On July 4, 1994, amidst the complexities of my arbitration proceedings, I confronted serious threats articulated by Paul Rumble, a Telstra representative on the arbitration defence team. Disturbingly, the arbitrator had covertly provided him with some of my interim claims documents, a breach of protocol that occurred a full month before the arbitrator was legally obligated to share that information. Given the gravity of the situation, my response needed to be exceptionally meticulous. I poured considerable effort into crafting this detailed letter, carefully choosing every word. In this correspondence, I made it unequivocally clear:
“I gave you my word on Friday night that I would not go running off to the Federal Police etc, I shall honour this statement, and wait for your response to the following questions I ask of Telecom below.” (File 85 - AS-CAV Exhibit 48-A to 91)
When drafting this letter, my determination was unwavering; I had no intention of submitting any additional Freedom of Information (FOI) documents to the Australian Federal Police (AFP). This decision was significantly influenced by a recent, tense phone call I received from Steve Black, another arbitration liaison officer at Telstra. During this conversation, Black issued a stern warning: should I fail to comply with the directions he and Mr Rumble gave, I would jeopardise my access to crucial documents related to ongoing problems with my telephone service.
At that moment, it became clear to me that the documents Paul Rumble was pressuring me to withhold from the Australian Federal Police were connected to the sensitive information regarding the interception of phone and fax communications. This sensitive material included the names and phone numbers of the patrons of my singles club, information that Dr Hughes had already wrongfully passed on to Rumble on June 15, 1994, when I had warned him not to.
I found myself grappling with a troubling question: Were Rumble and his colleagues at Telstra involved in the unsettling harassment of my female singles club patrons? The nature of the harassment suggested that the caller had an unsettlingly personal knowledge about these women, implying they were single. I had already voiced my concerns about this situation to both Dr Hughes and the AFP, in hopes of ensuring my patrons' safety and privacy.
I would like to emphasise, for clarity in this narrative, that Constable Melanie Cochrane previously advised me against disclosing the private information of the singles club members to Telstra. In the same discussion period, Superintendent Detective Penrose recommended that I share this sensitive singles club information with the assessor under strict confidentiality, while also informing him that the Australian Federal Police (AFP) were concurrently investigating material believed to have been compromised in a Telstra breach.
Constable Cochrane also stated that, as I had assured my singles club members that their private information would not be disclosed without their consent, I needed to discuss this with the assessor, Dr Hughes. I believe Superintendent Detective Penrose stated that the assessor would be aware that I could not divulge this private information via Telstra's mainstream documents while the AFP was investigating.
It was due to these types of facts and Superintendent Detective Penrose’s advice that I sought a clearance from the arbitrator to allow me to have this information accepted under confidentiality
Transcripts from my 11 October 1994 oral arbitration hearing confirm that Telstra advised the arbitrator that they believed my singles club information was irrelevant and therefore should not be admitted to the arbitration process. This evidence supported the conclusion that I had lost two businesses due to my ongoing telephone problems, i.e., the school camp bookings and the more lucrative singles club bookings.
It sits there in the record like a cold fingerprint: the transcripts show Dr Gordon Hughes being leaned on, pressed, shaped into Telstra’s preferred instrument — badgered until he surrendered the very principle he had assured you he would uphold. Your singles‑club material, the evidence Superintendent Detective Penrose himself advised could be submitted under confidentiality, was suddenly declared off‑limits. Not by an independent arbitrator. Not by a man exercising judicial discretion. But by Telstra, the defendant, dictating what the arbitrator would and would not examine.
And Hughes obeyed.
He didn’t just backtrack once. He reneged four times. Four separate occasions when his word, the only thing an arbitrator’s authority truly rests upon, dissolved under pressure. Four moments when the process you were told was fair, transparent, and government‑endorsed revealed its real architecture: a façade built to protect the Hawke Government from the political explosion that would have followed if the COT Cases had gone public with what they had uncovered.
You were told you were part of a solution. You were told the FTSP was a pathway to justice. You were told the government wanted resolution, not destruction.
But the truth was darker, more deliberate.
