Beneath the Beauty: A Landscape of Deception

The camp’s views were deceptively beautiful, concealing a treacherous undercurrent that lay beneath the serene surface. The breathtaking panorama unfolded like a seductive trap, drawing in unsuspecting souls to its shimmering façade. Below, the bay offered its pristine white beach, gleaming maliciously under the mocking sun, as gentle waves lapped against the shore in a rhythm that belied the dark secrets hidden just beneath the surface.

Nearby, the seemingly quaint beachside township exuded an inviting allure, with its cosy café masking the underlying currents of distrust and desperation that permeated the air. Nestled high in the hills surrounding the town, the camp was a scenic five-hour drive from the bustling city of Melbourne—an enticing journey that lured many visitors into a web of deception. The route, while picturesque, meandered through areas infamous for their concealed dangers, showcasing awe-inspiring coastal vistas that captivated the eyes yet ignited a sense of foreboding—an eerily beautiful backdrop for those unaware of the lurking darkness.

As I stood amidst this enchanting landscape, an unsettling sense of belonging washed over me, igniting dreams that felt almost sinister in their allure. I envisioned this place as a façade perfect for laying down roots, yet I was unaware it would become the breeding ground for treachery and heartache, where dreams would twist into nightmares. I pictured groups of children bustling in the cheerful dining room, their laughter echoing off the walls like a siren’s call, unaware of the harsh realities that were about to unfold. They would uncover the area’s ecology and wildlife, forming connections that would eventually be tested in a wicked crucible of life’s unpredictability, exposing the fragility of childhood innocence.

On weekends, I imagined singles groups converging from all corners, drawn by the pulse of excitement that masked the lurking dangers. The camp would vibrate with energy as participants exchanged stories and laughter against a backdrop of towering eucalyptus trees and breathtaking coastal views, hiding the shadows of betrayal lurking just out of sight.

The Illusion of Promise: A Journey into Betrayal

With a heart naïvely overflowing with optimism, I eagerly signed the purchase contract, oblivious to the storm brewing on the horizon. I envisioned a bustling hub where diverse groups could congregate, forge connections, and share experiences—only to remain blissfully ignorant of the storm that awaited, a path filled with heartbreak and struggle that would envelop me.

The ensuing thirty-five years would become an odyssey of fierce confrontations against one of the largest corporations in the country, each battle a testament to betrayal. My marriage would crumble, another significant relationship would disintegrate, health challenges would plague my every step, and ultimately, the beloved business I dreamed of nurturing would slip from my grasp, leaving devastation in its wake.

Consider this: have you ever felt the sharp sting of betrayal when facing impossible problems with something as ubiquitous as your phone? Have you experienced that moment of disbelief when you were so close to technology, only for it to betray you, leaving you isolated? Has anyone ever doubted your professionalism, questioning how your phone remained silent amid the chaos of life?

I know these trials all too well. This web of technological obstacles ensnared me when I least expected it, my phone-dependent business in Cape Bridgewater becoming a nightmarish prison. The ancient phone exchange that connected my business—an outdated relic of a bygone era—had been a trap waiting to spring. It wasn’t designed to handle the raging tide of calls from residents and holidaymakers who would flock to the area during peak season, and it would slowly strangle my dreams, one unanswered call at a time.

This isn’t just my story; it could easily be yours—a tale steeped in deceit and treachery that reminds us of all that appearances can carefully conceal the darkest of realities.

 

CHAPTER 1

 

The Call That Never Came: Prelude to a Nightmare

Have you ever felt the icy grip of a phone bill that seems to whisper threats from the shadows? Have you ever stood beside your phone, heart pounding, only to be accused of ignoring a call that never came? Have you heard the whispers—malicious murmurs that you waste your life glued to the phone, when in truth, it hasn’t rung in days? Have clients lashed out, branding you unprofessional, while your phone sits in eerie silence, like a cursed relic?

If even a flicker of this twisted reality feels familiar, then you’ll understand the nightmare that consumed me for over a decade. It began innocently enough—or so I thought—when I stepped into the web of corruption surrounding the phone-dependent business I acquired in 1987 at Cape Bridgewater, a remote outpost in rural Australia. But beneath its postcard-perfect charm, an ancient malevolence stirred: a decrepit phone exchange, rusted and forgotten, installed more than 30 years prior and branded with the damning designation of a ‘low-call-rate area’ by Telstra.

This archaic system wasn’t just outdated—it was predatory. It lay dormant, waiting for someone foolish enough to trust it. By the time I arrived, the village buzzed with life, but the phone exchange was a trap, a silent saboteur poised to strangle any dream that dared rely on its crumbling infrastructure. I walked into its jaws, blind to the darkness that would soon engulf me.

In December 1987, seduced by the tranquil beauty of an accommodation centre overlooking the bay, I believed I had found my sanctuary. I had weathered the storms of the hospitality industry, rising from humble beginnings to manage hotels and restaurants across Victoria. But this place—this cursed place—would become my undoing

 

The Silence That Screamed

By 1988, my dreams were under siege. I printed 2,000 glossy brochures, convinced the phone would ring off the hook. But the silence was deafening. It wasn’t just quiet—it was mocking. A cruel joke played by a force that seemed to revel in my suffering.

By April, the silence turned sinister. Accusations flew. Why wasn’t our phone answered? Were we hiding something? Suggestions to install an answering machine became venomous critiques of our competence. Even when the machine was installed, the complaints evolved—now the line was constantly engaged, yet we heard nothing. Just long, empty stretches of silence, punctuated by whispers of discontent.

We were trapped in a cycle of technological torment. Our pleas to Telstra vanished into the void, swallowed by shadows that seemed to protect the very evil we were fighting. The truth was chilling: the previous owner had endured the same haunting silence. We had ignored the warning signs. Now, we were paying the price.

What began as a hopeful venture spiralled into a waking nightmare. An invisible hand gripped our fate, dragging us deeper into despair. My story could be yours. The darkness doesn’t discriminate—it waits patiently for anyone who dares to trust too easily.

When my wife Faye and I inspected the business, we were blissfully unaware of the lurking horror. We sold our Melbourne home, cashed in retirement benefits, and stepped into the abyss. Faye’s frustration grew with each complaint. We began to doubt ourselves. Were we on the phone too long? Had we missed the ring? Forgotten the machine?

Calls dropped without warning. The line would go dead. If we had a number, we’d call back. If not, the connection was lost forever—another opportunity devoured by the void.

The venture soured. The fun we had envisioned curdled into dread. The full scope of the problem revealed itself during Christmas 1988, when we hosted a dinner for locals. I mentioned the phone issues. Our neighbour sympathized—his daughter in Colac struggled to reach him. Another neighbour, once the owner of ‘Tom the Cheap Grocery,’ scoffed: “What do you expect from Telstra in the bush?” He’d suffered for years and later gave me a written statement.

By early 1989, the nightmare had matured. The phone system became the wedge that shattered our twenty-year marriage. I ran the business out of rage. I couldn’t even blame Telstra when the gas bottles ran out mid-meal—those guests were among the few who had managed to get through.

My advertising campaign collapsed. I began to question everything. Had I dragged Faye from her life in Melbourne for a doomed dream? Had I sacrificed our home for a mirage?

We toured South Australia, selling the camp to schools across the Wimmera. But the inquiries were sparse. The silence persisted.

One day in Portland, twenty kilometres from the camp, I realised I’d left the meat order list behind. I called Faye—only to hear a Telstra recording: “This number is not connected.” I tried again—same message. Later, the line was engaged. I bought what I could remember and hoped for the best.

Faye was furious. The phone hadn’t rung once. She blamed me. She didn’t ask why I couldn’t reach her. She didn’t question the system. She questioned me.

