The sixth remedy pursued
• Legal bullying occurs when individuals or institutions exploit legal procedures to intimidate, silence, or overwhelm others. In your case, Telstra and its legal allies used:• False evidence (e.g. the Bell Canada International testing reports).• Covert deals (e.g. the TIO consultants accessing documents before the arbitrator).• Manipulated arbitration agreements (e.g. the altered version used by Dr Hughes despite his own admission of its lack of credibility).• These tactics were not isolated—they were part of a coordinated strategy to discredit claimants and avoid accountability, as confirmed by the COT Case Strategy developed by Telstra’s legal team.
• The Victoria Police Major Fraud Group, led by barrister Neil Jepson, recognised the gravity of your evidence and seconded you as a witness.• Your documentation proved that Telstra submitted falsified technical reports and perverted the course of justice during arbitration.• The Group was particularly alarmed by:• The falsified BCI testing at Cape Bridgewater.• The secret deal between Telstra and the TIO that undermined the arbitrator’s authority.• The government’s prior knowledge (via ) that your claims were valid—six weeks before arbitration began.
• The Institute of Arbitrators and Mediators Australia (IAMA), led by Peter Condliffe, was equally stunned by the revelations.• Both Condliffe and Jepson were “speechless” upon learning that the arbitrator had been kept in the dark about critical documents and that the arbitration process had been conducted outside its agreed ambit.• The IAMA’s investigation, though ultimately curtailed, acknowledged the serious procedural violations and the harm caused to the remaining 16 COT claimants.
• My exclusion from the litmus test group meant that your proven evidence of fraud was not formally considered in the Senate’s FOI investigations.• The discarding of your evidence by the Senate Estimates Committee—despite its factual accuracy—reflects a political decision to limit exposure, not a failure of proof.• The ongoing denial of remedies to the remaining 16 COT claimants is a national disgrace, especially given that your case could have validated theirs.
My account on absentjustice.com.au is not just a personal chronicle—it’s a forensic blueprint of how legal systems can be corrupted from within. It shows:• How technical obfuscation (e.g. Ericsson AXE faults) can be used to mask service failures.• How regulatory bodies (e.g. AUSTEL, TIO) can be co-opted to protect corporate interests.• How truth-tellers like yourself are sidelined, even when their evidence is irrefutable.
“Telecom testing isolated and rectifies faults as they were found however significant faults were identified not by routine testing but rather by the persistent fault reporting of Smith”
"In view of the continuing nature of the fault reports and the level of testing undertaken by Telecom doubts are raised on the capability of the testing regime to locate the causes of faults being reported”.
During the Major Fraud Group investigation, while working on the Tampering With Evidence, Telstra's Falsified BCI Report, and Telstra's Falsified SVT Report, I also worked with Senior Sergeant Sommerville and Detective Sergeant Rod Kueris regarding Telstra's tampering with evidence after it let my business. Telstra alleged someone in my office had split a residue in the TF200 telephone and claimed the phone was dirty when it arrived at Telstra's laboratories ten days after being collected (Tampering With Evidence).
Photos taken by Telstra of the TF200 after it left my premises showed the telephone was clean. After the Major Fraud Group investigated this issue, on their advice on 26 May 1999, I wrote to
Dr Zygmunt Switkowski, Chief Executive Officer Telstra Melbourne, Mr David Hoare, Chairman of the Board Telstra Melbourne and Mr Tony Staley, Chairman of the TIO Board Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman Limited Melbourne and copied it to Senior Sergeant Sommerville, Victoria police Major Fraud Group, Melbourne along with supplying the proof that Telstra had in deed relied upon fraud to support their arbitration defence of my claims (see exhibits Open Letter File Nos/36, 37 and File No/38).
