Learn about horrendous crimes, unscrupulous criminals and corrupt politicians and lawyers who control the legal profession in Australia. Shameful, hideous, and treacherous are just a few words that describe these lawbreakers—government Corruption. Read about the corruption within the government bureaucracy that plagued the COT arbitrations. 

📘 The Infrastructure of Concealment

Until the late 1990s, I witnessed the Australian government ensnared in a web of corruption, deeply intertwined in the ownership and operation of essential services. Little did I understand that this sinister entanglement formed the dark backbone of a system engineered to protect itself—while ruthlessly sacrificing individuals, as seen in the COT cases.

During the COT arbitrations, I became a target of this corrupt system. The treachery I encountered was not a mere anomaly; it was deeply embedded within the very fabric of the bureaucracy. This realisation propelled me to create absentjustice.com, a platform dedicated to unveiling the deceit and betrayal that defined those proceedings. I meticulously chronicled every deceitful manoeuvre, every backstab, every act of betrayal.

• The arbitration process was compromised by covert monitoring.

• Telstra insiders shared private data with intermediaries.

• Government agencies failed to act on credible threats and evidence.

• The arbitrator ignored critical breaches of privacy and due process.

The new owners believed they could rebuild what Telstra and the system had broken. They tried. They failed. Just as I had—for thirteen years—before selling the business to them in December 2001. I would later learn that the owners before me, back in the early 1980s, had suffered a similar fate. And so the cycle continued after I purchased the camp in 1987

There was no internet back then. No email. No way to bypass the in-ground copper wire telephone system that had become our lifeline—and our noose. Even in 2006, the new owners were still shackled to that same faulty infrastructure.

Had modern telecommunications been available to us—the twenty-one COT Cases and the thousands of small business operators like us—we would not have lost our livelihoods the way we did. We were sabotaged not just by technical failure, but by institutional indifference (See Chapter 4 The New Owners Tell Their Story, and Chapter 5 Immoral - Hypocritical Conduct.).  

 

A kangaroo Court

 

The damage inflicted has been devastating. It goes far beyond financial ruin. It has been deeply personal, emotionally scarring, and hauntingly enduring. Every attempt to move forward has been met with the lingering consequences of a process that was never truly about justice.

This isn’t just a story of a failed telecommunications system and a criminally conducted arbitration process. It’s a story of lives derailed, of trust shattered, and of a system that chose silence over accountability.

Would you like to follow this with a chapter titled The Cost of Endurance, where we explore the emotional toll, the impact on Cathy, and the legacy you’re fighting to preserve? I can help you structure it with personal reflections, timelines, and supporting exhibits.

📘 The Machinery of Misconduct

I founded Absent Justice because I refused to let the dark truth be buried beneath layers of deceit. I wanted the public to witness the insidious actions of Telstra—not just against me, but against anyone bold enough to challenge their treachery. Among the twelve remedies I’ve laid out, one of the most crucial is a timeline that exposes the key moments of corruption festering within public office.

I’ve compiled chilling evidence files containing firsthand accounts from Telstra’s own protective service officers—technical experts who were compelled to witness the unethical conduct thriving within the company. These officers became entangled in state and federal police investigations, revealing Telstra's unlawful activities surrounding the COT Cases. Their statements present an unsettling portrait of corruption.

Telstra didn’t merely obstruct justice; they wielded external enforcement agencies like puppets, spying on their opposition with ruthless precision. Their internal police force became infamous for their intimidation tactics, threatening anyone who dared to come too close to the truth. I was one of those targets. They employed advanced technical means to dismantle my credibility, and they came perilously close to succeeding.

 

 

📘Covert Gatekeeping and Concealment of Critical Evidence
What I did not know—until 2011—was that AUSTEL (now ACMA) had no knowledge that Ferrier Hodgson Corporate Advisory (FHCA), the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman’s appointed arbitration consultants, would be covertly exonerated from liability for any negligent act committed during my arbitration. Nor were they aware that FHCA would assume an unofficial role as gatekeeper—vetting and filtering documents before they reached the arbitrator.

This meant that (AUSTEL’s Adverse Findings) at points 2 to 212, which validated my claims and should have been central to the arbitration process, were at risk of being withheld. FHCA’s covert power allowed them to determine what evidence was seen—and what was concealed.