According to Telstra’s own FOI documents, I lodged nine complaints between April 1988 and January 1989. Add the letters, the Portland incident, and the mounting evidence, and a chilling picture begins to emerge.

This wasn’t just a faulty phone line. It was a slow, deliberate descent into madness—engineered by neglect, sustained by silence, and sealed by betrayal.

 

Chapter 2: The Silence That Devoured Us

Anyone who has ever used a telephone knows the chilling echo of a voice that seems to come from nowhere: “The number you are calling is disconnected.” It’s more than an inconvenience—it’s a ghostly whisper from the void. In the shadowy underworld of telecommunications, these messages are known as RVAs—Recorded Voice Announcements. But for me, they became the siren song of ruin.

Among the disturbing pile of FOI documents, I unearthed in 1994 was a bone-chilling internal email from Telstra, dated 26th September 1993 and labelled A03544. It revealed a quiet panic within their ranks—a need to “have a very basic review of all our RVA messages and how they are applied.” The author’s warning was ominous: “I am sure when we start to scratch around, we will find a host of network circumstances where inappropriate RVAs are going to line.” This wasn’t just negligence—it was a confession. A glimpse into a deeper, darker truth: Telstra knew their system was broken, and they let it fester.

Another damning document, C00757, emerged from the archives like a cursed relic. It admitted that the RVA message— “The number you have called is not connected or has been changed…”—was misleading thousands. It didn’t just confuse callers; it condemned businesses to oblivion. For a fledgling venture like ours, dependent on every ring of the phone, it was a death sentence. And when we sought answers, Telstra met us with icy indifference, as if our suffering was just collateral damage in their corporate game.

By mid-1989, our finances lay in ruins. The bookings we had dreamed of were nothing but mirages. We sold our shares for a pittance—$1.60 each for four thousand. A decade later, they would soar to $8.20. A cruel twist of fate. Our savings from the Melbourne home—$140,000—covered only half the cost of the camp. The rest became a mortgage, a chain around our necks. I had believed we were set for life. Instead, we were bleeding out, selling our lifeblood just to stay afloat.

Our marriage began to fracture under the weight of this invisible war. My self-worth crumbled like ash in the wind. And then, as if summoned by the darkness itself, Faye fell and broke her leg. The hospital visits became a relentless march into despair. Her pain was a mirror of mine—slow, unrelenting, and cruel. The leg refused to heal. It felt as though the universe had turned against us.

We clung to hope, making fleeting trips to Melbourne. Faye sought comfort in familiar faces. I used the time to market the camp in Caulfield and Huntingdale, but the dread gnawed at me. Something was wrong. Something was watching.

One evening, I tried to check the camp’s answering machine remotely. What I heard chilled me to the bone: “The number you are calling is not connected or has been changed…” That voice—so calm, so final—was the sound of our business being erased. I didn’t tell Faye. She didn’t need another shadow in her mind.

Outside Geelong, as we drove home, Faye asked if I’d checked for messages. I lied. At the next phone box, I tried again. The line was engaged. My heart raced. Someone must be leaving a message. But when we returned, all we found was a stale recording from friends in Melbourne—a hollow echo of better days. Why had the line been engaged? Had we lost calls? Had desperate clients been met with silence?

Faye’s hospital visits became her escape. Her spirit frayed, unravelling with each passing day. The weight of financial ruin and her slow recovery crushed us. On 26 October 1989, our marriage succumbed to the darkness.

I turned to Scotch, locking myself in one of the cabins, seeking refuge in its numbing embrace. Faye, terrified, called the police. They stormed in like invaders, shattering my sanctuary. As I faced them, a memory from 1967 surged forth—my clash with the Red Guards during China’s Cultural Revolution. I had escaped aboard the MV Hopepeak, fleeing tyranny. But now, in my fractured mind, the uniforms of my rescuers blurred with the faces of tormentors.

Days later, in a sterile hospital room, doctors assured me I wasn’t losing my mind. But their cold reassurances only deepened my paranoia. I returned to the camp with Margaret, my mate’s wife—a flicker of warmth in the gathering storm.

But this was no recovery. It was the beginning of a descent. A descent into shadows where hope flickered and despair thrived. The silence had become a predator. And we were its prey.

 

Chapter 3: Echoes in the Void

Margaret and I pulled into the camp, only to be met by a scene that felt like a calculated act of sabotage. The air was thick with neglect. Doors hung open like gaping mouths, packages of meat lay abandoned on benches, their frost melting into pools of decay. The deep freeze—once a vital lifeline—was gone, vanished without a trace. It was as if ghosts had ransacked the place, each corner revealing another cruel twist in a growing nightmare.

Faye had fled the night before, swept away by the whispers of well-meaning “do-gooders” and welfare workers who insisted she seek refuge in a so-called “safe house.” But safety was a lie. What remained was chaos—raw, unfiltered, and merciless. Food was left on the benches once frozen, now thawed, and blood was now dripping from the benches onto the floor. Surely the do-gooders would not have done this. Had somebody from further afield, an opportunist, decided they needed a fridge and freezer. All my food stores had gone; we were clearly wiped out.

According to my diary, seventy students from Monivae Catholic College were due to arrive in just two days. Five days. Four nights. Seventy mouths to feed. The weight of that responsibility pressed down like a vice. Without Margaret’s unwavering presence, I would have crumbled into dust.

We focused on cleaning and shopping, but the tasks felt insurmountable. My heart was a hollow drum, echoing the loss of a twenty-year marriage. The shopping list loomed like a cruel joke—what could I possibly prepare for seventy hungry souls? Time was slipping through my fingers. It was already Sunday evening. The Monivae group would arrive the next day. Their first meal: dinner. And I was drowning.

Then, as if summoned by the same malevolent force that haunted our phone lines, the hot water system collapsed. Cold showers became the norm. Staff grumbled. The camp groaned under the weight of dysfunction. Yet Monivae College returned, year after year, their loyalty a fragile thread holding us above the abyss.

But even loyalty couldn’t mask the growing tension. Margaret watched me with wary eyes. She saw the cracks forming. Her decision to summon Brother Greg—a teacher from Monivae—wasn’t kindness. It was triage. I had begun mumbling in my sleep, incoherent fragments of past traumas bleeding into the present. The darkness was sleeping in.

We sat together in the dim light, the three of us. Brother Greg gripped my hands. Margaret clutched my arms. I was anchored, barely. We spoke of China, of the Red Guards, of the MV Hopepeak. Of Faye. Of the unravelling. Margaret endured it all like a soldier, her presence both a comfort and a reminder of the war I was losing.

Religion crept in like a shadow pretending to be light. Women from the church surrounded me, their smiles too polished, their comfort too rehearsed. Their intentions may have been pure, but their presence felt like a veil—thin protection against a storm that had already breached the walls. Faye’s absence gnawed at me. I longed for connection, for intimacy, for something real. But all I found was silence.

And that silence was not benign.

The phone problems persisted, growing more grotesque with each passing day. In mid-November 1989, Chris from the church mentioned she had tried to call. The line rang endlessly, then fell into a void. I had already filed complaint after complaint with Telstra, each one a scream into the abyss. The fault logs became a twisted diary of despair.

One day, Chris tried the kiosk phone. Nothing. Just dead air. I tore through the connection box, convinced a loose wire was the culprit. But everything was intact. The deadline loomed, mocking me like a spectre.

Then came the gold coin-operated phone in the dining room. Untouched. Untainted. Or so I thought. I fed it coins, clinging to hope. A dial tone. Relief. But then— “The number you have called is not connected or has been changed.” The voice was mechanical, but it dripped with malice. My coins were gone. Swallowed by the machine. Swallowed by the lie.
I tried again. This time, the message changed: “The line is engaged.” But I knew it wasn’t. I was alone. The phone was silent. The machine was lying. The universe was conspiring.