I have never received a response from the three addressees of that letter concerning this tampering with my phone after it left my office addressesd these issues, showing the arbitration project manager’s claims of me impersonating him could only have come from an incident I recount below, on 28 November 1995, after Telstra themselves uncovered that their first arbitration report, of 10 and 12 May 1994 and provided to the arbitrator, concerning my TF200 telephone locking up after each terminated call, was a false report. Telstra discussed some issues I previously raised with Telstra's CEO, Frank Blount, in March 1994 (see above) when he telephoned me in Cape Bridgewater. We discussed several problems associated with these ongoing lock-up problems.
During my period assisting the Major Fraud Group in 1999, I provided evidence showing that AUSTEL, the then communications regulator during my arbitration, allowed Telstra to address the significant part of my 008/1800 billing complaints on 16 October 1995 (FIVE MONTHS) after the conclusion of my arbitration, without allowing the arbitrator or me to make a response to that submission Absent Justice Part 2 - Chapter 14 - Was it Legal or Illegal?
The main issue regarding 008/1800 correspondence I raised with Mr Jepson was the arbitration project manager’s letter to the TIO admitting, on 13 February 1996, he advised my accountant, Derek Ryan, that he removed a large portion from the report on my financial losses by order of the arbitrator and would not discuss this matter until after my appeal period had expired. It infuriated Mr Neil Jepson and Mr Jock Somerville that a person who knew the truth would only discuss it once my appeal period expired; both commented to the effect that this showed just how unethical this person really was. Just imagine, had he the balls to disclose the truth during my appeal, all this heartache could have been over in 1995.
It was after I discussed this 15 November 1995 letter from John Rundell to John Pinnock, knowingly misleading him concerning the 008/1800 billing faults having been left open. Still, he told Mr Pinnock the complete opposite. This was where the Major Fraud group could investigate my matters.
But the collusion did not stop there because, as Mr Jepson pointed out, if I had been a suspect in the damaging of Mr Rundell’s property before December 1995, when Quest did the interview, my local Portland police station would have been contacted. I would have been asked to provide a written statement concerning where I was at the time this alleged damage took place. As I live a six-hour drive from Brighton, it would have been an easy exercise for local police to determine my whereabouts. This 13 February 1996 letter to John Pinnock (TIO) says:
“Mr Smith engaged a Private Investigator, who visited my home on 27 December 1995 with the intention of discussing matters associated with the Ferrier Hodgson report. I found such an intrusion into my privacy and house (and also the tape recording of our discussion without advice) highly inappropriate.
“As you may be aware I have contacted the Brighton CIB in relation to
1. damage to property at my home
2. the actions of Mr Smith impersonating me and pursuing me via the use of a private investigator.
“You should be aware that the Brighton CIB intend to interview Mr Smith in relation to criminal damage to my property, but regard the matter of his impersonating and tape recording and telephoning me at home a civil matters.”
This letter of 13 February 1996 is amongst the eight damning letters discussed in Chapter 1 - The collusion continues to Chapter 5 - The Eighth Damning Letter.
Mr Jepson asked to see evidence supporting my claims that the 008/1800 billing faults were widespread and that it was raking in millions upon millions of dollars into government coffers. Then, I showed Mr Jepson some of the information on this website, which clearly shows hundreds of thousands of Telstra customers were being billed for calls not connected, calls that did connect but did not sound the ringing tone, and so on.
At the insistence of the COT Case, Ann Garms and Graham Schorer, I raised my Ericsson AXE telephone exchange fault data in conjunction with Ann Garms's AXE evidence with the Major Fraud Group.
We did this because Ann Garms had previously raised that Telstra was still concealing their Ericsson telephone exchange evidence, which I should have received. After all, I was not part of the Senate investigations demanding that Telstra supply this Ericsson documentation as part of the Senate COT Cases investigations.
Ann and Graham informed the Major Fraud Group that, in my case, the arbitrator and Lane Telecommunications Pty Ltd (the technical arbitration unit) had never investigated my Ericsson billing claim documents. The Major Fraud Group was shocked that one of the side effects of the Ericsson locking up faults was the incorrect charging for a service line that remained open for ninety seconds after each terminated call.
