Chapter Five - The Eighth Damning Letter

Learn about horrendous crimes and unscrupulous criminals, corrupt politicians and the lawyers who control the legal profession in Australia. Shameful, hideous, and treacherous are just a few words that describe these lawbreakers.

I use the Senate Hansard records of 20 September 1995, showing a very emotional Senator Ron Boswell discussing the injustices we four COT claimants (i.e., Ann Garms, Maureen Gillan, Graham Schorer and I) experienced during our so-called government-endorsed arbitrations, in the previous chapter. It is also most important to raise the following statement made by Senator Boswell, concerning the TIO and his annual report:

“...Eleven years after their first complaints to Telstra, where are they now? They are acknowledged as the motivators of Telecom’s customer complaint reforms. … But, as individuals, they have been beaten both emotionally and financially through an 11-year battle with Telstra"

“Then followed the Federal Police investigation into Telecom’s monitoring of COT case services. The Federal Police also found there was a prima facie case to institute proceedings against Telecom but the DPP (Director of Public Prosecutions), in a terse advice, recommended against proceeding".

“Once again, the only relief COT members received was to become the catalyst for Telecom to introduce a revised privacy and protection policy. Despite the strong evidence against Telecom, they still received no justice at all".

“These COT members have been forced to go to the Commonwealth Ombudsman to force Telecom to comply with the law. Not only were they being denied all necessary documents to mount their case against Telecom, causing much delay, but they were denied access to documents that could have influenced them when negotiating the arbitration rules, and even whether to enter arbitration at all. …

"This is an arbitration process not only far exceeding the four-month period, but one which has become so legalistic that it has forced members to borrow hundreds of thousands just to take part in it. It has become a process far beyond the one represented when they agreed to enter into it, and one which professionals involved in the arbitration agree can never deliver as intended and never give them justice."

"I regard it as a grave matter that a government instrumentality like Telstra can give assurances to Senate leaders that it will fast track a process and then turn it into an expensive legalistic process making a farce of the promise given to COT members and the unducement to go into arbitration. “Telecom has treated the Parliament with contempt. No government monopoly should be allowed to trample over the rights of individual Australians, such as has happened here.” (See Senate Hansard Evidence File No-1)

Senator Boswell’s statement that “a point confirmed by professionals deeply involved in the arbitration process itself and by the TIO’s annual report, where conclusion is described as ‘if that is ever achievable’,” shows, by the date of this Senate Hansard on 20 September 1995, the TIO had already condemned the arbitration process. So why did Mr Pinnock (TIO) and Dr Hughes, eight months later, conspire to mislead and deceive Laurie James concerning the truth of my claims, which were registered with the proper authority, i.e., the president of Institute of Arbitrators Australia?

Living with the knowledge that these lies were told by the very same person who actually had the power to investigate them, but did not, is mind-destroying. Also, mind-destroying for the new owners of my business who purchased my holiday camp in December 2001, is that regardless of them complaining to the Communications Minister’s office my local Federal Member of Parliament, and Mr Pinnock from very early in January 2002 to September 2006 (see Bad Bureaucrats/Chapter One and Chapter Four) they had inherited the same type of phone problems that I had suffered with since 1987, no one re-investigated what went wrong during my arbitration in order to stop the arbitrator from allowing his arbitration resource unit the extra weeks they stated was needed to complete their findings (see Chapter One above).

Learn about the horrendous crimes and unscrupulous criminals, as well as the corrupt politicians and the lawyers who control the legal profession in Australia went about destroying the COT Cases chance for a fair arbitration hearing. Shameful, hideous, and treacherous are just a few words that describe these lawbreakers.

Why was this important letter withheld from me?

I was legally entitled to see this important letter

One of those documents, dated 18 April 1995, and which appears to have been secretly screened and withheld from the claimants and only provided to them seven years after the arbitrations concluded (See Prologue Evidence File No 22-A). This three-page letter from the arbitration project manager to Warwick Smith (arbitration administrator) and copied to Dr Hughes (the arbitrator) advised:

“It is unfortunate that there have been forces at work collectively beyond our reasonable control that have delayed us in undertaking our work.” (See Call For Justice DCITA File No 9).

The four COT claimants were never told about these forces at work nor were we warned that, under the noses of the TIO, his legal advisor and the arbitrator, these un-named forces were allowed to infiltrate and manipulate the arbitration process. When these three legal experts, namely Dr Gordon Hughes, Warwick Smith and Peter Bartlett, allowed this very important 18 April 1995 letter to be concealed from the four COT cases, they directly assisted those “forces at work” to carry out their intended disruption of the four COT cases’ arbitrations.