I did not receive my copy of the (AUSTEL’s Adverse Findings) from ACMA under Freedom of Information until November 2007—twelve years after Telstra and FHCA had received theirs. The following letter, dated July 11, 1994, illustrates this disturbing arrangement. It shows how my complaints about ongoing telephone faults were buried, as reflected in points 2010, 2011, and 2012.

 📘Telstra's Steve Black writes to the arbitration administrator Warwick Smith,

This letter, dated 11 July 1994, states:-

“Telecom will also make available to the arbitrator a summarised list of information which is available, some of which may be relevant to the arbitration. This information will be available for the resource unit to peruse. If the resource unit forms the view that this information should be provided to the arbitrator, then Telecom would accede to this request.”

The statement in Mr Black’s letter:-

“If the resource unit forms the view that this information should be provided to the arbitrator”,

The above two statements confirm both Warwick Smith and Mr Black were fully aware that the TIO-appointed Resource Unit, Ferrier Hodgson Corporate Advisory, were secretly assigned to vet most, if not all, the arbitration procedural documents en route to Dr Hughes.  If FHCA decided a particular document was not relevant to the arbitration process, it would not be passed to Dr Hughes or the other parties. (AS-CAV Exhibits 589 to 647 - See AS-CAV 590)

On August 2, 1996, a shocking revelation came to light fifteen months after my arbitration ended. Sue Hodgkinson of FHCA wrote to Dr Gordon Hughes, openly admitting to the deliberate withholding of crucial Telstra-related arbitration documents that should have been assessed during my case (see FILE 45-h - ). The treachery only deepened as Dr Hughes and the TIO office, which was also copied on this letter, chose to turn a blind eye to this blatant injustice.

Page 5 of the Commercial Arbitration Act 1984, under Part 11 – Appointment of Arbitrators and Umpires states:-

(6) Presumption of single arbitrator

“An arbitration agreement shall be taken to provide for the appointment of a single arbitrator unless –
(a) the agreement otherwise provides; or
(b) the parties otherwise agree in writing.” (GS-CAV Exhibit 155 to 215 - See GS-CAV 193-B)

The Arbitration Agreement, which the four COT Cases signed between April 8 and 21, 1994, mentions only one arbitrator.  They have never seen any written agreement that allows a second arbitrator to determine what information the first arbitrator will see.

This story—the COT story—is not just mine. It’s a story of systemic betrayal. It’s a story that has never been adequately investigated, never been publicly reckoned with, and the parties involved in conducting the COT arbitrations outside of the agreed-upon ambit have never been held accountable.

But I’m still here. And I will not let it be forgotten.

 

 

Two Alan Smiths, One Dark Pattern: Telstra’s Treacherous Campaign of Extraction
In the quiet coastal bounds of Cape Bridgewater, two men named Alan Smith—unrelated, unknown to each other, and living just five kilometres apart—became unwitting targets of a ruthless and coordinated campaign. Between 1988 and 2008, both were systematically threatened by Telstra, its high-powered legal firm Freehill Hollingdale & Page, and a network of bounty hunters—commissioned agents who earned lucrative rewards for extracting payments from Telstra customers disputing their bills.

These weren’t isolated cases. They were part of a sweeping, sinister pattern. Thousands of Telstra consumers across Australia, all suffering from persistent telephone faults, were bullied into paying inflated or erroneous bills. The common denominator? Their billing disputes stemmed directly from the very phone problems Telstra refused to acknowledge or fix.

Despite mounting evidence that Telstra’s network—particularly the Ericsson AXE exchanges—was riddled with faults, government bureaucrats turned a blind eye. They allowed the courts to pursue these consumers, knowing full well that the problems might originate from the government-owned Telstra itself. It was a betrayal not just of law, but of conscience.
 

The Machinery of Coercion.

This was not mere negligence—it was institutionalised extortion. Telstra’s legal teams and bounty hunters operated with impunity, armed with flawed data and protected by bureaucratic silence. The two Alan Smiths were harassed for years, receiving legal threats and demands for payment on accounts they knew were corrupted by technical faults. No one came to investigate. No one came to listen.

Instead, the system closed ranks. Evidence was ignored. Witnesses were dismissed. And the courts—fed by the same poisoned stream of misinformation—forced payment from victims already on the brink.