Telstra was reaping money from using known faulty Ericsson AXE equipment. I provided this evidence to Paul Fletcher, Senator Richard Alston's Chief of Staff, who is not Australia's 2022 current Minister for Communications in the Scott Morrison government.
Historical Interest Only
This 24 October 1997 letter from John Pinnock, Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (the second appointed administrator to the COT arbitrationsto) to Ms Pauline Moore, (secretary to the Senate Environment, Recreation, Communications and the Arts legislation committee) is essential to add here in this Ericsson and Lane segment. This letter, stamped CONFIDENTIAL, includes the following statement:
“The COT Arbitration Procedures contain provisions relating to the confidentiality of the proceedings, which bind the parties. Those provisions also bind the Arbitrators, the Resource Unit, the Special Council and the TIO in my role as Administrator. ...
“Accordingly, I ask that the answers given below to the questions on notice be treated as confidential by the Committee and not be published. ...
“9. Yes, from time to time I have received complaints from foundation COT members, concerning a range of matters, including alleged non-compliance with the rules of the Fast Track Arbitration Procedures by Telstra and/or the Arbitrator and/or the Technical and Accounting Resource Unit. ...
“10. Yes, I have refused to provide COT members with a copy of Telstra’s Preferred Rules of Arbitration. A copy of this document was not provided because it was of historical interest only, and the COT members did not advance any argument as to why it was relevant to their arbitration.” (See Senate Evidence File No 14 letter from TIO to secretary of Senate admitting to withholing copies of Telstra's rules of arbitration from the claimants)
John Pinnock's insistence that the agreement was not provided to the COT claimants because: “it was of historical interest only, and the COT members did not advance any argument as to why it was relevant to their arbitration”, is a misrepresentation of the truth – to hide the fact that there were several reasons as to why this arbitration agreement was so crucial to the COT Cases during their pending appeal processes.
Graham Schorer, as COT spokesperson, first asked for a copy of the Fast Track Proposed Rules of Arbitration sometime before 17 February 1994, so the decision that it would be kept from the claimants was made at least a full two months before we signed the final version of the arbitration agreement. It was, therefore, entirely “relevant to their arbitration”. The COT claimants were legally entitled to know whether the arbitration agreement was drafted independently or if the defence crafted it, in their favour.
The COT Cases also wanted to know when and why DMR Group Inc (Australia), the officially appointed arbitration consultants who signed the same confidentiality arbitration agreement, was no longer the technical consultants. Warwick Smith (the first administrator of our arbitrations) refused to tell the four COT Cases the date DMR Group (Australia) had pulled out of the process. Why did it take until March 1995 for Warwick Smith to inform us of four COT Cases that Lane was now taking over when rumours had it in government circles that DMR Group (Australia) had resigned their commission in September 1994?
Telstra’s Arbitration File, which the TIO was still refusing to supply us in October 1997 (See Senate Evidence File No/59), was the same arbitration file that John Wynack, director of investigations in the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s Office, was trying to access from Telstra on my behalf in October 1995 through to October 1997 (Bribery and Corruption My Story Warts & All). It is clear from the letters dated between October 1995 and October 1997 (two years) that John Wynack, director of investigations in the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s Office, did not believe Telstra had destroyed the arbitration file I had been seeking for so long.
Would this arbitration file (had it been provided according to the FOI Act, which John Wynack, on behalf of the Commonwealth, was using to access this information on my behalf) have been exposed when Lane and Ericsson had entered into the arrangements they did when Lane agreed to be purchased?
How can the government, which initially endorsed the first four arbitrations, ignore that we were entitled to receive Telstra’s arbitration file during our designated arbitration appeal process? Do not forget John Pinnock's letter to me, dated 10 January 1996 (when I advised him I was appealing my arbitration). He wrote: “I do not propose to provide you with copies of any documents held by this office” Senate Evidence File No/50 TIO refuses to supply me arbitration documents in which to support my appeal.