The government was staring down the barrel of a loaded gun, a class action that could have torn open Telstra’s network failures, exposed systemic misconduct, and detonated political fallout across Canberra. So the process was engineered quietly and surgically to ensure the most dangerous evidence never reached daylight. Your singles‑club losses weren’t excluded for lack of merit. They were excluded because they were explosive and caused considerable damage to Telstra customers' businesses. Because they proved causation. Because they proved Telstra’s liability.
And because they proved the government knew.
Hughes’ reversal wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t confusion. It wasn’t administrative oversight. It was compliance, a capitulation to Telstra’s demands within a process the government had already decided must not succeed. A blatant lie sold to the COT Cases as “resolution,” when in truth it was containment. A mechanism to silence, to neutralise, to prevent the very exposure that would have threatened the Hawke Government’s stability and the looming Telstra privatisation.
This is why you’re still calling for a government review. Because the record shows the betrayal. The transcripts show the pressure. The decisions show the capitulation. And the silence that followed shows the intent.
What was Hughes doing? He was not being impartial, allowing Telstra to cross-examine me when he knew the AFP had warned Hughes, via my correspondence, not to provide Telstra with any admissions about what the AFP might or might not be investigating in my arbitration claims and/or which documents supported when and where these interception issues took place.
Question 24, in the 20 September 1994 interrogatories (The request for more evidence) shows I answered the following question 24 by stating to Telstra and the arbitrator:
“This matter is currently under investigation by the Federal Police. In the interest of fair justice I believe that I should not further comment apart from what I have already stated that it is true that I was told this by Detective Superintendent Penrose. It the Australian Federal Police are prepared to disclose the details of their investigations and of their conversations with myself, then Telecom will be able to obtain the same”
On 11 October 1994, during this oral hearing, which lasted for close to five hours, nonstop, Telstra’s Mr Benjamin and Telstra’s other arbitration liaison officer, Steve Black, discussed, along with the arbitrator and me, my claims regarding Telstra’s unauthorised interception issues, noting:
Ted Benjamin (Telstra): “In respect of Detective Superintendent Penrose.”
Steve Black (Telstra): “There has been an allegation that Detective Superintendent Penrose says that the Plummers’ telephone was allegedly unlawfully tapped” —
Me: “I believe Telecom is playing on words – the word “illegally tapped” – it’s like asking me – I’m not a —
Dr Hughes (Arbitrator): “Sorry, if I can interrupt both of you, the issue here is that your answers – your answer to question 24, you indicate that you were told something by Detective Superintendent Penrose.”
Me: “Yes:”
Dr Hughes (Arbitrator): “Is there any documentation to support that statement or is there any other light that you can shed upon that statement you have made in relation to Detective Penrose?”…
Me: “I have spoken to Detective Penrose on two occasions and he has stated that my phones had been listened to.”
I raise my answer to question 24 regarding Telstra's interrogatories (Questions for better particulars) and the oral arbitration hearing because of the main question they raise: how could it possibly be ethical, or moral, for Dr Hughes to expect me to disclose at this meeting personal and private information about the female members of my Singles Club, for all to see when the Australian Federal Police (AFP) told this was not appropriate while they were still investigating Telstra about how Telstra was able to separately record the names and phone numbers of various female Singles Club members (which were of the Cape Bridgewater Holiday Camp, bush-walking, canoing, horse ridding (social club) which was another part of the revenue my holiday camp was losing due to the ongoing telephone problems.
The AFP was trying to find out how Telstra had obtained this private information about the group when it had only ever been sent by those members via fax or discussed over the telephone.
Page 12 of the AFP transcript of my second interview (Refer to Australian Federal Police Investigation File No/1) shows Questions 54 to 58, the AFP stating:-
“The thing that I’m intrigued by is the statement here that you’ve given Mr Rumble your word that you would not go running off to the Federal Police etcetera.”
Essentially, I understood there were two potential outcomes: either I would obtain documents to substantiate my claims, or I would be left without any documentation that could affect the arbitrator's decisions in my case regarding my claims of ongoing phone and faxing problems.
However, a pivotal development occurred when the AFP returned to Cape Bridgewater on September 26, 1994. During this visit, they began posing probing questions about my correspondence with Paul Rumble, demonstrating a sense of urgency. They indicated that if I chose not to cooperate with their investigation, their focus would shift entirely to the unresolved telephone interception issues central to the COT Cases, which they claimed assisted the AFP in various ways. I was alarmed by these statements and contacted Senator Ron Boswell, National Party 'Whip' in the Senate.