A Precursor to Robodebt

This dark chapter in Telstra’s history foreshadowed the Robodebt scandal of 2023, where automated debt recovery systems—based on flawed algorithms and government indifference—led to widespread suffering. Just as Telstra’s victims were coerced into paying for faults they didn’t cause, Robodebt victims were pursued for debts they didn’t owe.

The consequences were devastating. Heart attacks. Mental breakdowns. Suicides. Families are shattered under the weight of government-sanctioned abuse. The parallels are chilling: both schemes relied on corrupted data, bureaucratic complicity, and a ruthless disregard for human life.

The Casualties of Telstra: A Legacy of Concealment and Betrayal

In the annals of Australian telecommunications history, few stories are as disturbing—or as persistently buried—as that of the Casualties of Telstra (COT cases). I write this in 2025, at age 81, as the last surviving member of the original quartet. Our journey began in 1994, when the Australian Government sanctioned an arbitration process to address our persistent and debilitating telephone faults—issues that crippled our businesses and lives.

What was meant to be a transparent and just process quickly devolved into a labyrinth of obfuscation, redaction, and institutional betrayal. Among the most alarming discoveries I made was a Telstra document containing a record of my phone conversation with former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser. This file, which I later shared with the Australian Federal Police, had been redacted—despite the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s insistence that I was entitled to the full, unaltered version under the Freedom of Information Act. Hundreds of other FOI documents remain withheld to this day.

The BCI Deception

One of the most egregious examples of misinformation came from Bell Canada International Inc. (BCI), whose test results were used by the government regulator AUSTEL (now ACMA) to falsely claim that my business had received a clean bill of health. According to Telstra’s own FOI documents, BCI never conducted the 13,590 test calls to the Cape Bridgewater exchange that were cited as evidence. These fabricated results were used to dismiss our claims and undermine our credibility.
Why did Telstra release documents proving that AUSTEL relied on fundamentally flawed data? Why did the Australian Government conceal these facts, which directly contributed to the destruction of my business? Why was I forced to travel to Canada to seek justice for a wrong perpetrated on Australian soil?

A Canadian Response

Although BCI never responded to my inquiries, the Canadian Telecommunications Minister’s office did. In a letter dated 7 July 1995, they wrote: This acknowledgement, though diplomatic, underscored the seriousness of the allegations and the failure of Australian institutions to act with integrity.

The Lane–Ericsson Nexus

The involvement of Lane Telecommunications Pty Ltd, later acquired by Ericsson of Sweden, added another layer of concern. Lane had collected sensitive technical and business data under confidentiality agreements during the arbitration process. Yet Ericsson, which had installed flawed equipment in Telstra’s exchanges, gained access to this data without signing any confidentiality agreement specific to the COT cases. This breach of trust and protocol raises serious questions about data security, corporate ethics, and government oversight.

A Legacy of Silence

The COT cases were not isolated incidents. Our quartet was later joined by sixteen others, all facing similar issues. Together, we formed a chorus of voices demanding accountability. But as time passed, that chorus grew quieter. Two of my fellow members have passed away, and the third is gravely ill. I remain, not just as a survivor, but as a witness to a decades-long denial of justice.

The truth is not just buried in redacted documents—it lives in the silence of those who were silenced, the businesses that were ruined, and the trust that was shattered. It is time for that truth to be heard.

 

“During a one week period in March of this year I attempted to contact Mr Alan Smith at Bridgewater Camp.  In that time I tried many times to phone through.

Each time I dialled I was met with a line that was blank.  Even after several re-dials there was no response.  I then began to vary the times of calling but it made no difference.” File 231-B → AS-CAV Exhibit 181 to 233

Some years later, I sent Sister Burke an early draft of my manuscript, Absent Justice My Story‘, concerning my valiant attempt to run a telephone-dependent business without a dependable phone service. Sister Burke wrote back,

“Only I know from personal experience that your story is true, otherwise I would find it difficult to believe. I was amazed and impressed with the thorough, detailed work you have done in your efforts to find justice”  File 231-A → AS-CAV Exhibit 181 to 233

Voices of Persistence: The Women Who Would Not Be Silenced
Despite the relentless technical failures and Telstra’s refusal to acknowledge the truth, two remarkable women—Sister Maureen Burke and Sister Karen Donnellon of Loreto College—refused to give up. Their determination to secure access to the Cape Bridgewater Holiday Camp was not just logistical; it was moral. They understood the value of the camp as a sanctuary for underprivileged children and families, and they saw through the systemic barriers that threatened its survival.