In the months that followed, I descended into madness. I devised bizarre testing routines, rituals to expose the malevolence behind the phone lines. But the answers never came. Only more silence. More deception.
Was Telstra incompetent—or complicit? Was there a force beyond them, feeding on my unravelling? The questions clawed at me. The weight of it all pressed down, suffocating. I stood at the edge, trembling, staring into the void.

And the void stared back.

 

Chapter 4: The Debt That Bled Me Dry

With Faye gone, the illusion of partnership shattered, and I found myself clawing through the remnants of a life that had once felt secure. No longer part of a working husband-and-wife team, I was forced to dig deep into my near-empty financial reserves just to keep the camp alive. The absence of her unpaid labour became a financial wound—what the cold world of finance calls a consequential resultant loss. But this was no sterile accounting term. It was a bleeding artery.

Now, I had to pay Faye a yearly dividend on her investment in the business—an investment she no longer supported with sweat or sacrifice. And I had to find the money to pay staff, or risk watching the entire operation collapse into ruin.

As 1990 crept in, the future grew darker. The phone faults continued, relentless and cruel. How many customers had tried to reach me, only to be met with silence or lies? In this remote corner of Victoria, the phone was the only lifeline to the outside world. And that lifeline was fraying.

The legal vultures began to circle. I had failed to meet the original financial agreement with Faye, and her solicitor—ruthless and unyielding—demanded more. My first payment came due, and I couldn’t raise the funds to refinance. I was drowning in legal costs, unable to breathe, let alone find extra for Faye. I thought the outlook couldn’t get bleaker.
I was wrong.

To claw back some semblance of solvency, I sold the twenty-two-seater school bus I had once used to ferry guests—an emblem of hope and hospitality—and replaced it with a small utility vehicle. A downgrade. A surrender.

Through mutual friends, I met Karen—a divorcee from Warrnambool, a hundred kilometres away. The second-hand tray truck allowed me to see her a couple of times a week, and the relationship grew serious. When Karen learned that Faye’s solicitor was preparing to wind up my business, forcing a sale because I couldn’t make the payments, she did something extraordinary. She put her house up as security for a loan. It gave me two years of breathing space—but at what cost?

Around the same time, I contacted Telstra’s fault centre in Hamilton once more, desperate for answers. The usual run-around ensued, a cruel ritual I knew too well. But this time, a glimmer of hope emerged: a new exchange was to be installed at Cape Bridgewater. It would, they claimed, solve the problems that had plagued me for years.

Four years later, through a Freedom of Information request, I obtained a three-page handwritten file note dated 15 August 1991. It documented my discussions with Telstra about the faults. The date didn’t match my own records—I knew by early 1991 that the new exchange was coming, and I had told Karen as much. I had clung to that promise like a lifeline.

The file note was damning. It acknowledged the issue as “…a continuing problem,” and recorded that I was “…losing a lot of business.” It even admitted that the age of the existing exchange was likely the cause, and that the new installation would resolve it. Telstra promised to try to get my phones working correctly before then.

But promises from Telstra were like whispers in the wind—heard, but never held.
From August 1991 through May 1992, the complaints continued. The recorded voice announcements—the same chilling messages that had haunted me for years—persisted. They echoed through the lines like curses, driving away customers, eroding trust, and feeding the darkness that had taken root in my life.
The camp stood, battered but breathing, while I fought battles on every front—legal, financial, emotional, and technological. Each day felt like a step deeper into the abyss. And the phone, that cursed device, remained my tormentor.

 

Chapter 5: The Collapse Beneath the Surface

My relationship with Karen began to unravel, thread by thread, as we fought against the relentless tide dragging our business into the abyss. The camp, once a symbol of hope, had become a haunted vessel, listing in the storm of financial ruin. After months of struggle, Karen sold her home, scraping together just over $80,000. But the shadows were already waiting. $65,000 vanished instantly devoured by legal fees and the lingering debts owed to Faye. What remained was barely enough to keep the lights on, let alone salvage our crumbling dreams.

It took another long, bitter year to resolve with Faye, but by then, the damage had metastasised. Karen’s name became the only stable imprint on the business title—a fragile anchor in a sea of chaos.

Each day brought fresh decay. Bookings trickled in like dying breaths. The camp itself began to rot—peeling paint, broken fixtures, and a silence that screamed neglect. Passersby averted their gaze, repelled by the sad, bedraggled shell of what once promised joy. With no guests, there was no income. With no income, there was no maintenance. And with no maintenance, there was no hope. We were trapped in a vicious cycle of deterioration, each turn tightening the noose.

On the rare occasion a school or club booked a stay, we were left scrambling—utterly devoid of cash flow, unable to afford even basic food supplies. The operational side of the business cast a grim shadow over us, amplifying our fears and feeding the tension. Karen’s frustration boiled over, echoing the same battles I once fought with Faye. “It’s been twelve months since I moved here, and nothing has improved. The phone issues are still unresolved!” she cried, her voice cracking like thunder.

Her fury poured out like a storm that had been building for months. And who could blame her?

Despite the turmoil, I clung to the last flickers of purpose. I sponsored underprivileged groups to stay at the camp, organizing food donations through the compassion of commercial outlets. These children came without cost—but how could any act of goodwill pierce the looming darkness of my failure?

Karen and I tried to promote “get-away” holidays for singles over forty, but our efforts were met with silence. Tepid responses. Dwindling enthusiasm. It was as if the world had turned its back—or worse, couldn’t reach us at all. The phone lines, our lifeline, remained cursed.

Every day grew heavier. We were drowning in chaos and disappointment, the treachery of broken dreams clinging to us like a malignant fog, draining what little hope remained.

In May 1992, I organised a charity week for children from Ballarat and the Southwest, coordinated by Sister Maureen Burke—the unwavering heart of the project. But even this noble effort was poisoned by the same insidious force. Communication was a nightmare. Sister Burke struggled to reach me, her calls swallowed by the void. Desperate to finalise plans, she drove three and a half hours, navigating the fading hopes of what this week could mean for those children.

That same day, as Sister Burke arrived, Karen answered a call from a furious man demanding information about the singles weekends. His rage was venomous. He couldn’t understand why we advertised a business that never answered the phone. Karen took the full brunt of his fury—and broke.

She burst into tears. It was the final straw. I tried to defuse the moment with a joke, but the tension was too thick, too raw. Karen, a seasoned horsewoman who rode cross-country and played polo, wasn’t someone to cross lightly. And she proved it. Her punch nearly flattened me—my legs buckled, and my ego shattered.

Right then, Sister Burke stepped into the office. I retreated, knowing absence was the better part of valour. The two women remained behind, and later, Sister Burke advised me that Karen should leave Cape Bridgewater. It would be best for both of us, she said. She would arrange counselling for Karen back in Warrnambool.

Here we go again, I thought. Another fracture. Another loss.

The charity camp went ahead in April 1992—thirty-five children for five nights. It was a rare success. While she was there, I asked Sister Burke to describe the phone faults she experienced during that dreadful week. She spoke of calls ringing out endlessly or connecting to deadlines—no sound, no life. And this happened for an entire week.

Later, I sent her an early draft of this book. Her reply was chilling:

“Only I know from personal experience that your story is true, I would find it difficult to believe.”

Twelve months later, in March 1993, Sister Karen Donnellon from Loreto College tried to arrange an annual camp. She later wrote:

“During a one-week period in March of this year I attempted to contact Mr Alan Smith at Bridgewater Camp. 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.”

A year had passed. A new exchange had been installed. And still, the phone system remained a festering wound.

Back in May 1992, we couldn’t have known that the stress would stretch on, strangling us for years. Karen was hospitalised—crushed by the weight of worry and the fear of losing her investment. She believed I had lied to her when I promised the phone problems would be resolved. I had thought Telstra. I had trusted their words.