Note: the not credible arbitration agreement discussed by Dr Gordon Hughes in his 12 May 1995 letter to Warwick Smith (see Open Letter File No 55-A) was covertly drafted by Telstra (the defendant) and then was used as the final version of the agreement for the first four arbitrations, instead of the independently crafted agreement that was formally agreed to by all parties and various members of government. This Telstra-designed agreement provided numerous benefits for the defence, such as not enough time allowed "for inevitable delays associated with the production of documents, obtaining further particulars and the preparation of technical reports;

How can the Australian government engage in a negotiation with the arbitrator, the administrator and the defendant, Telstra Corporation, and allow that corporation – who is also under investigation by the Australian Federal Police for committing crimes against the claimants – to write up its own agreement under which it is to be investigated under by the same arbitrator (who advised the claimants and the government that he drafted the agreement)?

On 12 May 1995, 13 months into my arbitration and one day after he brought down my award, Dr Hughes condemned the Telstra-drafted arbitration agreement as not a credible document to use in the process; however, he used it to my detriment as a claimant and stated:

“…as far as I could observe, both Telecom and Smith co-operated in the Smith arbitration;

“the time frames set in the original Arbitration Agreement were, with the benefit of hindsight, optimistic;

“in particular; we did not allow sufficient time in the Arbitration Agreement for inevitable delays associated with the production of documents, obtaining further particulars and the preparation of technical reports; …

“In summary, it is my view that if the process is to remain credible, it is necessary to contemplate a time frame for completion which is longer than presently contained in the Arbitration Agreement.” (Open Letter File No 55-A)

The fax imprint across the top of this letter (Open Letter File No 55-A) is the same as the fax imprint described in the Scandrett & Associates report (see Open Letter File No/12 and File No/13), confirming faxes were intercepted during the COT arbitrations. The question the Telecommunication Industry Ombudsman (TIO) and the Federal Attorney-General has still not answered is:

Was this letter actually faxed to my office by the TIO. to assist me in any pending appeal process and, if not, why was such an important letter deliberately kept from me during my designated appeal period?

If I had received a copy of this letter, declaring the agreement used in my arbitration process was not credible, then of course, I would have appealed the arbitrator’s award. After all, how could an appeal judge argue against the arbitrator’s own findings that the agreement was not credible, even though he used it anyway?

How could Dr Hughes even contemplate making a statement like: “…as far as I could observe, both Telecom and Smith co-operated in the Smith arbitration”, let alone decide to include it in his 12 May letter, when he and the Senate had already been warned that Telstra was threatening to withhold further relevant documents from me, simply because I had agreed to assist the Australian Federal Police with their investigations into Telstra’s unauthorized interception of my phone conversations and faxes and, even worse than that level of Telstra treachery, Telstra then actually carried out those threats? And what about the advice that both the arbitrator and Warwick Smith had received on 18 April 1995 (see above), which stated clearly that there had been ‘forces at work’ that had ‘derailed’ my arbitration? This 12 May statement shows that Dr Hughes was quite clearly choosing to protect those ‘forces at work’, regardless of the serious problems that created for me.

Interception of this 12 May 1995 letter by a secondary fax machine:

Whoever had access to Telstra’s network, and therefore the TIO’s office service lines, knew – during the designated appeal time of my arbitration – that my arbitration was conducted using a set of rules (arbitration agreement) that the arbitrator declared not credible. There are three fax identification lines across the top of the second page of this 12 May 1995 letter:

The third line down from the top of the page (i.e. the bottom line) shows that the document was first faxed from the arbitrator’s office, on 12-5-95, at 2:41 pm to the Melbourne office of the TIO – 61 3 277 8797;
The middle line indicates that it was faxed on the same day, one hour later, at 15:40, from the TIO’s fax number, followed by the words “TIO LTD”.
The top line, however, begins with the words “Fax from” followed by the correct fax number for the TIO’s office (visible

Consider the order of the time stamps. The top line is the second sending of the document at 14:50, nine minutes after the fax from the arbitrator’s office; therefore, between the TIO’s office receiving the first fax, which was sent at 2.41 pm (14:41), and sending it on at 15:40, to his home, the fax was also re-sent at 14:50. In other words, the document sent nine minutes after the letter reached the TIO office was intercepted.

