party, they have got the National Party, they have got the Liberal Party, they have got the Democrats and they have got the Greens – all united in a singular distrust of Telstra. You have achieved a miracle.”

A Labor Party Senator, Chris Schacht, even made it more apparent to the same Telstra arbitration officer that if Telstra were to award compensation only to the five 'litmus' COT test cases and not the other still unresolved issues, then this act "would be an injustice to those remaining 16". However, the John Howard NLP government sanctioned only punitive damages to those five litmus test cases, plus the release of more than 150,000 Freedom of Information documents initially concealed from those five. The eighteen million dollars those five received between them should have been split equally between all twenty-one unresolved COT Cases FOI issues. It was not. 

Will I go to jail in 2023 for revealing this gross discriminative act by an Australian government against sixteen fellow citizens? I believe the current Labor government, if they were to ask me to provide a government-appointed representative to view these two In-Cameral Hansards of 6 and 9 July 1998, that representative would advise the Anothony Albenise government they are morally obliged to pay compensation as former Labor Senator Chris Schacht stated should have been the case in 1998. Sadly at least three of those sixteen have since died. 

It is clear from reading the various correspondence to the Commonwealth Ombudsman An Injustice to the remaining 16 Australian citizens that correspondence to the Commonwealth Ombudsman from various technical experts appointed via the Senate working party to assess the relevance of FOI documents that the ‘Five litmus COT claimants’ asked Telstra to provide during this senate investigation, includes a letter from Qyncom IT & T Business Consultants Pty Ltd (Victoria) to Mr John Wynack, as chair of the working party (see Senate Evidence File No 13A & 13B).

This 14-page letter, and many others to the Commonwealth Ombudsman, show the ‘Five litmus COT claimants’ received free of charge, qualified technical assistance from government-appointed independent technical consultants during this sixteen-month Senate (Liberal Government) facilitated FOI investigation.

The remaining 16 claimants, who were also on the Senate Schedule list as unresolved COT issues, were denied these same privileges. If this is not discrimination of the worst possible kind, then what is?

Senate Schedule A and B list

Was there a second, or even a third, reason why the remaining 16 COT cases were denied the same type of compensation paid to the litmus test cases? What other questions might the larger 21 claimants expose in the sale prospectus? Addressing a few still-unaddressed four-year-old arbitration claims before the prospectus is prepared would look better than 21 still-unaddressed four-year-old arbitration claims. Especially considering those 16 claimants had still not received their relevant discovery documents under the agreed FOI Act – an agreement was reached with the administrator prior to arbitration that documents would be provided to enable us to prove our cases (see Arbitrator File No/71). The government knew Telstra was still refusing to supply relevant documents at the time of this litmus test process four years later.

On 23 October 1997, the office of Senator Schacht, Shadow Minister for Communications, faxed Senator Ron Boswell the proposed terms of reference for the Senate working party for their investigation into the COT arbitration FOI issues. This document shows the two lists of unresolved COT cases with FOI issues to be investigated. My name appears on the Schedule B list (see Arbitrator File No 67). Telstra, by still refusing to supply these 16 COT cases with promised discovery documents, first requested four years earlier, was acting outside of the rule of law and yet, regardless of Telstra breaking the law, these 16 claimants received no help from the police, arbitrator or government bureaucrats. They were denied access to their documents, as absentjustice.com shows.

150,000 FOI Documents 

The 150.000 late provided FOI documents to the five litmus test cases mentioned above were not of a historic nature in the case of Ann Garms and Graham Schorer, the forty-four large storage boxes that I received from Graham’s office in 2006 when I started to investigate these issues on behalf of Graham/Golden messenger I did not see any relevant Leopard or Ericsson Data for the exchanges that Graham’s Golden Messenger Courier Services were routed through. Between the end of 2006 and 2017, I have worked continually on some eight major projects on behalf of Graham/Golden, who had commissioned me to investigate evidence they had received which showed Telstra had been aware prior to Graham’s arbitration process that Telstra had knowingly misled both Graham/Golden and the COT arbitrator concerning Graham/Golden 1994 to 1999 arbitration process.

Since that period, I have collated and written five major reports plus two separate manuscripts (not yet completed) so that Graham/Golden can submit this material to the government as a testament; there needs to be a Royal Commission Investigation into the COT arbitration process. During my first Administerial Appeals Tribunal FOI oral hearing in October 2008, the Australian Communications Media Authority (ACMA) was the respondent; Graham Schorer advised the AAT under oath during cross-examination by ACMA lawyers that once my investigation on behalf of Golden was complete and the evidence collated and reported on was bound into submission, those reports would be provided to the government.

