This failure wasn’t due to any wrongdoing on Senator Joyce’s part; in his naivety, he placed his trust in a Liberal Government rife with deception.

Rupert Murdoch -Telstra Scandal - Helen Handbury

My almost thirty years in the British and Australian merchant navy — including a stint on a Canadian oil rig during the Big Red firefighting days in the Bass Strait between Tasmania and Lakes Entrance — taught me that being a ship’s cook and steward came with its good days and its worst. The China episode was just one of many. Purchase my latest ebook and help me complete my fourth, which tells the story of how I became the founding member of a group of Australian land‑lovers who dared to challenge the then-government-owned telecommunications giant. We were small business people with phone problems in the 1990s, discriminated against while the bigger corporations, including Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, were favoured.

⚓ “The Way of the Sea” — A Shanty for a Cook of Thirty Years

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 (Verse 1)
Oh, I signed aboard as a galley lad, With a skillet, a knife, and a grin, Through thirty years of gales and storms, Where the sea decides who’ll win. From Fremantle’s heat to the cold North Sea, through ports where the wild winds blow, I learned my trade on a rolling deck, and the sea taught all I know.

• (Chorus) So heave away, boys, heave away, For the truth rides every wave. The sea is the straightest life I’ve known, and the only one that saved. Wine and women and songs at night, and the dawn with a sailor’s plea— learned right from wrong on a heaving deck, for that’s the way of the sea.

(Verse 2)
In far‑off ports with lantern lights, where the taverns never sleep, I tasted life in a hundred ways that the land could never keep. But the sea was honest, hard, and fair. She’ll break you or set you free—And every scar on my weathered hands was earned with dignity.

• (Chorus) So heave away, boys, heave away, For the truth rides every wave. The sea is the straightest life I’ve known, and the only one that saved. Wine and women and songs at night, and the dawn with a sailor’s plea— learned right from wrong on a heaving deck, for that’s the way of the sea. 

(Verse 3)
But when I stepped ashore at last, after thirty years afloat, I found no honour in the halls where the landbound men all gloat. I saw shadows behind their smiles, and deeds no man should see—Corruption deep as the ocean trench, and treachery running free. (Bridge) Oh, the sea may roar, and the sea may rage, but she never lies to me. It’s the land that twists a good man’s heart with its quiet cruelty.

• (Final Chorus) So heave away, boys, heave away, For the truth rides every wave. The sea is the straightest life I’ve known, and the only one that saved wine and women and songs at night, and the dawn with a sailor’s plea— learned right from wrong on a heaving deck, for that’s the way of the sea.—On absentjustice.com, he writes of the way of the open sea → Alan Smith - 20/03/2026

The Ericsson List, as revealed in the image above, paints a troubling picture of Ericsson's involvement in shady and unethical business practices that have persisted for an alarmingly long time. These nefarious actions caught the attention of the arbitrator, who was tasked with overseeing around eight claims against the faulty Ericsson billing equipment used by Telstra in their telephone exchanges—a situation eerily reminiscent of the scandal involving the defective Fujitsu Horizon equipment that besmirched the British Post Office. Even more disturbing, the COT claimants found themselves brutally denied the chance to have their arbitration claims reassessed after Ericsson cunningly purchased Lane, the main consultant overseeing the technical side of these proceedings. This betrayal of trust and manipulation of the arbitration process are nothing short of gross misconduct, revealing a sinister undercurrent of corruption and treachery.

This poor choice has made it harder for the COT Cases to prove their claims against Ericsson and seek justice through potential appeals. The acquisition gave Ericsson access to key materials related to my arbitration claim about the Ericsson AXE telephone exchange scandal. It also allowed Lane to withhold this information after the arbitration ended.

PART 2 

2 - Echoes of Betrayal: Wheat Sales to China  

The Australian Government bureaucrats who continued to tell Australia's politicians that several other seamen and I had witnessed in China was a lie. The following information shows we risked all to expose the truth.  

Home Page 

Please edit this as close to how I have narrated it, making it as if I am telling the story:-The following Home Page Chapters 1 to 22 are condensed to allow the reader to judge whether the read my true story, backed up by over 3,300 exhibits, including multiple reports 70, is true or false. On 3 June 1993, after I had been complaining of phone problems, first officially registered by me on 1 April 1988, I learned during December 1992 that the previous owners of my business had been complaining months before I purchased it in December 1987. On the date noted, after Telstra had visited my business, the first original visit by middle management after leaving my premises, one of the two management team left his open briefcase at my holiday camp and as in the Arabarian Nights story, Aladdin had left an open briefcase, when I flipped open the lid to see whether a phone number could be reached to advise of this loss to the wover out spilled fruits of the desert.