The fax imprint across each of the documents and letters provided to two well recognised technical telecommynication specialists both made sworn statements that the fax imprint described in the Scandrett & Associates report (see Open Letter File No/12 and File No/13) were all captured by a secondary fax machine, the report states:

“We canvassed examples, which we are advised are a representative group, of this phenomena [sic].

“They show that

the header strip of various faxes is being altered

the header strip of various faxes was changed or semi overwritten.

In all cases the replacement header type is the same.

The sending parties all have a common interest and that is COT.

Some faxes have originated from organisations such as the Commonwealth Ombudsman office.

The modified type face of the header could not have been generated by the large number of machines canvassed, making it foreign to any of the sending services.”

One of the two technical consultants attesting to the validity of this fax interception report emailed me on 17 December 2014, stating:

“I still stand by my statutory declaration that I was able to identify that the incoming faxes provided to me for review had at some stage been received by a secondary fax machine and then retransmitted, this was done by identifying the dual time stamps on the faxes provided.” (Front Page Part One File No/14)

It is also clear from Front Page Part One File No/1, File No/2-A to 2-E, File No/3, File No/4 and Front Page Part One File No/5, that numerous documents faxed from my office to the arbitrators office did not reach their intended destination.

What Justice?

Why did Dr Gordon Hughes bring down his award on my arbitration claims when he was aware that the Telstra-drafted arbitration agreement used in my arbitration was not a credible document to have been used, it was used anyway, to my detriment refer to exhibit Open Letter File No 55-A.

“…the time frames set in the original Arbitration Agreement were, with the benefit of hindsight, optimistic;

“in particular; we did not allow sufficient time in the Arbitration Agreement for inevitable delays associated with the production of documents, obtaining further particulars and the preparation of technical reports…

“In summary, it is my view that if the process is to remain credible, it is necessary to contemplate a time frame for completion which is longer than presently contained in the Arbitration Agreement.” see Open Letter File No 55-A).

Why did the arbitrator amend the arbitration agreement for the remaining three COT cases allowing those claimants thirteen more months to access their documents from Telstra (the defendants in all four arbitrations) than he allowed me?

The fax imprint across the top of this letter (Open Letter File No 55-A). is the same as the fax imprint described in the Scandrett & Associates report (see Open Letter File No/12 and File No/13), confirming faxes were intercepted during the COT arbitrations. The question the Telecommunication Industry Ombudsman (TIO) and the Federal Attorney-General has still not answered is:

Interception of this 12 May 1995 letter by a secondary fax machine:

The third line down from the top of the page (i.e. the bottom line) shows that the document was first faxed from the arbitrator’s office, on 12-5-95, at 2:41 pm to the Melbourne office of the TIO – 61 3 277 8797;
The middle line indicates that it was faxed on the same day, one hour later, at 15:40, from the TIO’s fax number, followed by the words “TIO LTD”.
The top line, however, begins with the words “Fax from” followed by the correct fax number for the TIO’s office (visible

If I had received a copy of this letter declaring the agreement used in my arbitration process was not credible, then, of course, I would have appealed the arbitrator’s award. After all, how could an appeal judge argue against the arbitrator’s own findings that the agreement was not credible, even though he used it anyway?

Interception of this 12 May 1995 letter by a secondary fax machine is discussed in more depth in our Australian Federal Police Investigations page

TIO Media Release 12 May 1995

Warwick Smith was supplied advice, on 18 April 1995, from none other than John Rundell, stating there were “forces at work” that derailed the process. I discussed with Warwick Smith, twice, Telstra’s threats of withholding FOI documents, because I assisted the Australian Federal Police and that this eventuated. Surely all this was enough for Warwick Smith to call the whole arbitration process a farce and ask the minister to intervene? Yet, this did not happen, not even after Dr Hughes’ 12 May 1995 advice. In most Western democracies, this would have been enough for an investigation.

Instead, a little more than two hours after Warwick Smith (the TIO and administrator of the process) received Dr Hughes’ 12 May 1995 letter, he put out a media release stating:

“The Administrator noted that the arbitration process, under the direction of the independent Arbitrator Dr Gordon Hughes, appointed with the agreement of the parties, had been run in accordance with principals of natural justice.” (See Open Letter File No 55-B)

Warwick Smith both misled and deceived the public in this media release headed 1st Telecom COT Case Arbitration Finalised: even though this release didn’t name which claimant he was referring to, it is well known I was the first to go through the process.