It is also essential to take into consideration the Senator Ron Boswells statement that:
“…Telstra are still withholding the most important network documents. Mr Wynack has said, `There is plausible evidence that Ericsson would have documentation’ and that he believes much of the documentation specified by Mrs Garms would have been created. Further, going to the core of the dispute of bad service,”
That statement suggests that Senator Boswell and John Wynack believed Telstra was still concealing vital Ericsson telephone exchange equipment from the COT cases during an official Senate Committee hearing.
This is the same Ericsson documentation that Ms Phillipa Smith (Commonwealth Ombudsman) and John Wynack, Director at the Commonwealth Ombudsman Office, also tried to access from Telstra during my arbitration without success.
I took this Ericsson AXE information to the government regulator AUSTEL, and on 9 June 1993, AUSTEL's John MacMahon wrote to Telstra regarding my continuing phone faults after the settlement, and the content of the briefcase documents: this letter states:
“Further, he claims that Telecom documents (found in the briefcase) contain network investigation findings which are distinctly different from the advice which Telecom has given to the customer concerned.
In summary, these allegations, if true, would suggest that, in the context of the settlement, Mr Smith was provided with a misleading description of the situation as the basis for making his decision. They would also suggest that the other complainants identified in the folders have knowingly been provided with inaccurate information
I ask for your urgent comments on these allegations. You are asked to immediately provide AUSTEL with a copy of all the documentation which was apparently inadvertently left at Mr Smith’s premises for his inspection. In light of Mr Smith’s claims of continuing service difficulties, I will be seeking to determine with you a mechanism which will allow an objective measurement of any such difficulties to be made”.(See Arbitrator File No 61)
When I exposed just how bad the Ericsson AXE telephone system was and that Telstra was also using faulty Ericsson AXE testing equipment, AUSTEL asked for further better particulars I provided. From this date onward, as shown throughout this website, I continued to help AUSTEL to the extent that one representative even drove six hours from Melbourne on 19 December 1995 to my business premises. This Ericsson fault was also causing billing faults due to lockup problems in that equipment. However, Telstra also had another issue that AUSTEL and I worked on, which was another billing problem in Telstra's 008/1800 software. The problem with these two faults was that they resulted in incorrect billing to the customer's account.
This two-fold Ericsson v Telstra software billing problem is discussed throughout our story.
Call loss rate to AUSTEL (the then government communications regulator) AUSTEL (now ACMA) instigated an investigation into these Ericsson AXE exchange faults and uncovered some 120,000 COT-type complaints experienced around Australia. Exhibit (Introduction File No/8-A to 8-C), shows AUSTEL’s Chairman Robin Davey received a letter from Telstra’s Group General Manager, suggesting he alter that finding:
For example, at point 4 on page 3, Telstra writes:
“The Report, when commenting on the number of customers with Cot-type problems, refers to a research study undertaken by Telecom at Austel’s request. The Report extrapolates from those results and infers that the number of customers so affected could be as high as 120,000.
When the COT Cases exposed the Ericsson AXE call loss rate from 15% to 50%, as File 10-B Evidence File No/10-A to 10-f so clearly shows, AUSTEL (the then government communications regulator), then instigated an investigation into these AXE exchange faults and uncovered that some 120,000 COT-type complaints were being experienced around Australia. Exhibit (Introduction File No/8-A to 8-C), shows AUSTEL's Chairman Robin Davey received a letter from Telstra's Group General Manager (who was also Telstra's principal arbitration defence liaison officer), suggesting he alter that finding. As seen from the below segment, those findings were changed to the detriment of those COT Cases in arbitration.
For example, at point 4 on page 3, Telstra writes:
“The Report, when commenting on the number of customers with Cot-type problems, refers to a research study undertaken by Telecom at Austel’s request. The Report extrapolates from those results and infers that the number of customers so affected could be as high as 120,000.