I have since viewed numerous COT Case Telstra-related documents since that 2008 AAT hearing which supports Graham/Golden that even though members of the Telecommunication Industry Ombudsman office (who were the administrators of the COT arbitrations) had been aware before the COT Cases went into arbitration that the historic Telstra fault data which would be needed by the COT Cases to support their claims had already been destroyed (see TIO Evidence File No 7-A to 7-C) this knowledge was never broadcast to the government who had endorsed the COT arbitrations.

This release of 150,000 non-historic fault data documents, NOT the requested historic data, which the five ‘litmus’ test cases requested, shows that the compensation the five litmus cases received was partly associated with Telstra's inability to provide those five cases with the documents they should have received during their arbitrations.

The fact that none of the sixteen COT Cases were also on the Senate Schedule B list as unresolved COT FOI Cases is further testament that the government discriminated against us COT sixteen.

PLEASE NOTE THE FOLLOWING 

In the cases of Ann Garms and Graham Schorer, of the 150,000 FOI documents that were provided to the five ‘litmus-test cases (see Senate Evidence File No 11 proof 150,000 FOI documents) but which, as recorded above, arrived too late for them to use, none were of historic nature.  Seventy per cent (70%) of the 150,000 documents provided to the COT Cases during this ‘litmus test case fiasco were couriered to the offices of Golden Messenger. These are the documents that, in late 2006, were sent down to my business by Graham/Golden in two separate deliveries. When I first started to investigate these issues for Graham, I did not find any Leopard Data for the exchanges that Graham’s Golden Messenger Courier Services was routed through anywhere among the eleven large storage boxes that I received from Graham’s office in 2006, so it is quite clear from the three emails attached to TIO Evidence File No 7-A to 7-C), are the truth, i.e. Telstra did not keep historic Leopard fault data longer than twelve to thirteen months.  The release of those 150,000 non-historic fault data documents, but none of the requested historic data that the five ‘litmus-test cases requested, shows that the compensation that those five ‘litmus-test cases received was partly associated with Telstra being unable to provide the documents that those COTs should have received during their arbitrations.

What has been possibly the hardest thing to live with concerning that 70% of the 150,000 documents I finally received in 2006 from Graham/Golden is that they are only related to Graham/Golden. However, even though the 90,000 or so documents I received from Graham/Golden were minus historic fault data, that material, combined with other later material from another source, shows the COT Cases were never meant to win their case. 

In 2017, when I commenced preparing  An injustice to the remaining 16 Australian citizens I had still not received the FOI documents that the TIO and AUSTEL (government communications authority) promised me I would receive if I signed my government-endorsed arbitration process. 

I again note that the fact that NONE of the other sixteen COT Cases received any compensation (even though they were also on the Senate Schedule B list as unresolved COT FOI Cases) further proves that the Government discriminated against the sixteen remaining COTs.

I have made some changes to the following segment on Sunday, 3 December 2023, to support issues raised on our Home page. 

It is important to visit the 8 and 10 August 2006 witness statements.

The Major Fraud Group was stunned by this evidence and my ability to prove that Telstra and the government perverted the course of justice by concealing the truth from the arbitration process. 

Both statements are discussed on our Absentjustice Preface page AFP Evidence File No 13. Members of the current government were provided with copies of these witness statements without redactions. Sadly, the information in these two witness statements has not been acted upon to date.

As previously discussed in Chapter 1 - Major Fraud Group – Victoria police File 517 AS-CAV Exhibits 495 to 541 is Witness Statement dated 10 August 2006 (provided to the DCITA) by Ann Garms and sworn out by Des Direen ex-Telstra Senior Protective Officer, eventually reaching Principal Investigator status.  Mr Direen has been brave enough to reveal that, in 1999 / 2000, after he left Telstra, he assisted the Victoria Police Major Fraud Group, particularly Rod Kueris, with their investigations into the COT fraud allegations.  I was called into that investigation as a witness (see  An Injustice to the remaining 16 Australian citizens).

Points 12 to 18 in Mr Direen’s statement explained that “From what (he) observed on this day, and applying the knowledge that (he) gained during (his) twelve years at Telstra, (he had) no doubt in (his) mind that the phones at Rod KUERIS’s home address were possibly interfered with". Within a few weeks of Mr Direen assisting the Major Fraud Group with their investigations, it became apparent that Mr Kueris was very distressed. Both Graham Schorer (COT spokesperson, as a complainant and me, as a witness, reported to Mr Kueris and Mr Jepson that we believed we were also under surveillance during those investigations.