So, before Warwick Smith put out this media release, why didn’t he advise the relevant communications minister, Michael Lee MP, and the public, that Telstra destroyed some documents I needed and deleted relevant information from others, particularly since I had provided Mr Smith with evidence of this?

Why didn’t he advise anyone that Telstra not only threatened to withhold all the relevant documents I needed to support my claims and that they actually carried out those threats?

Perhaps Warwick Smith was concerned that, if he did raise these problems with the Hon Michael Lee MP, or reveal them to the public, then there would have been an instant demand for answers to questions like:

Why didn’t he and the arbitrator, Dr Hughes, contact the Supreme Court of Victoria and/or the relevant authorities to request a proper investigation into the situation that the COTs had found themselves in, through no fault of their own, when it first became clear that Telstra was acting as a law unto themselves?

This raises even more questions, particularly in relation to Warwick Smith’s media release. Why did he:

Collude with the arbitrator by allowing the defendants to draft their own arbitration rules for the process instead of providing the independently drafted agreement that both Warwick Smith and the arbitrator assured the media, politicians and claimants, would be prepared?
Refuse to supply the COT cases with a copy of Telstra’s preferred rules of arbitration as soon as questions arose about the possibility that the arbitration agreement was based on Telstra’s version?
Allow the defendants to be present at monthly TIO board and council meetings where various COT case arbitrations were discussed?
Allow Dr Hughes to continue to use an arbitration agreement that Dr Hughes, himself, stated was not a credible document to have used and needed revising (for the remaining claimants), even though Dr Hughes used it all the way through my COT arbitration and the result was allowed to stand?
Allow Dr Hughes and his arbitration technical unit to assess and investigate less than 11 per cent of my legally submitted claim documents?
Allow Dr Hughes to only assess losses that came from my school customers, which were the least lucrative customers while ignoring the more lucrative over-40s singles-club losses?
Allow the defendants to have access to my claim material, during my arbitration, before it was submitted to the arbitrator?
Organise, with the defendants, that the TIO-appointed resource unit and the defendants would decide which arbitration procedural documents would be passed on to the arbitrator for assessment and which would be concealed from the process altogether (something which is not mentioned anywhere in the official arbitration agreement)?
Deliberately hide all these facts from the public in his 12 May 1995 media release?
Also withheld from the public that, although the arbitration consultants wanted extra weeks to address my ongoing billing problems, these extra weeks were not allowed?

We can only guess the answers to these 10 questions. However, it is quite clear that, if Warwick Smith had revealed the actual truth about our arbitrations, then there would have been such an outcry from the Australian public – and from many government ministers too – that Warwick Smith and Dr Hughes would have been brought into disrepute, along with all the others involved in the administrative side of the process, for having allowed this deplorable situation to continue for so long. That would have led to major pressure being applied for Warwick Smith and Dr Hughes to officially call the entire COT arbitration process null and void.

The matters discussed on this website absentjustice.com are said according to my interpretation of the Public Interest Disclosure Act 2013

Download Attachments

Prologue Evidence File No/2 - Prologue Evidence File No/2 AUSTEL's Chairman Robin Davey notes: "...I would be more than a little concerned if they were to have a continuing role".

Prologue Evidence File No/3 - Prologue Evidence File No/3 Telstra's Corporation Limited "Fast Track" Proposed Rules of Arbitration.

Prologue Evidence File No/4 - Prologue Evidence File No/4 Confirmation I was still registering my phone complaints (during my FTSP) with Telstra's outside lawyers who then went onto becoming Telstra's arbitration defence lawyers to my claim.

Prologue Evidence File No/5 - Prologue Evidence File No/5 “Firstly, and perhaps most significantly, the arbitrator had no control over that process, because it was a process conducted entirely outside the ambit of the arbitration procedures”.

Prologue Evidence File No/6-A to 6-I - Prologue Evidence File No/6-A to 6-I Confirmation that the 008/1800 billing issues raised in my arbitration claim were should have been investigated during my arbitration. They were not investigated during my arbitration.

Prologue Evidence File/No 7 - Prologue Evidence File/No 7 Telstra’s Arbitration Liaison Officer wrote to the TIO in 11 July 1994 stating: “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”.

Prologue Evidence File No/8-A to 8-E - Prologue Evidence File No/8-A to 8-E This letter to me dated 10 January 1996 from John Pinnock (TIO) was sent during my pending appeal process stating: "...I do not propose to provide you with copies of any documents held by this office".