The camp offered low-cost holidays, made possible through the generosity of local food outlets and my own commitment to community welfare. But Telstra’s automated voice messages repeatedly told callers that the business did not exist. Others were met with dead silence—an eerie void that suggested the line had been disconnected. In truth, the line was active, but numerous faults plagued the Ericsson AXE Portland exchange. The result? Lost bookings, lost trust, and ultimately, the slow erosion of a business that had fought to survive against all odds.

A Community Speaks Out
On 6 April 1993, Cathy Lindsey, Coordinator of the Haddon & District Community House in Ballarat, wrote a letter to the Editor of Melbourne’s Herald-Sun newspaper. Her words captured the frustration and disbelief shared by many in the community:

Cathy’s letter was more than a complaint—it was a call to conscience. It reflected the broader truth that Telstra’s failures were not isolated incidents but part of a systemic pattern of neglect and deception. Her voice joined those of Sister Burke and Sister Donnellon, forming a chorus of integrity that stood in stark contrast to the silence imposed by Telstra’s network.

“I am writing in reference to your article in last Friday’s Herald-Sun (2nd April 1993) about phone difficulties experienced by businesses.

I wish to confirm that I have had problems trying to contact Cape Bridgewater Holiday Camp over the past 2 years.

I also experienced problems while trying to organise our family camp for September this year. On numerous occasions I have rung from both this business number 053 424 675 and also my home number and received no response – a dead line.

I rang around the end of February (1993) and twice was subjected to a piercing noise similar to a fax. I reported this incident to Telstra who got the same noise when testing.” Evidence File 10 B 

•  Who knew the mail was there?

•  How did they know Cathy was not yet on her way?

•  Why was the mail released to a third party without proper authorization?

 

“And that, I mean that relates directly to the monitoring of your service where, where it would indicate that monitoring was taking place without your consent?” File 23-A Exhibit 1 to 47

I also provided the AFP Telstra documents, which showed that Telstra was concerned about the evidence of my telephone complaint. If it ever reached an Australian court, I had a 50% chance of proving that Telstra had systemic phone problems in its network. In simple terms, Telstra was operating outside of its license to operate a telephone service, charging its customers for a service not provided.  

21st April 1993:  Telstra internal email FOI folio C04094 from Greg Newbold to numerous Telstra executives and discussing “COT cases latest”, states:-

“Don, thank you for your swift and eloquent reply.  I disagree with raising the issue of the courts.  That carries an implied threat not only to COT cases but to all customers that they’ll end up as lawyer fodder.  Certainly that can be a message to give face to face with customers and to hold in reserve if the complaints remain vexacious .” GS File 75 Exhibit 1 to 88

These Telstra executives overlooked the fact that Telstra is a publicly owned corporation. Therefore, those executives were responsible for ensuring the integrity of Telstra's working conditions, something Telstra has never even understood. Bribery and corruption, including misleading and deceptive conduct, have destroyed the Australian economy, while powerful bureaucrats attempted to fight this fire with talk of change. Bribery and corruption plagued the government-endorsed arbitrations in the COT cases.

Children's lives could be at risk

Comments made from the Herald Sun newspaper dated 30 August 1993 confirm just how damaging some of these newspaper articles were to my already ailing business, with statements like:

“The Royal Children’s Hospital has told a holiday camp operators in Portland that it cannot send chronically ill children there because of Telecom’s poor phone service. The hospital has banned trips after fears that the children’s lives could be at risk in a medical emergency if the telephone service to the Portland camp continued to malfunction”.

The centre’s stand follows letters from schools, community groups, companies and individuals who have complained about the phone service at Portland’s Cape Bridgewater Holiday camp.”

Youths from the Royal Children’s Centre for Adolescent Health, who were suffering from “chronic illnesses”, visited the camp earlier this year.   

Group leader Ms Louise Rolls said in a letter to the camp the faulty phones had endangered lives and the hospital would not return to the camp unless the phone service could be guaranteed” Arbitrator File No/90

After the Melbourne Children's Hospital recorded a near-death experience with me having to rush a sick child with cancer to the Portland Hospital 18 kilometres away from my holiday camp, Telstra finally decided to take my telephone faults seriously. None of the 35 children (all with cancer-related illnesses) had mobile phones, or the six or so nurses and carers. Mobile telephones could not operate successfully in Cape Bridgewater until 2004, eleven years after this event. My coin-operated gold phone was also plagued with phone problems, and it took several tries to ring out of the holiday camp. An ambulance arrived once we could ring through to the Hospital. 