"I can recall that during the period 2000/2001, I had arranged to meet Detective Sergeant Rod KURIS from the Victoria Police Major Fraud Squad at the foyer of Casselden Place, 2 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne. At the time, I was assisting Rod with the investigation into alleged illegal activities against the COT Cases.

Rod then stated that he wanted me to follow him to the left side of the foyer. When we did this he then directed my attention to a male person seated on a sofa opposite our seat. He then told me that the person had been following him around the city all morning. At this stage Rod was becoming visibly upset and I had to calm him down.Rod kept on saying that he couldn't believe in what was happening to him. I had to again calm him down".  

Points 21and 22 in Mr Direen’s statement also record how, while he was a Telstra employee, he had cause to investigate “… suspected illegal interference to telephone lines at the Portland exchange” but, when he “… made inquiries by telephone back to Melbourne (he) was told not to get involved and that it was being handled by another area of Telstra” and that “... the Cape Bridgewater complainant was a part of the COT cases”.

These two witness statements were provided to the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts (DCITA) Australian government by Ann Garms, COT Case member, after discussions with Senator Barnaby Joyce (now in 2022, the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia).  Because no one has come forward to explain their position in these matters, all information that might assist the sixteen COT Cases (those who are left, many have since died), all documents will be provided without deletions. 8 and 10 August 2006 witness statements were also released in full as File 766 - AS-CAV Exhibit 765-A to 789). 

Before concluding the reading of our Casualties of Telstra story, we suggest you click on the following legal research paper https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2817646 where you will find there are others, not just the COT cases, who see loopholes in the justice given out by some of the Telecommunication Industry Ombudsman staff. In many cases, these ombudsmen have not even been registered lawyers or judges and yet the Australian Establishment gives them the right to decide legal issues, which have – in many cases, as our story shows – ruined the lives of those who participated in the arbitrations.

Exposing the truth meant I faced a possible jail term

To add yet another alarming set of circumstances to this unbelievable story, I need to take the reader back to 1999, when the Victoria police Major Fraud Group seconded me as a witness in their attempt to prove Telstra had committed fraud against five of the twenty-one COT Cases during their arbitrations (see namely Ann Garms, Graham Schorer, Ralph Bova, and Ross Plowman.

It was common knowledge amongst the five COT Cases (who were being assisted by the Senate to access their previously withheld arbitration documents from Telstra) that Telstra had used two separate technical reports to support their arbitration defence of the COT Cases claims knowing then to be both fundamentally flawed.

By 1999, using some of the late released Telstra FOI documents to the five COT Cases, I could prove that Telstra had perverted the course of justice twice during my arbitration.

The current 2023, Telstra corporate secretary Sue Laver has refused my request to provide the Senate and administrators to the COT arbitrations the same evidence she received in January and April 1998, which proves Telstra knowingly used one of those fundamentally flawed arbitration reports, namely the Cape Bridgewater BCI report  as arbitration defence documents.

This was the Bell Canada International Inc (BCI) report that Mr Neil Jepson, Barrister of the Major Fraud Group, worked with me on during 1999 and 2000, declaring my reporting as factual.

Over three different three-day periods between 1998 and 2000, I worked alongside Mr Neil Jepson and assisted three other Victoria Police Investigators. After working with the two male and one female officer, I knew I had, years before, chosen the wrong career—I wished I had joined the Victoria police force. These three officers were dedicated to their craft.

After the Federal Government put the Major Fraud Group under political pressure to abandon the COT claims of fraud against Telstra, I met two senior Victorian police officers who apologized for what they realized was indeed an ordeal for me: my failed arbitration and the failed Victoria Police investigation. I was provided with a small A4 storage box, taped shut. They advised me my four larger boxes of evidence would be couriered to my designated location. I asked if this small package could be included, as I preferred not to carry it away. The look in the eyes of the police officer in charge was stern and direct, and when he stated, “NO, you take this box with you now,” I didn’t argue!

It turned out that this box contained some startling documents I had not seen before that would shock most people, even today. Two of those documents were two In-camera Hansard records, dated 6 and 9 July 1998, but which indicated that their predecessors had allowed only five of the twenty-one legitimate COT claimants to have access to discovery documents and had also organized compensation for those five COT Cases (18 million dollars between them) in hush money. All of that was accomplished so that the Telstra Corporation could be privatized. 

The Government believed that having the Senate investigate sixteen COT Case complaints would take years, as it had when the five litmus cases were assessed. So, the sixteen names on the Senate schedule list as still unresolved issues were destroyed.