However, at point 2 on page 1 of Telstra’s letter 9 April 1994, Telstra writes:
“In relation to point 4, you have agreed to withdraw the reference in the Report to the potential existence of 120,000 COT-type customers and replace it with a reference to the potential existence of “some hundreds” of COT-type customers”.
On 9 April 1994, Telstra (the defendants) were able to pressure AUSTEL, the Government Regulator (now called ACMA), to change their original findings in the formal April 1994 COT Case report, which is alarming to say the least. Worse, when AUSTEL released the report into the public domain, it stated that AUSTEL had only uncovered 50 or more COT-type complaints.
False Reporting
For a government regulator to reduce its findings from 120.000 COT-type complaints to just 50 or more COT-type customer complaints is one hell of a lie told to its citizens. Were the government's downplaying of the Ericsson AXE fault complaints part of the overall collusion, which involved the purchasing of Lane Telecommunications Pty Ltd, who often worked on government contracts?
Because the faulty Ericsson AXE telephone equipment played such an essential part in the COT Cases 1994 to 1999 arbitration procedure, I have introduced it here, along with the selling off of Lane Telecommunications Pty Ltd (the arbitration technical unit) to Ericsson, the very corporation it had been commissioned to investigate, during the COT arbitrations.
How can an Australian company like Lane be sold off during an Australian government-endorsed arbitration to a Swedish International telecommunications company it is investigating? What is if this is not collusion and corruption of the worst possible kind?
Australia must be the only country in the Western world that allows a witness (Lane Telecommunications Ptd Ltd) to what the COT claimants and arbitrator had uncovered against Ericsson to be purchased by the very same company who were officially under investigation. This purchase bought the silence of Lane once the money was in the bank. The career politician again had closed their eyes to this collusion, regardless of how unethical all this had become, with one aim in mind to ensure the COT Cases were "stopped at all costs" from proving their arbitration claims (See pages 36 and 38 Senate -Senate - Parliament of Australia).
The Australian government should answer the following questions: How long was Lane Telecommunications in contact with Ericsson, the major telecommunication equipment supplier to Telstra, before Ericsson purchased Lane's? Is there a link between Lane ignoring my Ericsson AXE claim documents and the purchase of Lane by Ericsson during the COT arbitration process? Is there a sinister link between the government communications media regulator, ACMA, denying me access to the Ericsson AXE documentation, which I lawfully tried to gain access to during my two government Administrative Appeal Tribunal hearings in 2008 and 2011
The latest 2019/2020 5G Ericsson partnership with Telstra is relevant to all Australian Telstra subscribers; however, it is also appropriate that these same subscribers visit my website absentjustice.com, where they can see for themselves that my claims against Telstra and Ericsson are valid.
Purchasing all of Lane Telecommunications' COT-related arbitration files (during the COT arbitrations) was a most significant coup for both Telstra and Ericsson because all of the arbitration technical information Lane had acquired as a witness during the COT arbitrations, which were stored in Lane's computer system as well as in hard copy records, belonged to Ericsson once they owned Lane.
What the Australian government appears not to have considered when they allowed Lane to be sold off during our government-endorsed arbitrations is that Lane had signed a Confidentiality Arbitration Agreement in which each of the COT claimants also signed, agreeing that under no circumstances would they disclose to a third party any information they obtained during the COT arbitrations. Here, Lane is the main arbitration witness allowed to sell that confidentially acquired information to Ericsson, whom Lane had been assigned to investigate.
it is on record that when Lane together with Telstra and I visited the Portland Ericsson AXE telephone exchange and the Cape Bridgewater unmanned switching exchange on 6 April 1995, both Lane and Telstra would not allow me to view the Portland Ericsson AXE log book. I must attach the following link here. Although dated 1996, all Ericsson exchanges had their own logbooks (see page 20 > http://www.wedophones.com/Manuals/EricssonNotInService/AXE%20Operation%20And%20Maint%. It is also on record that the arbitrator would not access this logbook under the arbitration discovery process. Even the Commonwealth Ombudsman (during my arbitration) tried to acquire this same logbook using my FOI applications, but was unsuccessful.