After five years, it took almost a tragedy for Telstra to send someone with real technical experience to my business. Telstra's visit occurred on 3 June 1993, six weeks after the Children's Hospital had vowed never to revisit my camp until I could prove that my camp was telephone fault-free. No hospital that considers convalescents a good revenue spinner has ever visited my business, even after I sold it in December 2001. 

It was another fiasco that lasted until August 2009, when not-so-new owners of my business were walked off the holiday camp premises as bankrupts. 

By the middle of 1993, people had become interested in what they had heard about our battle. Several articles had appeared in my local newspaper, and rumours about the COT group were spreading interstate. In June, Julian Cress from Channel Nine's 'Sixty Minutes' documentary television programme faxed me:

Just a note to let you know that I had some trouble getting through to you on the phone last Thursday. Pretty ironic, considering that I was trying to contact you to discuss your phone problems.

The problem occurred at about 11 am. On the 008 number I heard a recorded message advising me that 008 was not available from my phone and your direct line was constantly engaged.

Pretty ironic, all right!

A special feature in the Melbourne Age Newspaper gave my new 'Country Get-A-Ways' program a great write-up. It was marketing weekend holidays for over-40s singles in Victoria and South Australia: an outdoor canoe weekend, a walking and river cruise along the Glenelg River, a Saturday Dress-up Dinner Dance with a disco, a trip to the Coonawarra Wineries in South Australia, and a Saturday morning shopping tour to Mt Gambier. I began to feel things were looking up for the Camp.

It was too much to hope that my telephone saga was ending. A fax arrived on 26 October 1993 from Cathine, a relative of the Age journalist who wrote the feature:

Alan, I have been trying to call you since midday. I have rung seven times to get an engaged signal. It is now 2.45 pm.

In response to my request for feedback between May and October of 1993, I received 36 letters from different individuals and more than 40 other complaints from people who had unsuccessfully tried to respond to my advertisements (File - 9-A AS-CAV Exhibit 1 to 47). The Hadden & District Community House wrote in April 1993:

Several times I have dialled 055 267 267 number and received no response — dead line. I have also experienced similar problems on your 008 number.

Our youth worker, Gladys Crittenden, experienced similar problems while organising our last year's family camp, over a six month period during 1991/1992.

 

A letter dated 6 April 1993, from Cathy Lindsey, Coordinator of the Haddon & District Community House Ballarat (Victoria) to the Editor of Melbourne’s Herald-Sun newspaper,  read:

“I am writing in reference to your article in last Friday’s Herald-Sun (2nd April 1993) about phone difficulties experienced by businesses.

I wish to confirm that I have had problems trying to contact Cape Bridgewater Holiday Camp over the past 2 years.

I also experienced problems while trying to organise our family camp for September this year. On numerous occasions I have rung from both this business number 053 424 675 and also my home number and received no response – a dead line.

I rang around the end of February (1993) and twice was subjected to a piercing noise similar to a fax. I reported this incident to Telstra who got the same noise when testing.” Evidence File 10 B 

During this same period, 1992 and 1993, Cathy Lindsey, a professional associate of mine Cathy, signed a Statutory Declaration, dated 20 May 1994, explaining several sinister happenings when she attempted to collect mail on my behalf from the Ballarat Courier Newspaper office (File 22 Exhibit 1 to 47).  This declaration leaves questions unanswered about who collected my mail and how they knew there was mail to be collected from the Ballarat Courier mail office.  On both occasions, when a third person collected this mail, I telephoned Cathy, informing her that the Ballarat Courier had notified me that mail was waiting to be picked up.

On pages 12 and 13 of the transcript from the AFP inquiry into my allegations that Telstra unlawfully intercepted my telephone conversations, the AFP states at Q59 Australian Federal Police Investigation File No/1:-

“And that, I mean that relates directly to the monitoring of your service where, where it would indicate that monitoring was taking place without your consent?” File 23-A Exhibit 1 to 47

I also provided the AFP Telstra documents, which showed that Telstra was concerned about my telephone complaint evidence. If it ever reached an Australian court, I had a 50% chance of proving that Telstra had systemic phone problems in their network. In simple terms, Telstra was operating outside of its license to operate a telephone service, charging its customers for a service not provided.  