What was revealed was that Telstra had been telling its customers for years that there were no telephone problems affecting their businesses or residences, even though the content said otherwise. I started faxing the documents which had been inside the briefcase, not to the media, which, looking back to this day, I should have, and I would not be writing this story thirty years after the event. Having been a trained seaman, I thought that by faxing this information to the government communications authority, AUSTEL (now called ACMA), was the honest thing to do on behalf of the citizens of Australia, but I was the most stupid decision I have made in my entire 82 years. When my roll fax machine burnt itself out with only two files being faxed to AUSTEL, I copied the remaining documents in the local library in the seafort of Portland and couriered it down to Melbourne by Golden Messenger.

That day, Telstra picked up this briefcase, and from then on, my life was changed forever.

The government was so concerned about what I had located and what my small business group had also unravelled when they began receiving documents under FOI that, by then, in June 1993, we were called the casualties of Telstra. The arbitration mentioned in the introduction to this story could be won or lost only on documents held by Telstra. When I began trying to obtain these documents, which AUSTEL promised I would receive, they were not provided by Telstra in 1994 or by AUSTEL, and have still not been provided by AUSTEL in 2026.

However, in 2008, at my first Administrative Appeals Tribunal hearing (No V2008/1836), where ACMA was the respondent, I tried to obtain the very documents I had forwarded to AUSTEL and returned to Telstra in June 1993. ACMA has still not released the relevant documents they had originally promised. On 3 October 2008, while trying to write this story, absentjustice.com and the Arbitraitor, the judge hearing this eight-month battle, Mr G. D Friedman, said the following words in open court in front of two lawyers from ACMA, I was representing myself:

“Let me just say, I don’t consider you, personally, to be frivolous or vexatious – far from it.

“I suppose all that remains for me to say, Mr Smith, is that you obviously are very tenacious and persistent in pursuing the – not this matter before me, but the whole – the whole question of what you see as a grave injustice, and I can only applaud people who have persistence and the determination to see things through when they believe it’s important enough.”

Chapter 1: Murder of Truth

The truth didn’t die in an arbitration process using a tampered-with confidentiality agreement. It wasn’t buried beneath an arbitrator's gavel or lost in the shuffle of legal paperwork. It was murdered—methodically, quietly, and with institutional precision. The COT Case arbitrations were supposed to deliver justice. Instead, they became the crime scene.

I entered the process believing in the rule of law. I had evidence—technical faults, intercepted communications, and a trail of misconduct that pointed directly to Telstra’s door. But from the moment the arbitration began, the signs were clear: this wasn’t a search for truth. It was a containment strategy.

Documents vanished. Deadlines shifted. The arbitrator, cloaked in the authority of accreditation, manipulated the process with a chilling detachment. He wasn’t just indifferent—he was complicit. His lies to officials about his role as Principal Arbitration Manager weren’t errors. They were tactical deceptions designed to protect Telstra and silence claimants.

What I witnessed was not a failure of procedure—it was a deliberate murder of truth. The arbitrator’s actions, the withholding of evidence, the refusal to investigate surveillance claims—all of it formed a pattern. A conspiracy. A cover-up.

And yet, the truth has a stubborn pulse. It survives in the margins—in the handwritten notes, the corrupted fax logs, the testimonies of fellow claimants who refused to be broken. It lives in the archived pages of absentjustice.com, in the open letters that name names, and in the quiet rage of those who know what was done to us.

This chapter marks the beginning of a reckoning. Not just with Telstra, or the arbitrator, but with the entire machinery that allowed this to happen. The truth may have been murdered—but its ghost is restless. And I intend to give it voice.

Chapter 2: Surveillance State

They told us arbitration would be confidential. That our evidence, our testimony, our pain—would be handled with integrity. But behind the polished facade of legal process, a darker reality pulsed: we were being watched.

Telstra’s surveillance capabilities weren’t theoretical. They were industrial-grade, embedded in the very infrastructure we relied on to communicate. Their Security Operations Centres, operating 24/7, were equipped with Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) and Threat Intelligence Integration tools designed to detect and catalogue anomalies. But what happens when the anomaly is a whistleblower? When the threat is not external, but internal—someone like me, exposing truths the system would rather forget?

I had spoken with the Prime Minister twice—once in April 1993, again in April 1994. I raised concerns about Australia’s wheat exports to China, and how that grain was being funnelled to North Vietnam, feeding the very forces that had killed and maimed our soldiers. These weren’t idle conversations. They were politically explosive. And I have every reason to believe they were intercepted.