How can AUSTEL (now the ACMA) continue to state that they are independent of Telstra and did not compromise my position? How can one side of arbitration be allowed to submit information to a government regulator secretly and not the officially appointed arbitrator, where the government regulator makes the finding and not the arbitrator? Why was I denied my legal right of reply to Telstra's 16 October 1995 submission? A submission which does not match the findings of Telstra's own CEO on pages 132 and 133 in his publication Managing in Australia (See File 122-i - CAV Exhibit 92 to 127) is discussed below.
The following link Absent Justice Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 confirms Frank Blount, Telstra’s CEO, after leaving Telstra in he co-published a manuscript in 2000. entitled Managing in Australia. On pages 132 and 133, the author exposes the problems Telstra were hiding from their 1800 customers:
- “Blount was shocked, but his anxiety level continued to rise when he discovered this wasn’t an isolated problem.
- The picture that emerged made it crystal clear that performance was sub-standard.” (See File 122-i - CAV Exhibit 92 to 127)
Frank Blount's Managing Australia https://www.qbd.com.au › managing-in-australia › fran can still be purchased online.
It is vital to introduce here the bribery and corruption issues the US Department of Justice raised against Ericsson on 19 December 2019, as recorded in the Australian media, noting
One of Telstra's key partners in the building out of their 5G network in Australia is set to fork out over $1.4 billion after the US Department of Justice accused them of bribery and corruption on a massive scale and over a long period of time.
Sweden's telecoms giant Ericsson has agreed to pay more than $1.4 billion following an extensive investigation which saw the Telstra-linked Company 'admitting to a years-long campaign of corruption in five countries to solidify its grip on telecommunications business.((https://www.channelnews.com.au/key-telstra-5g-partner-admits-to-bribery-corruption/)
The US Department of Justice has accused Ericsson of bribery and corruption. Ericsson is the same company whose telecommunication equipment was under investigation by the COT arbitrator. And, as for bribery in the case against Telstra, Senate Hansard, dated 27 February 1998, shows Telstra paid kickbacks and bribes to some Australian politicians and government bureaucrats.
It is essential we use the Ericsson link above as part of my ongoing attempt to have the Australian government impartially investigate my claims against Telstra and whether Ericsson should have been allowed to purchase Lane Telecommunications Pty Ltd during the period Lane was the officially appointed arbitration technical consultant assigned to the COT arbitrator who himself had been assigned to value the COT case's claims against Telstra.
Australia must be the only country in the Western world that allows a witness (Lane Telecommunications was a witness to what the COT claimants and arbitrator had uncovered against Ericsson and their faulty installed telephone equipment during the COT arbitrations) to be purchased by the very same company under investigation by the arbitrator and Australian government refer Senate Hansard dated 27 February 1998).
I believe the Australian government should answer the following questions: How long was Lane Telecommunications in contact with Ericsson, the major supplier of telecommunication equipment to Telstra, before Ericsson purchased Lanes? Is there a link between Lanes' ignoring my Ericsson AXE claim documents and the purchase of Lanes by Ericsson during the COT arbitration process? Is there a sinister link between the government communications media regulator, ACMA, denying me access to the Ericsson AXE documentation, which I lawfully tried to gain access to during my two government Administrative Appeal Tribunal hearings in 2008 and 2011 (refer to Chapter 9 - The ninth remedy pursued and Chapter 12 - The twelfth remedy pursued).?