I would never make that mistake again.

After her release, Karen settled in a rented house in Portland. Without her help at the camp, my promotional tours to schools collapsed. I continued to lodge complaints with Telstra, but the faults seemed to grow worse, not better. The old exchange had been demolished. The new one is installed. And yet, from August 1991 through May 1992, the same cursed recorded voice announcements persisted.

I began to question everything. Why had I come to Cape Bridgewater? Why had this move become a slow-motion disaster? Everyone assumes a working phone is a given. But this faulty system had ruined three lives—mine, Faye’s, and Karen’s—and cast a long, cruel shadow over my children’s future.

 

Chapter 6: The Gathering Storm

In the suffocating heat of July 1992, a conversation with Karen unearthed a disturbing revelation—another business owner, like me, was being strangled by the same invisible noose: Telstra’s failing phone system. Karen’s friend mentioned “The Society” restaurant, a seemingly charming establishment tucked away on Bourke Street in Melbourne’s bustling heart. But beneath its polished exterior, it too was bleeding from the same wounds.

Navigating the twisted maze of phone lines to reach the restaurant was no small feat. After persistent attempts, I finally connected with Sheila Hawkins, the manager—sharp, resolute, and clearly weathered by the same storm. We spoke briefly, but the weight of our shared suffering was immediate. We arranged to meet, and I set off for Melbourne, driven by desperation and a flicker of hope.

Sheila was already rallying a group to confront Telstra head-on. She had connected with Ann Garms, the spirited owner of Brisbane’s Tivoli Theatre Restaurant—another casualty of Telstra’s negligence. Ann’s business, like mine, was tethered to a failing exchange, its lifeblood throttled by silence.

I reached out to Ann, and fate twisted in our favour—she was due in Melbourne the following week. We quickly arranged a meeting with Sheila and the General Manager of Consumer Affairs for the Australian Telecommunications Regulator—hereafter, simply the Regulator.

When Sheila, Ann, and I finally gathered, the air crackled with urgency. We were no longer isolated victims—we were a coalition. Ann revealed yet another afflicted business: a Japanese car spare-parts company in Brisbane, run by Maureen Gillen, also tethered to the cursed Fortitude Valley Exchange.

Our network grew. Sheila reached out to Graham Schorer, who ran Golden Courier Service in North Melbourne. He, too, was locked in battle with a phone system that seemed designed to fail. Eventually, our small band of wounded warriors convened at The Society Restaurant. Maureen couldn’t join us, but her absence only underscored the breadth of the damage.

In the shadows of the corporate world, where truth is buried beneath layers of polished deceit, a sinister saga was taking shape. That week, as I stumbled through the chaos Telstra had inflicted, Sheila became my confidante—a steady flame in the gathering darkness.

It was sheila who gave our group its name: C.O.T.—Casualties of Telstra. A grim joke. A badge of suffering. A declaration of war.

We envisioned justice. But what lay ahead was a treacherous path—one paved with lies, stonewalled truths, and a chilling corporate cover-up that grew darker the deeper we dug.

The months of 1992 dragged on like a slow poison. I persevered, driven by a simmering rage. I could feel the rot emanating from Telstra—a festering malignancy hidden behind their polished facade. In October, we gathered at the Ibis Hotel in Melbourne for our first official confrontation. The air was thick with tension. We stood united, a coalition of small-business survivors, determined to expose the monstrous indifference of a company that had long erased us from its conscience.

Behind their masks of bureaucracy, the Regulator began to stir. They sensed the storm we were bringing. They acknowledged our suffering—not with empathy, but with the wary recognition of a truth too dangerous to ignore.

As I filed my Freedom of Information requests, the stonewalling began. It wasn’t subtle—it was deliberate. A letter from Telstra’s management arrived, brazen in its denial: “No past fault records prior to June 1991.”
But I knew better.

I had lived the faults. I had documented the silence. And I had felt the cold breath of betrayal every time the line went dead.

What lurked behind that letter was not just negligence—it was a calculated erasure. A rewriting of history. A corporate cleansing of sins.

During one visit, a local technician let slip the truth, cloaked in casual apathy: “Congestion is a given for country folk.” As if our suffering was expected. As if our livelihoods were expendable.

In mid-1994, the fog of bureaucracy began to lift. I unearthed documents that revealed Telstra’s long-standing awareness of the issues. One damning minute disclosed a staggering figure:

11,000 errors per hour in one direction. The acceptable rate? A pitiful 72. The disparity was grotesque—a testament to their wilful neglect.

Document A40558 surfaced next, detailing complaints dating back to 1990—buried, ignored, and left to rot. The Cape Bridgewater lines, supposedly upgraded, continued to bleed me dry. Promises were broken. Lies wrapped tightly around every complaint. Their response was tepid. Their negligence, treacherous.

Even their internal reports mocked me. I was stamped as a “vocal customer”—a label that reduced my suffering to a statistic. Their suggestion that I should bear the burden of their failures was a twisted cruelty that gnawed at my sanity.

When they finally acted, it wasn’t justice—it was damage control. A desperate attempt to silence me.

On 11 December 1992, Telstra extended a sinister proposal: a compensation payout shackled by a confidentiality clause. I was coerced into signing. And I have upheld that silence—a silence soaked in betrayal.

That same day, in the sterile confines of Telstra’s offices, I faced their area general manager. The room pulsed with suspicion. She tried to minimize my losses—four and a half years of devastation. I handed over letters from clients and tradespeople, each one a cry for validation. Each one a testament to the destruction Telstra had wrought.

She left me alone to review documents—dubious, handwritten lies. Each time she exited, she closed the door. A gesture that now feels like a tactic of isolation. I used the direct outside line to call Karen, hoping to salvage her financial stability. But I knew the forces at play were working to diminish my worth.

The documents were riddled with deceit. They claimed a single fault had rendered my number “not connected” for just three weeks—yet somehow accounted for a 50% loss of incoming calls. Who were they kidding?

Other memos trivialised the faults, subtly absolving Telstra of responsibility. Acceptance, they implied, would cleanse them of guilt.

I lashed out. I contested their narrative. I reiterated the avalanche of complaints. Her response was ice-cold: “This is Telstra’s final offer.”

A take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum. No negotiation. No justice.
Her parting words were venomous: Telstra had time and resources. I was just a man—mortal, exhausted, and unable to fight back.

I accepted. Not out of agreement, but defeat.

Then, in 1994, I stumbled upon chilling evidence: notes from that same manager. She had been monitoring my calls to advisors while she was supposedly out of the room.

How could she know?

Unless the walls themselves were listening. Using a direct line? Had she unlawfully listened in on my discussions with Karen,

orchestrating her financial proposal based on my vulnerabilities? This treachery erupted into a cacophony of unanswered questions, prompting me to seek clarity from Telstra multiple times, only to meet stonewalling and avoidance.

Their betrayal deepened, as I later learned through documents from the Australian Federal Police detailing Telstra’s audacious acts of ‘voice monitoring’ over my private conversations. Was I merely a pawn in their dark game on that day?

Then, in 2001, as I sifted through more FOI (Freedom of Information) documents from the Regulator, I discovered even more abhorrent truths. The Regulator had pointed out that

Telstra not only misled me but also actively obscured the extent and severity of the faults, leading me to accept their settlement under false pretences. This treachery ran deep, with revelations that the issues plaguing my phone service had persisted far longer than I had been informed.

Telstra’s deliberate deception had tricked me into a settlement rife with corruption and betrayal, casting a shadow of doubt over every action and leaving me grappling with a sinister reality: I had entered a battlefield where truth was twisted into a weapon of deceit.

