Introduction to An Injustice to the remaining 16 Australian citizens

This section of our story An injustice to the remaining 16 Australian citizens explains exactly how, just two decades ago, a supposedly democratic Australian Government allowed five of its own citizens to have access to important, previously-concealed, arbitration documents, but refused to allow the same rights to another sixteen members of the same group as the original five, even though those sixteen had already been included in a Senate schedule that would allow them to have their document issues assessed in the same way as the first, so-called ‘litmus five’, COT cases. This deliberate discrimination against the remaining sixteen members, which was put in place by the John Howard Government, may well turn out to be the worst case of deliberate discrimination against a small group of Australian citizens for a very long time, in fact, possibly since Federation, back in 1901..

Absent Justice - My Story - Edmund Burke

Broken promises

In 1994, the Australian Government promised that all of our ongoing phone and faxing problems would be fixed as part of our government endorsed arbitration and mediation processes – a promise they never delivered. Even when the government were informed of these injustices against the 21-type COT Cases, they only assisted five of those cases (as this injustice page shows) The other 16 cases, as we have shown below were left without the documents they were promised they would receive if they signed their TIO administered arbitration/mediation processes. As shown on Absent Justice Part John Pinnock (the administrator to our arbitrations) advised a Senate Committee on page 99 COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA – Parliament of Australia) that:

“In the process leading up to the development of the arbitration procedures—and I was not a party to that, but I know enough about it to be able to say this—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.”

The fact that Mr Pinnock’s statements covered the promises given to all of the COT Cases concerning their promised arbitration document and not just the five ‘litmus test cases’ being investigated by the Senate Committee concerned many people aware of the plight of the COT Cases. In late 1998, Mr Neil Jepson, Barrister for the then Major Fraud Group seconded my as a witness to give evidence on behalf of the five litmus tests cases referred to here on this An injustice to the remaining 16 Australian citizens Mr Jepson discussed when he and I were seconded to give evidence in the Supreme Court of Victoria by Sue Owens in 2002.

This letter Open Letter File Nos/36 was copied to Senior Sergeant Sommerville of the Victorian Police Major Fraud Group, Melbourne. Before this letter was sent, I discussed with Mr Neil Jepson, Barrister of the Victoria Police Major Fraud Group, before sending it that I was not impeding upon their current investigations into fraud claims against Telstra lodged by Barrister Sue Owens on behalf of four of the COT Cases, Ann Garms, Ralph Bova, Ross Plowman and Graham Schorer. Mr Neil Jepson had previously seconded me because of a report I had provided Sue Owens confirming Telstra had also acted fraudulently when relying upon two arbitration reports in defence of my 1994 arbitration claims. The report prepared by me at the request of Senator Richard Alston, Shadow Minister for Communications (refer to Open Letter File No/41/Part-One and File No/41 Part-Two) was read by several police officers of the Major Fraud group who, after reading this report and the attachments with it concluded Telstra and others had indeed perverted the course of justice during my arbitration.

It is essential to link the Major Fraud Group Transcript (1) and Major Fraud Group Transcript (2) because Fraud Group Transcript (1) shows Senator Ron Boswell, Graham Schorer (COT spokesperson), Bruce Akehurst of Telstra), Mr Anthony Honner (another COT case) and Barry O'Sullivan (negotiator and later Senator) discussing why the government did not allow my arbitration matters to be viewed by the Senate along with the five 'litmus' COT test cases. To have investigated my matters would have impeded the privatisation of Telstra. Telstra

Major Fraud Group Transcript (2) shows Barrister Sue Owens explaining why the Major Fraud Group Barrister Neil Jepson seconded me into assisting the fraud group's investigations into the four claims registered by Barrister Owen's concerning alleged fraud by Telstra. Page 11 of transcript (2) shows Sue Owens stating I am "extremely intelligent" and that police also thought the same concerning my reporting. The reason why I was asked to assist with their fraud investigations.

All these discussions with Telstra, two barristers, a professional loss assessor, COT Cases Graham Schorer, and a Senator happened while Ziggy Switowski was still Telstra's CEO. And now he is to conduct an in-house investigation into corruption concerning PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC), when it is apparent, he ignored the fraud his company committed against me during a government-endorsed arbitration.

The fact that I could prepare two reports showing this unlawful conduct was why the Major Fraud Group asked if I could assist them in those four COT Cases. I did help the Major Fraud Group by visiting their St Kilda Road complex, spending two days at a time (on two occasions) assisting with their investigations.

That is the only reason I copied this letter to Mr Sommerville after being advised it did not trouble the Major Fraud Group, only that they would appreciate receiving a copy of any response I received from those to who the letter was addressed.

For reasons unknown to me, the Major Fraud Group Victoria Police investigations into those four alleged fraud cases were aborted. However, grapevine news was that Federal government pressure saw this investigation aborted.

Was this fraud committed to prevent my claims of ongoing telephone problems from being investigated by the arbitrator? The arbitrator’s award (his findings) makes no mention of my complaints of ongoing phone problems.

As noted throughout this webpage, promises were made to the original four COT cases before we signed our arbitration agreements: the government communications regulatory report, titled AUSTEL COT Cases April 1994, states that a set of Service Verification Tests (SVTs) had to be conducted, in accordance with the government’s regulatory mandatory specifications, at each COT case’s premises before the arbitrator/ assessor could hand down findings. Numerous exhibits available on Absentjustice.com (see also

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Read Alan’s book

My name is Alan Smith. This is the story of my battle with a telecommunications giant and the Australian Government, a battle that 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.

Other independent business people similarly affected by poor telecommunications have joined me on my journey. We are known as the Casualties of Telstra, or the COT cases. All we wanted was for the government owned telecommunications carrier Telstra to admit there was problems, and fix them.

Worse, we had been tricked into signing a confidentiality clause that has hampered all of our efforts since to have our claims transparently investigated.

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 themselves, to protect Telstra to the detriment of it's customers?