Astonishingly, one letter, dated 17 May 1993, was from a senior Telstra technical engineer, who wrote regarding his own experience of trying to ring me:

"On the 24/2/93 I received a phone call from a technician at Portland who stated he had been given a fault from (1100 fault dept.) indicating a customer in Ballarat had trouble calling your business 055 267 267. I then attempted to ring 055 267 267 myself, the ring was tripped after several bursts, i.e. ‘answered’ and I received a loud noise similar to a radio carrier noise and a very faint ‘Hello’."

At last, a second person inside Telstra acknowledged that I had a problem with the phone service! The engineer had even given me his name. Yet in the course of their defence of my arbitration claims, Telstra proffered a Witness Statement from this man (made in December 1994) that included no reference to this (see Summary of events/Chapter Two to Five)   

On 9 June 1993. A TV news program was also a target for Telstra's executives to muzzle the media regarding the validity of the COT Cases claims and that of three single members from Ballarat who had spoken to Jason Cameron (Channel Nine TV reporter) regarding their failed effort to reach the Cape Bridgewater Holiday Camp by telephone from Skipton and Scarsdale.  This Telstra internal email dated 16 June 1993 FOI folio A04646 (AS 956) reports:

"Good news re channel nine news. Haven’t checked all outlets but as it didn’t run on the main bulletin last night, we can be pretty certain that the story died the death. I wish I could figure which phase it was that convinced Jason Cameron not to proceed. Might have been one of Jim Holmes' pearls..."

Jim Holmes was the Telstra Corporate Secretary, so the readers may well be asking themselves, what type of pearl had been cast by Jim Holmes? Were they pearls of wisdom, financial pearls, or a different kind of pearl that convinced a respected journalist to drop a story? 

On 12 July 1993, a newspaper article from the Portland Observer Newspaper, headed ‘Network Complaints Taken Up by MPs’ and notes:

“Problems highlighted by Cape Bridgewater Holiday Camp operator Alan Smith, with the Telecom network have been picked up on by not only other disgruntled customers but Federal politicians. Having suffered a faulty telephone service for some five years, Mr Smith’s complaints had for some time fallen on deaf ears, but it now seems people are standing up and listening. Federal Member for Wannon, David Hawker, described the number of reports of faulty and inadequate telephone across Australia as alarming. Mr Hawker said that documents recently presented to him showed that the problems people had been experiencing Australia wide had been occurring repeatedly in the Portland region.” (See Cape Bridgewater Chronology of Events File No -17)

The pressure on all four COT cases was immense, with TV and newspaper interviews, as well as our ongoing canvassing of the Senate. The stress was telling by now, but I continued to hammer for a change in rural telephone services. The Hon David Hawker MP, my local Federal member of parliament, has been corresponding with me since 26 July 1993.

“A number of people seem to be experiencing some or all of the problems which you have outlined to me. …

“I trust that your meeting tomorrow with Senators Alston and Boswell is a profitable one.” (See Arbitrator File No/76

The Hon David Hawker MP, my local Federal Member of Parliament, corresponded with me from 26 July 1993.

On 18 August 1993, The Hon. David Hawker MP wrote to me again, noting:

“Further to your conversations with my electorate staff last week and today I am enclosing a copy of the correspondence I have received from Mr Harvey Parker, Group Managing Director of Commercial and Consumer division of Telecom.

“I wrote to him outlining the problems of a number of Telecom customers in the Western Districts, including the extensive problems you have been experiencing.” (Arbitrator File No/77)

 

One of these letters, dated 23 August 1993, is particularly interesting. It came from a company of Insurance Loss Adjusters in Ballarat, a rural city in Victoria. It was sent to the producer of “Real Life”, a TV current affairs program then broadcast on Channel 7.  The Loss Adjusters wrote:  “Re Problems with Telstra.”

"I have watched with interest the shorts leading up to tonight’s program as I have similar problems to the man at Cape Bridgewater.

Our office is located in Ballarat and due to Telecom structure the majority of our local calls are STD-fee based. (STD calls are charged per time)

On many occasions we have been unable to get through to numbers we have dialled, often receiving the message “this number is not connected” or similar messages which we know to be untrue.

Clients report that they often receive the engaged signal when calling us, and a review of the office reveals that at least one of our lines was free at the relevant time.