Prologue Evidence File No/9-A to 9-D - Prologue Evidence File No/9-A to 9-D Memorandum from the arbitration resource unit dated 30 March, 1995 to Warwick Smith states on page 2 that: "...Smiths claim was formally certified complete in November 1994. Smith has stated verbally to myself, that on 23 December 1994, he received 90 kilograms of FOI material. As his claim was "finalised" he did not have to ability to examine these documents and add to his claim".

Prologue Evidence File No/10-A to 10-F - Prologue Evidence File No/10-A to 10-F This letter dated 28 January 2003, from the TIO Office to Telstra discusses the phone problems that the new owners of my business was still having twelve months after the purchased my business.

Prologue Evidence File No/11-A to 11-C - Prologue Evidence File No/11-A to 11-C This letter written by me to John Pinnock on 26 June 1996, was returned to me in 2002 from the TIO office (under my request) for all arbitration related documents to be provided under the privacy act. This particular letter in the right hand bottom corner someone has hand written the following statement "...These are serious allegations. We need to respond to specific letters Smith says weren't received and provide answers on each". I never received a response

Prologue Evidence File No/12 - Prologue Evidence File No/12 Senate Estimates Hansard dated 26 September 1997

Prologue Evidence File No/13 - Prologue Evidence File No/13 AUSTEL's COT Cases Report of 13 April 1994, shows that the assessor/arbitrator could not bring down a finding until all parties to the arbitration was prepared to sign off that the telephone faults had been fixed.

Open Letter - Open Letter Senate Hansard dated 2 September 1993, showing at least one of Telstra's executive Mr Von Willer has not correctly advised the government concerning the telephone exchange problems experienced by COT Cases Ann Garms and Maureen Gillan. The statement made by Senator Boswell that: "...We have now heard from Mr Von Willer that the Valley exchange is just like every other exchange in Australia. We have tabled a document from Telecom saying it is the greatest embarrassment to Australia and Mr Von Willer comes in here and tells us there is nothing wrong with Telecom."

Prologue Evidence File No/15 - Prologue Evidence File No/15 Amendment C92 to the Glenelg Planning Scheme: expert witness statement dated April 2018, from Chris McNeill, director of Essential Economics Pty Ltd.

Prologue Evidence File No/16 - Prologue Evidence File No/16 It is clear from this Echo Tourism Venture (Appraisal by Cleaner Production Australia) that there was merit in my original Cape Bridgewater Holiday Camp tourism venture.

Prologue Evidence File No/17 - Prologue Evidence File No/17 This memorandum of 30 March 1995, provided to Warwick Smith, Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (administrator to my arbitration), by Susan Hodgkinson of FHCA. We document the relevance of this attachment again because the bullets on page two and three of this memorandum discuss Telstra’s defence of my claim, and do not, in any way, coincide with AUSTEL’s adverse findings regarding my matters (see Open Letter File No/4, File No/5, File No/6 and File No/7)

Prologue Evidence File No/18 - Prologue Evidence File No/18 It is also reasonable to conclude AUSTEL representatives NEVER released their adverse findings on my matters to the Department of Communications Information, Technology and the Arts (DCITA), otherwise that information would have been finally provided to me under FOI from the DCITA. As ACMA has been the only government agency to release the more adverse findings against Telstra on my matters under my FOI requests, one can only conclude the DCITA never received a copy of those adverse findings as they were legislated to under Section 342 of the Act.

Prologue Evidence File No/19-A to 19-B - Prologue Evidence File No/19-A to 19-B Page 38 of the award prepared by the arbitrator, Dr Gordon Hughes, resulting from my Telstra-related arbitration.

Prologue Evidence File No 20

Prologue Evidence File No 21 - Prologue Evidence File No 21 The costs just continue to rise and rise and still all my claim documents have not been addressed through arbitration, particularly Short duration and incorrectly charged calls and recorded voice announcement faults. Who pays for this continuing saga, which is supposed to have been settled, even to this day? Why are the authorities so reluctant to investigate my claims? After all, if I am lying it would be so easy to prove".

Prologue Evidence File No 22-A to 22-D

Prologue Evidence File No 23

Prologue Evidence File No 24 to 39

Prologue Evidence File No 40 to 55-C

Prologue Evidence File No 56

Prologue Evidence File 1-A to 1-C

Prologue Evidence File No 57-A to 57-C

Prologue Evidence File 58-A to 58-F

Arbitrator False Evidence File 1

Cape Bridgewater Eco-Tourism Venture - Cape Bridgewater Eco-Tourism Venture Cape Bridgewater Eco-Tourism Venture

My Story Evidence File 1

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