 

CHAPTER 7

Secrets, Codes, and the Machinery of Disappearance

As I sifted through the FOI documents, a disturbing pattern emerged Telstra had stamped numerous files with the chilling label “Secret,” particularly those tied to the so-called “guarantees” they had issued me.

Among these buried records was a cryptic reference to “RVA on congestion”—a covert code for disconnection masquerading as technical jargon. In 1993, the Regulator confirmed the deception:

Telstra’s congestion tone was engineered to mimic a standard engaged signal. Unless one was trained to detect the subtle difference, callers were misled into believing my line was simply busy. In truth, it was choked by Telstra’s outdated infrastructure.

This wasn’t a technical hiccup—it was a calculated illusion. The Cape Bridgewater exchange, a relic of neglect, was perpetually congested. Potential customers, unaware of the truth, likely assumed I had shut down.

My bookings dwindled, not from lack of interest, but from a manufactured silence.

Then came document C04007, another “Secret” file, ominously noting: “Mr Smith’s service problems… network related and spanning a period of 3–4 years.” C04008 echoed the same damning truth: “Mr Smith’s telephone service had suffered from a poor grade of network performance over a period of several years.” These weren’t anomalies—they were admissions.

 

 

 

The Guarantees of Deceit

At the bottom of C04008, a handwritten note from the area general manager I had previously confronted revealed a chilling contradiction:

 “These are preparational notes recorded at the time of settlement. Alan Smith was not prepared to provide better substantiation of his claim.”

But she knew. She had already acknowledged the years of poor service. So why, just three months earlier, had she issued me two guarantees?

The deception was brazened. The same document admitted “some difficulty to detect exchange problems in the last eight months,” placing the origin of these faults as far back as April 1992.

This wasn’t oversight—it was orchestration. A senior corporate manager knowingly issued guarantees while the network crumbled beneath her. It was a deliberate act of misdirection, a corporate sleight of hand designed to pacify while concealing the rot.

This chapter doesn’t just expose negligence—it indicts a system built on corruption, manipulation, and betrayal. The guarantees were not promises—they were weapons of silence. And the shadow they cast over Telstra’s integrity is long, cold, and damning.

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CHAPTER 8

The Trap Tightens: Isolation by Design

By this stage in our relentless battle, the weight of loss was suffocating. Two partners gone. My health deteriorating. My business bleeding out. The once-vibrant Cape Bridgewater camp now stood in quiet decay—its buildings weathered, its spirit dimmed.

Telstra’s grip was tightening, and the cost was no longer just financial—it was existential.

The COT members clung to each other like survivors in a storm. We met often; our discussions charged with urgency and desperation. But beneath our resolve lay a grim truth: we were five small business owners staring down a corporate behemoth engineered to crush dissent.

Every strategy we devised felt like a whisper against a hurricane.

As 1992 faded into the cold dawn of 1993, doubt crept in like rot. Had I made a fatal error in settling with Telstra’s area general manager? The guarantees meant nothing.

The new exchange was a hollow promise. My phone faults persisted, mocking every effort to stay afloat. The silence from customers wasn’t natural—it was manufactured.

Meanwhile, my mortgage loomed like a guillotine. Forced to refinance, I absorbed new setup fees that deepened my financial wounds. I could no longer afford to maintain the camp’s infrastructure.

What once welcomed families now resembled a forgotten outpost—abandoned, neglected, and haunted by betrayal.

 

Surveillance and Suspicion: The War Behind the Wires

In this crucible of despair, two allies stood firm—Ann Garms and Graham Schorer. Together, we became comrades in arms, bound by shared suffering and a burning need for justice.

We dissected Telstra’s tactics, each revelation darker than the last. Their mishandling of our complaints wasn’t incompetence—it was strategy. A deliberate campaign to exhaust, confuse, and silence.

Ann’s suspicions grew sharper. During rare moments when our phones worked, she voiced a chilling theory: were our lines being bugged? Was Telstra listening, not just failing?

The idea wasn’t paranoia—it was plausible. In a war waged through wires, surveillance was just another weapon.

We weren’t just fighting for compensation. We were fighting to expose a system built on deception, manipulation, and control. Every fault, every delay, every silence was part of a larger design—a corporate architecture of suppression.

This chapter marks a descent—not into defeat, but into deeper awareness. The battlefield had shifted. It was no longer just about broken lines. It was about broken trust. And the war was far from over.

 

Chapter 9:

Surveillance, Sabotage, and the Machinery of Silence

On 19 August 1992, as the shadowy COT group began its descent into the dark underbelly of Australia’s telecommunications empire, a Telstra document surfaced—one that reeked of paranoia and covert operations.

It referenced Ann Garms’s business, The Tivoli Theatre Restaurant, with a chilling notation:

“Description: Line 1 NDT NRR suspect sabotage ?????”
NRR—Not Receiving Ring. But it was the handwritten scrawl that truly unsettled:
“… maybe the bug has slipped off” and “Looks like a job for super sleuth Sherlock Kelly?????”

This wasn’t technical banter. It was a glimpse into a culture of mockery, surveillance, and sabotage.

Another document, B00474, deepened the fog. It spoke of “three particular customers” and the writer’s frustration at being “continuously bombarded by these allegations”—allegations they simply “shrugged off.” Who were these three? And what of the cryptic mention of “Compass Security”?

Was it tied to Compass Airlines, a small carrier that collapsed amid swirling rumours of sabotage and persistent phone failures? Its owner claimed the faults were fatal. The implications were chilling: was someone deliberately engineering failure?

Then came the request for a “bug scanning device” by someone in “protective services.” What threat were they guarding against? What secrets were being whispered through the wires?

Ann and I felt it—an invisible presence on every call. The paranoia wasn’t imagined. It was earned.

In early 1993, Graham Schorer, now our COT spokesperson, stepped into the murky waters of politics, meeting with the chairman of the Regulatory body. As whispers of our plight reached Parliament, one question loomed like a spectre:
Would they dare challenge Telstra—or protect their golden goose?

Desperate and depleted, we scraped together what little we had to reach Canberra. It was a last-ditch mission to storm the gates of power.

Meanwhile, my phone service had reached a breaking point. Only through careful manoeuvring with the banks did I stave off repossession—a temporary reprieve from a system designed to crush.

By then, I had amassed over 70 letters from customers who were unable to reach me. One, dated 5 February 1993 from Mrs. Elsie Teer of the Werribee Outreach Centre, cancelled a booking due to “poor membership response”—a response crippled by Telstra’s engineered silence.
 

“It appears that you don’t answer your phone,” she wrote. The accusation hung in the air like smoke.

When I reported difficulties reaching Graham, Telstra’s staff responded with hollow promises. Then I uncovered FOI document K00045. A Telstra employee had scribbled a damning note:

• Once they recognised Schorer as a COT member, they opted not to test the service.
• It was abandonment. It was sabotage.

Another unnumbered FOI document chronicled my own complaint. The Telstra worker’s note read:

“Probably caused by ‘RCM.’ No need to investigate. Spoke with Bruce—he said not to investigate also.”

The rot was systemic. The conspiracy was real. Telstra wasn’t just ignoring us—they were orchestrating our collapse.
We weren’t fools. We were targets. And the machinery of silence was working exactly as designed.

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Chapter 10 

The Theatre of Deception: Politics, Power, and the Poisoned Handshake

By the first half of 1993, the damage was undeniable. Eleven more written complaints from would-be customers joined the growing archive of despair—each one a testament to the relentless sabotage that had plagued my business since April 1988.

Telstra’s negligence wasn’t just persistent—it was pathological. And yet, as June approached, a flicker of hope appeared. A Shadow Minister for Communications took notice.

A National Party Senator reached across the divide from Queensland, offering support to our battered community in Victoria.