Now, if I am wrong, and that is not the case, then why were the remaining sixteen COT claimants all denied access to any of the privileges that the five ‘litmus test cases’ had been granted, and why did a letter from the Senate Estimates Committee Chair advises the police that the two In-camera Hansard records, dated 6 and 9 July 1998, must not be provided to anyone outside of the Major Fraud Group. 

I believe the Major Fraud Group released these two 6 and 9 July 1998 In-Camara Hansards to assist the remaining sixteen COT Cases in appealing to the government for a similar settlement. 

It might be hard to believe, but back in August 2001 and again in December 2004, the Australian Government threatened, in writing (see Senate Evidence File No 12), to charge me with contempt of the Senate if I was ever to disclose these in-camera Hansard records, even though those documents could well have won our cases if the COT claimants had appealed against the arbitration process. Where is the justice in that?

 

Telstra - Contempt of the Senate

In October 1997, when Telstra provided the Cape Bridgewater/Bell Canada International Inc (BCI) report in response to questions raised by the Senate on notice, Telstra already knew it was false but still no one has ever brought Telstra to account for that, even though their actions were in contempt of the Senate.

On 12 January 1998 (three months after this false Cape Bridgewtare BCI testing information had been provided to the Senate), during the same Senate estimates committee investigations into COT FOI issues, Graham Schorer (COT spokesperson provided Sue Laver (Telstra’s 2020 Corporate Secretary with a number of documents. On page 12 of his letter, Graham states:

“Enclosed are the 168 listings extracted from Telstra’s Directory of Network Products and Network Operations, plus CoT’s written explanation, which alleges to prove that parts of the November 1993 Bell Canada International Report is fabricated or falsified.”

On pages 23-8 of this letter, and using the Cape Bridgewater statistics material, Graham provided clear evidence to Sue Laver and the chair of the Senate legislation committee that the information Telstra provided to questions raised by the Senate on notice in October 1997, was false (see Scrooge – exhibit 62-Part One – Sue Laver BCI evidence and Scrooge – exhibit 48-Part Two – Sue Laver BCI Evidence). Knowingly providing false information to the Senate is in contempt of the Senate. No one within Telstra has been brought to account for supplying false Cape Bridgewater BCI results to the Senate. Had Telstra not supplied this false information to the Senate, the Senate would have addressed all the BCI matters I now raise on absentjustice.com concerning my ongoing telephone problems in 1997

This evidence which I formulated into my own prepared Telstra’s Falsified BCI Report which is also discussed on our my-story/introduction/Introduction page was one of the documents along with the Tampering With Evidence – TF200 that Neil Jepson thought could assist me in winning my arbitration appeal. It is also evident from the statements made (see Major Fraud Group Transcript (1) by Sue Owens Barrister, who assisted Mr Neil Jepson in the Major Fraud Group investigations, that my evidence had been compiled most professionally.

I reiterate it is important to raise the Victorian Major Fraud Group’s police involvement in the COT cases’ matters (as well as a number of parties associated with the Major Fraud Group), as it is clearly linked to our An injustice to the remaining 16 Australian citizens page. I was not one of the four COT cases’ litmus group, who, through Sue Owens (barrister) lodged complaints against Telstra with the Major Fraud Group in 1999. I was seconded some months later as a witness. The litmus COT cases provided my evidence of Telstra committing fraud against me, during my arbitration to the Senate estimates committee during their FOI investigations.

After I provided the contents of (see Telstra’s Falsified BCI Report to Neil Jepson, the Major Fraud Group asked me to assist them in compiling this evidence for their investigations. I did this over two separate visits to Melbourne, spending two full days at the Major Fraud Group’s St. Kilda Road offices. This is important to the litmus tests cases issue because the Major Fraud Group was stunned at the evidence and how I was able to prove Telstra definitely perverted the course of justice on two occasions by submitting false evidence to Dr Hughes, the arbitrator appointed to my case.

It was this discarded evidence in late 1998, that the Major Fraud Group asked me to supply at the request of their barrister, Neil Jepson.

In 2024, Sue Laver is Telstra's current Corporate Secretary as well as a member to the Telstra board. It is well documented in Evidence-Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman - Chapter 2 Devious and Savage that during my Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) administered arbitration process, the TIO allowed Telstra Corporate Secretary Jim Holmes to attend monthly TIO board meetings. Minutes of those meetings (see File 48-B -AS-CAV Exhibit 48-A to 91 show Jim Holmes attended all the monthly meetings (but one) from December 1993 to June 1994, during the period of my Fast Track Settlement Proposal, which in January 1994 became my Fast Track Arbitration Procedure signed on 21 April 1994. 

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