We have just received our latest Telecom bill, which in total is up about 25% – 30% on the last bill.  This is odd because our work load in the billing period was down by about 25% and we have one staff member less than the previous billing period.” (AS 1008)

In August 1993, Rita Espinoza from the Chilean Social Club wrote:

I tried to ring you in order to confirm our stay at your camp site. I found it impossible to get through. I tried to ring later but encountered the same signal on 10 August around 7 – 8.30 pm. I believe you have a problem with the exchange and strongly advise you contact Telstra.

Do you remember the same problem happened in April and May of this year?

I apologise but I have made arrangements with another camp.

Attempting to move on…but wait!

At the camp in Cape Bridgewater, I acquired a logo, especially for the over-forties singles club and its Community Groups, which I was calling “Country Get-A-Ways”, and he hit the road with a vengeance, marketing a range of different weekend holidays. I had organised an outdoor canoe weekend, a walking and river cruise along the Glenelg River, and a Saturday Dress-up Dinner Dance with a disco, as well as a trip to the Coonawarra Wineries and a Saturday morning shopping tour to Mt Gambier, both in South Australia. This meant I could market the holiday periods in Victoria and South Australia.

Then it hit home: I got no response from Ballarat and the surrounding areas. I later learned from a Ballarat single club patron who was a member of the Ballarat Parents Without Partners social club that they had given up on receiving a response to their failed telephone calls.

Numerous testimonials from hopeful customers attempting to book at my venue from 1988 to the present are well-documented in AUSTEL’s Adverse Findings, dated March 1994. At points 9, 10 and 11 in their reporting:

"During the past five years Mr Smith has received many testimonials from other network users such as community groups, health and welfare agencies, school and individuals which have advise of continuing difficulties contacting the camp. These statements support Mr Smith's claims of service problems of Mr Smith.

An important point in relation to Mr Smith's service is that he is operating a business service in an area which is predominantly that of a residential and/or farming community. Therefore both the nature, volume and origin of calls received by Mr Smith is comparison with those of his neighbours would be markedly different…

Often calls to the Cape Bridgewater Holiday Camp would be from people previously unknown to Mr Smith, who in comparison to other callers to Cape Bridgewater would be less likely to initiate further contact should they have difficulty in contacting the Camp…"

So here I was, mid-1993, and hardly any phone calls reached me at the Camp. I didn't know that less than twelve months later, AUSTEL would discover that what I had been telling Telstra was the truth but that AUSTEL would hide most of those truths from the relevant Ministers, me, and the arbitrator.

All I knew was that my business was sinking fast, so I stepped up the marketing of the camp and the singles-club weekends; I visited numerous recognised social clubs around the Melbourne metropolitan area and spoke personally to the people in charge and, over the next few weeks, he spoke to the Phoenix Social Club in Camberwell, the Australian Social Centre in Hartwell, Frenze-In-Deed in Mont Albert and Capers in Knox City, as well as visiting numerous other singles organisations in Ballarat and Warrnambool, both large country centres in Victoria.

Further newspaper advertising followed, with ads placed in the Leader Newspaper group in Melbourne. This local newspaper group covers twenty-three metropolitan areas around Melbourne. Ads also appeared in the local newspapers for several large regional centres around Victoria and South Australia, including the Geelong Advertiser, the Warrnambool Standard, the Ballarat Courier News, the Horsham Wimmera Times, the Colac Local News, the Mt Gambier-Border Watch, and others.  

It is crucial to highlight Telstra's unethical and potentially criminal conduct, as evidenced by the Senate Hansard. As we delve deeper into this information, we uncover proof that Telstra tampered with my TF200 Exicom telephone, which was taken from my business on 28 April 1994 during my government-endorsed arbitration. Connecting the Senate statements with the TF 200 issues, it becomes undeniable to visitors of absentjustice.com that Telstra cannot be considered a trustworthy company. Continue reading to find out more.

📖Please read the following narrative and the 'Open Letter' that follows under the heading → Criminal Conduct 

Before reading the Open Letter dated September 25, 2025, it is essential to review the highlighted points that precede it. They reveal how the truth was buried, how bureaucrats—not arbitrators—controlled the arbitration process, and how evidence was withheld to protect a government-owned telecommunications company. Reputations were sabotaged, and justice subverted.

Only by understanding this machinery of corruption can the full weight of the Open Letter be truly grasped.