But hope, I learned, can be a weapon. Behind the political curtain, deals were struck in hushed tones, in rooms where truth was a liability and manipulation reigned supreme.

My local Member of Parliament answered our call—but was he a champion or a chess piece? His allegiance felt slippery, his motives cloaked in ambition.

During the June 1993 campaign, the Opposition Senator and the National Party Senator pushed for a Senate Inquiry into our claims. An ex-Telstra insider confided that they were close—dangerously close—to exposing the rot at the top.

Had they succeeded, it could have shattered the fortress of impunity that Telstra’s executives hid behind. But the inquiry never came. The machinery of power closed ranks.

While politicians bartered influence, I stood alone in the labyrinth. The Regulator, visibly uneasy, seemed less a guardian and more a pawn.

Between February and June, I bombarded them with evidence—fraudulent overcharging on my 1800 free-call line and other vital services. But the silence was deafening. The system wasn’t broken. It was rigged.

 

Hijacked Signals: The Horror Beneath the Wires

Then came a new horror. Short-duration calls—ghost rings that vanished before I could answer. Deadlines that mocked my attempts to connect. These weren’t glitches.

They were symptoms of something darker. I began to suspect foul play. Were my calls being diverted? Was someone siphoning my business for their own gain?

What once seemed paranoid now felt prophetic. The idea that faxes and phone calls could be hijacked in secret was no longer absurd—it was real. And if it was happening to me, what did that mean for every phone subscriber in the country? Had we opened the door to a world where our communications could be weaponised?

The Commonwealth Ombudsman’s Office was drawn into the mire, alongside the Regulator. But instead of answers, I received stonewalling.

My FOI requests for data from the exchange’s testing equipment—crucial to understanding the scope of these violations—were met with silence. Fifteen years have passed since my first inquiry.

The only response? A six-day data snippet from May 1993. Was this incompetence—or a calculated act of obstruction?

As I pieced together the puzzle, the threads of corruption tightened like a noose. This wasn’t just a failure of service—it was a betrayal of trust, a systemic conspiracy to silence, deflect, and destroy.

How deep does this deception run? And when the truth finally surfaces, who will be left standing?

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Chapter 11

The Briefcase Betrayal: A Theatre of Lies

After years of relentless complaints to the Regulator—documenting everything from dropped calls to fraudulent charges—Telstra’s so-called “Network Investigations” department finally stirred.

But their response was not justice—it was theatre. On 3 June 1993, two shadowy figures from Telstra’s National Network Investigation Division arrived at my office, cloaked in the pretence of truth-seeking.

What followed was not an investigation—it was the opening act of a sinister farce now known as The Briefcase Saga.

They entered with an unremarkable briefcase and a rehearsed air of professionalism. I had hoped for a resolution. Instead, I was met with vague nods, empty platitudes, and a performance designed to pacify rather than uncover.

When it came time to leave, I had no vehicle—sold off to cover mounting debts—and they offered me a ride. But this was no act of kindness. En route, we stopped at the local exchange, where one technician, cloaked in secrecy, swapped out a tape from Telstra’s equipment. It was a quiet act of erasure—a calculated cover-up.

Hours later, a neighbour drove me back to my office. What awaited me was a revelation wrapped in betrayal. There, left behind like a ticking time bomb, was the unlocked briefcase.

I had no way to contact its owner, and the night stretched long with anticipation. The next morning, I opened it—and peeled back the layers of Telstra’s deception.

Inside was a file marked “SMITH, CAPE BRIDGEWATER.” My name. My battle. My torment. The contents were a mix of technical obfuscation and damning clarity.

Among them, I found records tied to the ex-gratia compensation I’d received on 11 December 1992. And then, the chilling phrase: “Problem 1.” My heart froze. The implications were monstrous.

 

The Anatomy of a Cover-Up: Telstra’s Ruthless Rewrite

The briefcase revealed a grotesque truth: Telstra had knowingly concealed the full extent of the RVA fault that crippled my business. They claimed it lasted three weeks in March 1992.

But the documents told a different story—one of eight relentless months of disconnection, deception, and despair. This wasn’t oversight. It was a deliberate fabrication. A betrayal so calculated it bordered on criminal.

One document, dated 24 July 1992, bore my phone number like a scar. It detailed the “service disconnected” message that greeted my callers—clients, tradespeople, friends—each one turned away by a lie.

Faults were listed from Station Pier in Melbourne and earlier from 17 March. The final line was damning:

“Network investigation should have been brought in as fault has gone on for eight months.”

Another minute from 2 July 1992 confirmed what Telstra’s local technicians already knew—my complaints were justified. The RVA fault was real, spreading, and affecting others.

 

Yet just months later, in November 1992, Telstra’s area general manager had the gall to claim the fault lasted only three weeks, causing a 50% call loss. The contradiction was grotesque. One side told the truth. The other sold a lie.

Desperate to expose their malevolence, I submitted Statutory Declarations detailing the evidence. But the Regulator was misled—told they had received all the briefcase contents.

It was a lie. In 1994, I uncovered FOI documents proving that vital evidence had been withheld. The shadows deepened.

I sent the damning file to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, pleading for recognition of Telstra’s manipulation. Their response? A letter dated 27 August 1993 from Telstra’s Corporate Secretary, coldly stating:

“Although there is nothing in these documents to cause Telstra any concern… the documents remain Telstra’s property and therefore are confidential to us.”

With chilling indifference, Telstra buried the truth. The briefcase was not a mistake—it was a window into a grand deception. Senior management had orchestrated a ruthless campaign to rewrite reality, all while pretending my service met network standards. It didn’t. It never had.

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Chapter 11 Continued (Part Two)

The Memo of Malice: A Settlement Built on Lies

On 17 June 1993, a confidential internal memo was penned by Telstra’s General Manager of Commercial for Victoria and Tasmania. Addressed to the Manager of Network Investigations, it exposed a damning truth:

Telstra’s area general manager had knowingly misled me during our December 1992 settlement—and she wasn’t acting alone. The deception was coordinated. The General Manager himself was complicit.

This wasn’t a misunderstanding. It was a calculated betrayal. The memo confirmed that Telstra’s leadership had deliberately fed me false information, warping my judgment and coercing me into a settlement under false pretences. Such conduct wasn’t just unethical—it was a direct violation of the Australian Trade Practices Act.

Yet Telstra never faced consequences. The betrayal was buried.

Even more disturbing, when the arbitrator issued his award on 11 May 1995, he ignored my documented warnings. I had clearly stated that Telstra had deceived me during the settlement.

But the arbitrator turned a blind eye, allowing Telstra’s misconduct to go unchallenged. Justice was not served—it was subverted.

 

The Regulator’s Silence: Democracy Denied

On 8 June 1993, the Regulator sent a letter to Telstra acknowledging my formal complaint. The faults hadn’t stopped. The so-called “settlement” had solved nothing.

The letter admitted that Telstra’s internal network findings starkly contradicted the information given to customers. It was an indictment of systemic deceit.

If true—and the evidence was overwhelming—it meant I had been manipulated. My decisions were based on lies. Worse still, other complainants had also been fed falsehoods.

This wasn’t an isolated incident. It was a pattern. A strategy. A betrayal of public trust.

I demanded an immediate response. I urged Telstra to provide the Regulator with the documents left behind in the infamous briefcase—documents that revealed the depth of their deception.

I asked for clarity on whether my service met network standards. I knew the answer. But I wanted them to admit it.

The Regulator’s concerns about the briefcase were justified. The contents weren’t just sensitive—they were explosive. They proved that Telstra’s senior management had orchestrated a grand deception, all while pretending to uphold democratic accountability.

What I uncovered wasn’t just corruption—it was a betrayal of the very principles that should protect citizens from corporate abuse.