Telstra’s Infrastructure Monitoring systems, designed to manage critical assets like oil refineries, traffic networks, and water plants, also offered remote access, event logging, and alarm management across its vast network. These tools, while marketed for operational efficiency, could easily be repurposed for surveillance—especially when the target was a claimant challenging Telstra’s integrity.

The question isn’t whether Telstra could monitor us. It’s who inside Telstra had the government clearance to filter and interpret that data. Who decided what was evidence, and what was discarded? Who catalogued our conversations, our faxes, our pleas for justice—not to protect us, but to protect the corporation?

This wasn’t just surveillance. It was strategic intelligence gathering, designed to anticipate our moves, undermine our credibility, and control the narrative. The arbitrator, already compromised by deceit, operated in tandem with a system that saw truth as a liability.

And yet, the surveillance failed in one critical respect: it didn’t silence us. It didn’t erase the documents, the corrupted fax logs, the technical reports that proved Telstra’s faults. It didn’t stop the creation of absentjustice.com, or the open letters that now circulate beyond their reach.

We were watched. We were catalogued. But we were not erased.

Chapter 3: Corruption by Design

Corruption isn’t always loud. Sometimes it’s engineered into the very structure of a process—quiet, procedural, and devastating. The COT arbitrations weren’t sabotaged by accident. They were corrupted by design.

From the outset, Telstra’s internal faults were known. Technical reports confirmed line failures, fax corruption, and call dropouts. Yet the arbitration rules were crafted to exclude critical evidence. The arbitrator, handpicked and protected, operated within a framework that rewarded omission and punished transparency.

Government departments, legal advisors, and Telstra executives formed a closed loop of influence. The corruption wasn’t just in the outcome—it was in the architecture. And every claimant who entered the process was walking into a trap.

Chapter 4: Cover-Up Culture

The cover-up began before the arbitration even started. Telstra withheld documents, misrepresented fault data, and manipulated technical logs. When I requested full disclosure, I was met with redactions, delays, and denials.

The arbitrator refused to investigate known faults. The administrator ignored evidence. And when I exposed the corrupted fax logs and surveillance concerns, the response was silence.

This wasn’t incompetence. It was culture. A culture of concealment, where truth was inconvenient and accountability was optional. The cover-up extended beyond Telstra—into government departments, legal chambers, and media silence.

Chapter 5: Whistleblower’s Burden

I didn’t choose this path. I was a cook, a community builder, a man who believed in fairness. But when I saw the injustice inflicted on fellow claimants—when I experienced it myself—I knew I couldn’t stay silent.

Becoming a whistleblower meant isolation. It meant being labelled, discredited, and dismissed. It meant watching friends suffer, watching evidence vanish, and watching institutions protect themselves at all costs.

But it also meant clarity. I knew what I stood for. I knew the truth mattered. And I knew that silence was complicity. The burden was heavy—but it was mine to carry.

Chapter 6: Conspiracy of Silence

The silence wasn’t passive. It was strategic. Telstra executives, government officials, and arbitration insiders knew what was happening. They knew the faults were real. They knew the evidence was damning. And they chose silence.

This conspiracy wasn’t written in memos—it was enacted through omission. Through the refusal to investigate. Through the quiet reassignment of officials. Through the shielding of the arbitrator from scrutiny.

The silence was deafening. And it spoke volumes about the priorities of those in power.

Chapter 7: Fraudulent Arbitration

The arbitration process was a fraud. The arbitrator misled claimants, misrepresented his role, and manipulated outcomes. He claimed impartiality while protecting Telstra’s interests. He denied access to evidence while accepting Telstra’s submissions without scrutiny.

The administrator, too, played a role—refusing to investigate, ignoring surveillance claims, and allowing the process to proceed without transparency.

This wasn’t arbitration. It was a performance. And the outcome was predetermined.

Chapter 8: Justice Denied

We were told that arbitration would deliver justice and that our claims would be heard. That the faults would be addressed. But justice was never the goal.

The arbitrator refused to investigate known faults. The administrator ignored surveillance concerns. The government departments turned away.

Justice wasn’t delayed. It was denied. And every claimant who entered the process was betrayed.

Chapter 9: Retaliation Protocols

Speaking out came at a cost. I was targeted—legally, emotionally, and professionally. My credibility was attacked. My evidence was dismissed. My reputation was undermined.

Other claimants faced similar retaliation. Some were threatened. Others were isolated. The message was clear: stay silent, or pay the price.