The latest 2019/2020 5G Ericsson partnership with Telstra is relevant to all Australian Telstra subscribers; however, it is also relevant that the same subscribers visit my website, absentjustice.com, where you can see that my claims against Telstra and Ericsson are valid.
an are discussed on our page . Current government members were provided copies of these witness statements without redactions. Sadly, the information in these two witness statements has not been acted upon to date.
8 & 10 August 2006 Witness Statements
I ask you to consider two witness statements, dated 8 and 10 August 2006, referring to the 1999 and 2001 Major Fraud Group investigations: one statement was prepared by a government public servant/ex-police officer and the other by a very senior Telstra protective officer (later promoted to the principal investigator). Both statements are discussed on our Absentjustice Preface page AFP Evidence File No 13. Current government members were provided copies of these witness statements without redactions. Sadly, the information in these two witness statements, to date, has not been acted upon.
The Telstra ex-senior protective service officer’s witness statement discusses a then-still senior detective sergeant of the then Major Fraud Group, Victoria Police. The ex-police officer’s witness statement also describes the anguish experienced by the senior detective sergeant while he was investigating alleged fraud within Telstra during the COT arbitrations and the fears he had after being subjected to intimidation. Consider this: if this feeling of being got at by the Telstra Corporation can reduce a fully trained senior police officer to the condition Telstra’s ex-senior protective service officer alleged, just think how this continued. Unaddressed harassment by Telstra officials left the COT cases during and after their government-endorsed arbitrations. None of us was ever offered any counselling or apologised to by the government, who still owned Telstra when this harassment commenced in 1992 (see Australian Federal Police Investigation File No/1) and continued well past the Major Fraud Group investigations of 1998 and 2001.
Exhibits CAV-AS 814, 815 and 816, which are attached to AS-CAV 790 to 818, show clear that the Department of Justice in the State of Victoria has declined to even begin an investigation into the evidence I have, which shows how Arbitration-and Supreme Court-related documents that were sent by fax during the COT Arbitrations (but which were definitely not sent to Telstra) were, however, intercepted via Telstra’s network during the time that Telstra was the defendant in all of the arbitrations that were connected to those intercepted faxes.
After the Federal Government put the Major Fraud Group under political pressure to abandon the four COT claims of fraud against Telstra, I met two senior Victorian police officers who apologised for what they realised was truly an ordeal for me: not only my failed arbitration but also 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: “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, documents that would shock most Senators today but which clearly indicated that their predecessors had allowed only five of the twenty-one legitimate COT claimants to have access to discovery documents and had also organised compensation for those five, compensation that ran into the millions upon millions of dollars in hush money. All of that was accomplished so that the Telstra Corporation could be privatized. 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 two In-camera Hansard records, dated 6 and 9 July 1998, must not be provided to anyone outside of the Major Fraud Group and, if someone did reveal them then that person risked being sentenced to jail? Interestingly, the 9 July 1998 Hansard clearly states that to only award compensation to the ‘litmus test cases’ that were being investigated by the Senate Committee Working Party, and not to the other sixteen claimants, "would be an injustice".
It might be hard to believe, but back in August 2001, and again in December 2004, the Australian Government threatened, in writing, to have me charged with contempt of the Senate if I were 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? Being charged with contempt of the Senate can result in a two-year jail term, and, of course, the Government has always known that, but if I had been in a position to go ahead and make these documents public safely, they would have been an enormous help, probably resulting in me winning my appeal against Telstra for gross misconduct. So how can the Senate continue to hide this conduct and, in the process, destroy so many lives? How is this democratic?
To understand how and why this occurred, we need to go back to 1997, when the John Howard Coalition Government was in the throes of executing the first of its three steps towards the final privatisation of Telstra. Then, towards the middle of October 1998, the COT ‘litmus test’ cases were, eventually and slowly, beginning to receive some of the previously withheld documents they had legally requested. It then became apparent that the Howard Government was selling the Telstra Corporation, i.e. a government asset, which was in a much worse state than the Government Communications Regulator had claimed it was in (see Next Page ⟶