 

CHAPTER 12

By April 1993, the number of articles in my local newspaper and of interstate gossip about the COT group was beginning to grow.  As a result of this, the Channel Nine ‘Sixty Minutes’ programme attempted to contact me by fax. 

They had been battling with the phone system too!  In fact, on my 1800 line they had only managed to reach a recorded message stating that 1800 “… was not available” and on my direct line, they got a continual engaged signal. 

A complaint to Telstra prompted the announcement that the lines to Cape Bridgewater were congested.  Surprise, surprise!

By June of 1993, the public were becoming interested in what they were hearing about our battle.

At the Camp, we acquired a logo especially for the over-forty’s singles club, which we were calling “Country Get-A-Ways”.

I hit the road with a vengeance, marketing a range of different weekend holidays. 

We 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 in South Australia. and

A Saturday morning shopping tour to Mt Gambier, also in South Australia.  This meant we could market the holidays in both Victoria and South Australia.

A special feature in the Melbourne Age newspaper gave the project a great write-up, and I began to feel things were finally looking up for the camp.  My spirits rose, at least temporarily. 

Then another plummet into despair: on 26th October, a fax arrived from a relative of the journalist who had written the Age feature, noting: “Alan, I have been trying to call you since midday. 

I have called seven times and have received an engaged signal each time.  It is now 2.45 pm.”

These attempts had been made on my 1800 free-call line.  My spirits sank right back down again. Later in this saga I checked this fax against Telstra’s own data for that day. 

Telstra’s records show one call at 12:01 lasting 6 minutes and another at 12:18 lasting 8 minutes.  There were no incoming calls at all between 12.30 and 2.44 that day. 

Where had these calls been going?  I was devastated but I decided not to let the bastards get me down.  Their continuing lies and assertions that they had found no faults on my service line must be exposed.

So, I stepped up the marketing of the camp and the singles-club weekends, calling on numerous recognised social clubs across the Melbourne metropolitan area and speaking personally with the people in charge. 

Over the next few weeks, I spoke to the Phoenix Social Club in Camberwell, the Australian Social Centre in Hartwell, Frenzy-In-Deed in Mont Albert and Capers in Knox City. 

I also visited other singles organisations in Ballarat and Warrnambool, large country centres in Victoria.

Further newspaper advertising followed, with ads placed with the Leader Newspaper group in Melbourne.   This local newspaper group covers twenty-three different metropolitan areas around Melbourne. 

Ads also went into 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, Mt Gambier-Border Watch etc. 

 

The Engineered Collapse: Silence, Sabotage, and Systemic Theft

The complaints never stopped. People struggled to reach the camp—some persevered, but how many gave up entirely? I’ll never know. What I do know is that Telstra’s sabotage was no longer passive—it was strategic. The silence on my lines wasn’t just a technical failure. It was engineered isolation.

Two letters from the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) confirmed Telstra’s evasiveness. When the Deputy TIO tried to extract an explanation for missing White Pages entries in 1993—entries tied directly to my Country Get-Away Singles Club—Telstra stonewalled.

I had launched a costly advertising campaign, unaware that my listings had been erased from eighteen major directories. Was this incompetence—or something far more sinister?

The Deputy TIO’s words still echo:

“We’d be flogging a dead horse trying to extract more.”

That wasn’t a resignation. It was an admission of Telstra’s untouchable status.

One Saturday night, after a couple of scotches, I broke down. I knew I could run the camp. I had the vision, the drive.

But I was trapped—like a rabbit in headlights. No customers meant bankruptcy. No working phones meant no customers. It was a vicious loop, designed to break me.

Graham Schorer called. He urged me to hold on. Later, even Ann Garms—usually unshakable—cried over the phone, saying she couldn’t go on. I told her, “Hang in there, Ann. We’ll beat the bastards yet.” But the bastards were winning.

A few successful Country Get-Aways lifted my spirits briefly, but the bookings never matched the reach of my advertising. The phones were still failing. The sabotage was still active.

In desperation, I contacted the clinical psychologist who had assessed the COT members back in 1992. His report had warned of psychological breakdowns caused by relentless environmental stress—stress directly linked to Telstra’s erratic phone service.

When I called his office in May 1993, the line cut out three times. His staff later confirmed the disruption in writing. Even my cry for help was intercepted.

Between May and October 1993, I received dozens of letters from schools, clubs, and singles groups—all reporting the same horror: they couldn’t reach me.

The executive officer of the Camping Association of Victoria wrote on 6 May that my ad had gone out in 10,000 copies of their Resource Guide. Other advertisers saw a surge in bookings. I saw silence.

 “The malfunction of your phone system effectively deprived you of similar gains,” he wrote.

He had received complaints himself. People were asking why I wasn’t answering my phone.

I received thirty-six letters and over forty additional complaints from people who had tried and failed to respond to my ads. The Haddon & District Community House wrote in April:

“Several times I have dialled your number and received no response—deadline.”

Even their youth worker had experienced the same issue over six months.
The Chilean Social Club wrote in August:

“I tried to ring you… I found it impossible to get through… I have decided to go with another camp.”

They had tried in April. They had tried in May. The sabotage was persistent.

As the letters piled up, I became convinced: Telstra’s senior executives were hiding the truth about the Cape Bridgewater exchange. They knew. They had to know. And still, they denied.

The Regulator’s General Manager of Consumer Affairs was growing uneasy. The evidence was overwhelming—ongoing complaints, incorrect billing, and a pattern of obstruction.

One woman from Croydon wrote about reaching a recorded voice announcement saying my phone was disconnected. “Quite strange,” she noted.

My Telstra 008 account showed several short calls that day. I was being charged for RVA messages—calls that never connected. Telstra called these “post dialling delay faults.” I called them thieves.

I told the Regulator I believed Telstra was intercepting COT members’ calls. Some of the short-duration calls I was billed for—calls I never answered—were being diverted. But to where? And by whom?

The Regulator dismissed my suspicions. Yet an internal Telstra memo dated 25 November 1993 confirmed the issue.

“Mr Smith is obviously well aware…” it began, before blaming answering machines, faxes, and call diverters.

But I had proof: my machines couldn’t have answered those calls. And I had never authorised any diversions. So, who did?

Telstra knew the scale of the short-duration and post-dialling delay faults as early as October 1993. They chose silence. They chose profit.

They continued to charge customers—me, you, everyone—knowing the system was broken. In some cases, they threatened to disconnect us if we didn’t pay even when the fault was theirs.

FOI document H36291, dated 11 October 1993, revealed a chilling admission:

“I am receiving a disturbing number of instances where the 1800 prefix ‘does not work’…”

Telstra was mid-campaign, promoting 1800 numbers nationwide. They knew the service was failing. They pushed ahead anyway.
FOI document H36293, dated 1 November, went further:

“All administration groups are being inundated with complaints…”

Businesses were advertising 1800 numbers. Customers couldn’t get through. Faul staff were overwhelmed.

Then came the most damning of all—FOI document H36178. Telstra admitted they were charging customers for failed calls.
Deadlines. No connection. Still billed.

They knew. They did it anyway.

“Should we be actively promoting 1800 in the circumstances?” someone asked.

The question was rhetorical. The answer was clear.

They already had.

This wasn’t just unethical. It was unconscionable. A national campaign built on broken infrastructure. A billing system designed to exploit failure. A corporation that weaponised silence and profited from sabotage.

Chapter Twelve ends not with resolution, but with revelation. The truth wasn’t lost. It was buried. And Telstra held the shovel.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 13

Later in 1993, a lady from Daylesford Community House contacted me to let me know that she had tried unsuccessfully to phone me on 17 August 1993—first at 5.17 pm and again at 5.18, 5.19 and 5.20.

Each time she phoned she reached a deadline. After the fourth unsuccessful attempt, she had reported the fault to Telstra’s fault centre in Bendigo at 1100.