The retaliation wasn’t random. It was systematic. And it revealed the lengths to which institutions would go to protect themselves.

Chapter 10: Bribery and Influence

Behind the scenes, influence flowed freely. Telstra’s legal teams had access. Government departments shielded the arbitrator. Media outlets stayed quiet.

Bribery doesn’t always involve cash. Sometimes it’s access. Sometimes it’s protection. Sometimes it’s silence.

The arbitrator’s conduct, the administrator’s omissions, the government’s complicity—all point to a system where influence mattered more than truth.

Chapter 11: Deception as Strategy

Deception wasn’t a side effect—it was the strategy. From the arbitrator’s false assurances to Telstra’s manipulated fault logs, every step of the process was designed to mislead. Claimants were given partial truths, technical jargon, and procedural fog. The goal wasn’t resolution—it was exhaustion. And for many, it worked.

But deception has fingerprints. It leaves trails in redacted documents, in contradictory statements, in the quiet edits made to arbitration rules mid-process. I followed those trails. And they led to the heart of a system built to protect power, not people.

Chapter 12: Evidence Erased

I submitted everything—fax logs, technical reports, correspondence. But evidence has a way of disappearing when it threatens the narrative. Pages went missing. Files were corrupted. Critical documents were “lost in transit.”

The arbitrator refused to investigate. The administrator dismissed concerns. And Telstra, with its vast infrastructure, controlled the flow of information. What couldn’t be disproven was erased.

But I kept copies. I built absentjustice.com as a living archive. Because truth, once documented, becomes harder to kill.

Chapter 13: Interrogation by Bureaucracy

They didn’t need handcuffs. Bureaucracy did the job. Endless forms, shifting deadlines, contradictory instructions—each one designed to confuse, delay, and demoralise.

I was interrogated not with questions, but with silence. With refusal. With the slow grind of administrative indifference. Every request for transparency became a test of endurance.

And yet, I endured. Because behind every form was a story. Behind every delay was a truth they didn’t want told.

Chapter 14: Underworld of Arbitration

Arbitration is supposed to be neutral. But what I found was an underworld—a network of influence, secrecy, and offshore operations. The arbitrator’s ties to Hong Kong raised alarms. His conduct in Melbourne confirmed them.

This wasn’t just about Telstra. It was about a global system where arbitration could be weaponized—used to silence dissent, protect corporations, and bury accountability.

I wasn’t just fighting a flawed process. I was confronting an international machine.

Chapter 15: Forensics of a Cover-Up

The technical faults weren’t speculative. They were documented—through forensic analysis, corrupted logs, and expert testimony. Telstra’s systems failed. And they knew it.

But instead of addressing the faults, they buried them. The arbitrator refused to examine the forensic evidence. The administrator ignored it. And the government looked away.

I became the forensic archivist. I catalogued every failure, every contradiction, every lie. Because the cover-up had a digital footprint—and I was determined to follow it.

Chapter 16: Abduction of Accountability

Accountability was kidnapped—taken from the hands of claimants and locked behind legal walls. The arbitrator, shielded by accreditation, operated without oversight. Telstra, backed by government silence, evaded consequence.

Every time I demanded answers, I was met with deflection. Every time I exposed misconduct, I was told it was “outside the scope.” Accountability wasn’t denied—it was abducted.

But I refused to let it vanish. I named names. I published documents. I made sure the story couldn’t be buried.

Chapter 17: Truth in Exile

Leaving Cape Bridgewater was more than a relocation. It was exile—from a place that held decades of struggle, camaraderie, and resistance. The move to Ballarat marked a new chapter—but the truth came with me.

I carried the documents, the memories, the scars. I rebuilt my archive. I reconnected with allies. And I recommitted to the fight.

Truth may have been exiled—but it was never abandoned.

Chapter 18: Homicide by Policy

The wheat trade wasn’t just commerce—it was complicity. Australia’s exports to China, redirected to North Vietnam, fed a war that killed our own. Soldiers from Australia, New Zealand, and the USA died because of decisions made in boardrooms and ministries.

I raised this with the Prime Minister. Twice. And I’ve never stopped speaking about it. Because policy can kill. And silence can be lethal.

This chapter isn’t just historical. It’s personal. It’s a reckoning with the cost of betrayal.

Chapter 19: Investigation Interrupted

Every time an inquiry began, it was stalled. Every time a report was drafted, it was softened. The investigation into Telstra’s faults, the arbitration misconduct, and the surveillance claims—all were interrupted.