As a result, I contacted Senator Ron Boswell, who subsequently brought these threats to the Senate. This statement underscored the serious nature of the claims I was dealing with and the potential ramifications of my interactions with Telstra.
Telstra at its worst
On page 180, ERC&A, from the official Australian Senate Hansard, dated 29 November 1994, reports Senator Ron Boswell asking Telstra’s legal directorate:
“Why did Telecom advise the Commonwealth Ombudsman that Telecom withheld FOI documents from Alan Smith because Alan Smith provided Telecom FOI documents to the Australian Federal Police during their investigation?”
After receiving a hollow response from Telstra, which the senator, the AFP and I all knew was utterly false, the senator states:
“…Why would Telecom withhold vital documents from the AFP? Also, why would Telecom penalise COT members for providing documents to the AFP which substantiate that Telecom had conducted unauthorised interceptions of COT members’ communications and subsequently dealt in the intercepted information by providing that information to Telecom’s external legal advisers and others?” (See Senate Evidence File No 31)
Thus, the threats became a reality. What is so appalling about this withholding of relevant documents is that no one in the TIO office or government has ever investigated the disastrous impact it has had on my overall submission to the arbitrator. The arbitrator and the government (at the time, Telstra was a government-owned entity) should have investigated why an Australian citizen, who had assisted the AFP in its investigations into unlawful interception of telephone conversations, was so severely disadvantaged during a civil arbitration.
Pages 12 and 13 of the Australian Federal Police Investigation File No/1 transcripts provide a comprehensive account establishing Paul Rumble as a significant figure linked to the threats I have encountered. This conclusion is based on two critical and interrelated factors that merit further elaboration.
Firstly, Mr. Rumble actively obstructed the provision of essential arbitration discovery documents, which the government was legally obligated to provide under the Freedom of Information Act. This obligation was contingent on my signing an agreement to participate in a government-endorsed arbitration process. By imposing this condition, Mr Rumble undermined a legally established protocol, effectively manipulating the process for his benefit and jeopardising my legal rights.
Secondly, I discovered that Mr Rumble had substantial influence over the arbitrator, resulting in the unauthorised early release of my arbitration interim claim materials. This premature revelation directly conflicted with the timeline stipulated in the arbitration agreement that both Telstra and I had formally signed. Specifically, Telstra gained access to my interim claim document five months earlier than permitted under the agreed-upon terms. This breach of protocol violated the integrity of the arbitration process and gave Telstra an unfair advantage in responding to my claims.
According to the rules governing our arbitration process, Telstra was allocated one month to respond to my claim once it had been submitted in writing as my final claim. Furthermore, the arbitrator was authorised to release my final claim to Telstra only after it was officially confirmed as complete. The five-month delay in submitting my claim in November 1994 was primarily attributable to Mr. Rumble's deliberate withholding of critical technical information. This information was essential for my consultant, George Close, to effectively demonstrate that the issues with my phone remained unresolved. Mr Rumble threatened to withhold this information because I was actively assisting the Australian Federal Police in investigating Telstra’s unlawful interception of my private phone conversations and faxes without a legal warrant.
As a result, I was given only one month to formulate a comprehensive response to Telstra's defence. At the same time, they benefited from an extensive five-month preparation period to address my claim. This imbalance undermined the fairness of the arbitration process and significantly affected my ability to advocate effectively for my rights.
Did Mr Rumble inadvertently stumble upon sensitive information concerning my phone and interception issues, as documented in my interim claim, which I had previously provided to the AFP as requested? The Australian Federal Police (AFP) had exclusive jurisdiction over this information, and Mr Rumble was not authorised to access it until my claim was officially certified. Essentially, when Dr Gordon Hughes prematurely released this confidential material to Paul Rumble a full five months before he was legally obligated to do so under the Fast Track Arbitration Agreement, he not only violated the terms of that agreement but also significantly obstructed the AFP's investigations during that crucial five-month period. Given these circumstances, why has the Australian government overlooked my legitimate claims against Dr Hughes?