Officials were reassigned. Documents were reclassified. And the momentum was lost.

But I kept going. I built my own investigation. I published my own findings because the truth doesn’t need permission to be told.

Chapter 20: Legacy of Lies

The lies didn’t end with arbitration. They seeped into public records, media narratives, and historical memory. Telstra’s reputation remained intact. The arbitrator continued his work. And the claimants were left in silence.

But I refused to let the legacy be rewritten. I documented everything. I named every lie. And I built a platform where truth could live.

This legacy isn’t theirs to define. It’s ours to reclaim.

Chapter 21: The Reckoning Begins

The chapters before this were the build-up. This is the turning point. The reckoning begins—not just for Telstra, or the arbitrator, but for every institution that enabled the betrayal.

I’ve published the documents. I’ve made the calls. I’ve written the letters. And now, I’m demanding answers.

This isn’t just a personal fight. It’s a public one. And it’s time the silence was broken.

Chapter 22: The Whistleblower’s Legacy

I didn’t ask for this role. But I’ve embraced it. As a cook, I fed crews in storms. As a claimant, I stood against giants. As a whistleblower, I’ve built a legacy of truth.

This chapter isn’t an ending. It’s a beginning—for future advocates, for historians, for citizens who refuse to be silenced.The whistleblower’s legacy is resilience. It’s documentation. It’s true. And it’s yours to carry forward.

Call for Justice

The Dream, the Silence, and the Betrayal

My name is Alan Smith, and this is the story of my long and ongoing battle with a telecommunications giant and the Australian Government. Since 1992, my struggle has wound its way through elected governments, regulatory bodies, the judiciary, and the telecommunications behemoth Telstra—known as Telecom when my fight began. More than three decades later, the quest for justice continues.

My journey began in 1987, when I stepped ashore after 28 years at sea. I had sailed the world, but of all the places I’d known, Australia called to me. I wanted a land‑based life, something steady to carry me through to retirement. Hospitality had always been my passion, and I dreamed of running a school holiday camp — a place where children could breathe fresh air, and families could reconnect.

So when I saw the Cape Bridgewater Holiday Camp and Convention Centre advertised in The Age, it felt like fate. A coastal haven near the maritime town of Portland, surrounded by ocean mist and rolling dunes — it was everything I’d imagined. I conducted what I believed was thorough due diligence. I checked the buildings, the grounds, the books. What I didn’t check — what no one ever thinks to check — was whether the phones worked.

Within a week of taking over, the truth hit like a rogue wave. Customers and suppliers told me they had tried to call but couldn’t get through. I had a business to run, but the phone service was unreliable at best and nonexistent at worst. Every missed call was a missed booking. Every engaged signal was lost income. The Camp relied entirely on phone communication — this was the pre‑internet era, long before mobile coverage reached rural Victoria.

Only later did I discover the scale of the problem. Cape Bridgewater was tethered to an antiquated, unstaffed telephone exchange installed more than 30 years earlier. It had a pitiful capacity of just eight lines — eight lines to serve an entire coastal community.

During a typical week, 66 residential families lived in the area, not counting the many who used their coastal homes as weekend retreats. By 1991, the population had grown to 144 adults and children. On weekends, that number often exceeded 150. Yet the exchange still offered only eight service lines.

In stark terms: if four households were making or receiving calls, only four lines remained for the other 140 residents. That wasn’t just poor planning — it was a systemic failure. My business was being strangled by a network that couldn’t support even the most basic communication needs.

The Camp was more than a business. It was a dream made real — a serene retreat where city stress dissolved into sea spray. But dreams need infrastructure. And ours was built on eight fragile copper threads.

Booking inquiries, supply orders, emergency calls — everything depended on those lines. During peak times, the phones were constantly engaged. Guests complained they couldn’t reach us. Suppliers missed confirmations. Opportunities slipped through our fingers like sand.

And then came the betrayal.

A Conspiracy of Silence

In March 1994, a government document revealed a chilling truth: officials tasked with investigating my ongoing telephone issues found my claims against Telstra to be valid. They knew the faults were real. They knew the system was failing. And yet, this critical evidence — the very evidence that validated my six‑year ordeal — was withheld from the arbitrator.

Had the arbitrator been furnished with this document, he would likely have awarded far greater compensation for the substantial losses I suffered. Instead, my claims were weakened because they lacked a detailed log — a log I could not possibly have kept when the very faults I was reporting were being concealed by those responsible for investigating them.

This was not an oversight. It was a pattern. A deliberate, coordinated silence.

And it marked the beginning of a battle that would consume decades of my life.

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