She spoke to an operator who identified herself as Tina. Tina then rang my 008 number, and she couldn’t get through either.

Telstra’s handwritten memo, dated 17 August 1993, reports Tina’s attempt to contact me and refers to the community house's complaint to 1100, recording the times they tried to reach my phone.

A copy of my itemised 1800 account (R11519) for 17 August 1993 clearly shows that I was charged for all four of these calls, even though the customer never reached me. All this information was duly passed to the Regulator.

After the community house reported their experience to the fault centre, Telstra began to take a proactive approach and arranged for tests to be carried out on my line from a few different locations around Victoria and New South Wales.

Telstra then notified the Regulator that 100 test calls would be made to my 1800 free-call service on 18 August 1998.

That morning, I answered two calls from Telstra commercial, one lasting six minutes and the other eleven—these two occurred first thing in the morning as they set up for more test calls throughout the day.

Over the rest of that day, however, I only answered eight or nine calls.

Some days later, my 1800 phone account arrived, and lo and behold, something like 60 short-duration calls had been charged to my service! I queried this with Telstra commercial, asking how I could be charged for so many calls that did not connect and which I certainly did not answer.

Telstra wrote to the Regulator on 8 November 1993, noting that I had questioned the accuracy of data regarding 67 calls made in 54 minutes. Finally, Telstra reported that all the evidence indicated that ‘someone at the premises answered the calls.

Although the Regulator asked for the name of the Telstra employee who made these so-called successful calls to my business, and I have also asked for this information, so far, Telstra have refused to identify the employee.

The phone faults had started a snowball rolling down the mountain. The lack of customers, of course, meant a lack of income, my financial situation became worse, and, with my marriage over as well, my health suffered more.

Friends noticed the change in my personality, and those few clients who did manage to make contact were also commenting on my apparent ill-health.

The group from the Daylesford Neighbourhood House finally arrived for their holiday in January 1994. Later, two letters arrived from members of this group, complaining that my coin-operated customer gold phone service was most unsatisfactory.

They wrote that the phone was taking money ‘under false pretences’ and not connecting long enough for callers to complete their calls. Both wrote that the line kept ‘going dead’ and they both supplied their names and addresses.

Late in 1994, I received some documents in response to one of my FOI requests. This batch included two papers of interest regarding the Telstra test calls on 18 August 1993.

These documents, numbered K03433 and K03434, showed forty-four test calls, numbered from eight to sixty-three, to the Cape Bridgewater exchange, with some numbers missing.

Since, as I have previously said, I only answered eight or nine of the test calls, and only nine of the calls recorded on these two documents had tick or arrow marks beside them, I have continually asked Telstra what the marked calls represent.

 Still, I have not received any response to my questions.

 

Chapter 14: The Theatre of False Promises (Part One)

On December 9, 1993, a letter arrived from my local Member of Parliament—a polished cog in the well-oiled Liberal Coalition machine. He offered congratulations, praising my “persistence” in exposing the catastrophic state of Telstra’s country services.

But beneath the veneer of admiration lay a veiled lament. He could not hide his regret that my relentless pursuit of truth had come at such a steep personal cost.

It was a hollow gesture, a political pat on the back from someone who had watched the wreckage unfold from a safe distance.

That same week, the Minister for Communications from the Labor Government sent his own note—dripping with feigned concern.

He acknowledged the allegations against Telstra, stating that he accepted individuals like me had endured “significant personal and financial distress.” He insisted it warranted a thorough investigation. But his words hung in the air like a bad smell—empty, rehearsed, and devoid of any real intent.

As negotiations dragged on, we lobbied tirelessly for what was called a commercial assessment—a supposed binding agreement designed to bypass the courts.

But it was a façade, a bureaucratic sleight of hand meant to pacify us while shielding the true architects of our suffering. We were desperate for recognition, for someone to acknowledge the financial carnage wrought by Telstra’s broken systems.

A flicker of hope emerged: a Senate Inquiry. Perhaps, finally, the murky dealings would be dragged into the light.

Two Senators emerged as unlikely champions. One, the Shadow Minister for Communications, who would later ascend to the very ministry he once critiqued.

The other, a National Party stalwart—his party known for its backroom dealings and ruthless pragmatism. The Senate Hansard, that cold ledger of parliamentary debate, revealed Telstra’s reassurances to these Senators:

the four main COT members would have their claims assessed through the so-called Fast Track Settlement Proposal (FTSP).

But the FTSP was no beacon of justice. It was a calculated manoeuvre, a trap disguised as a lifeline.

The four of us—Maureen Gillen, Ann Garms, Graham Schorer, and myself—had been dragged through years of torment, our businesses gutted by a labyrinth of corporate and governmental negligence. What should have been a clear path to resolution was instead a fog-choked corridor, obstructed by unseen forces working in concert to bury the truth.

With the tacit approval of the Labor Government, the Regulator orchestrated the arrival of international experts from Bell Canada International Inc. (BCI).

It was presented as a bold step forward—a technical investigation to validate our claims. But the timing was suspect. My phone issues had reached a fever pitch between November 4 and 9, 1993—a period the Regulator knew was rife with chaos.

And yet, the tests were scheduled to begin only after the worst had passed.

It felt like a smokescreen. A performance. A carefully choreographed act designed to produce just enough noise to satisfy public scrutiny, while ensuring the deeper rot remained untouched.

As the shadows of bureaucracy loomed larger, it became increasingly clear: the path to justice was riddled with insidious agendas. We were pawns in a game we never agreed to play, and the rules kept changing—always in Telstra’s favour.

At the conclusion of BCI’s rigorous tests, a comprehensive report was produced.

But what it revealed—and what it concealed—would mark the next chapter in this sinister saga.

 

Chapter 14: The Theatre of False Promises (Part Two)

The much-anticipated Bell Canada International (BCI) report, hailed as a beacon of truth, ultimately collapsed under its own inadequacy.

It failed to meet even the Australian Regulator’s expectations. The fatal flaw? The BCI technicians had not tested the very artery of my business’s survival—the Customer Access Network (CAN), the line connecting my premises to the local exchange.

It was like diagnosing a patient without checking their pulse.

 

Freedom of Information documents A00404 to A00407 revealed a damning letter from Telstra’s Commercial General Manager, dated 15 December 1993.

In it, he confessed—albeit cloaked in corporate language—that the Regulator had judged the BCI report a failure.

He wrote, “Reasonable inferences might be drawn regarding deficiencies in the competence, professional standing, and integrity of BCI, as well as the competence and integrity of Telstra and myself…” The admission was chilling—a rare glimpse behind the curtain.

But Telstra wasn’t done. In the same letter, they refused to allow the Regulator’s December 9 letter to be attached to the BCI report if it were to be shared with the assessors handling the COT cases.

A handwritten note scrawled at the bottom of the final page— “There are a multitude of inaccuracies”—was linked by an arrow to the Regulator’s letter.

I later obtained that very letter through FOI documents K47052 to K47054. In its closing lines, the Regulator stated unequivocally:

“The BCI report should not be made available to the assessors… without a copy of this letter being attached.”

But Telstra never if letter to my arbitrator. This deliberate omission—this surgical extraction of context—was never questioned by the Minister for Communications or the TIO, despite their full awareness that Telstra had weaponised the BCI report in their defence.

The arbitrator, in his May 11, 1995, award, acknowledged the BCI report as part of the arbitration process. He had been handed a blade without its sheath.

Just one week after Telstra sent their letter to the Regulator, an internal email (FOI document A00354) surfaced.

It discussed a new tariff filing due on December 20, 1993—one that would commit Telstra to a 98% customer call completion rate. But buried in the email was a chilling confession:

“Telstra will not meet this 98% figure in many exchanges throughout Australia, particularly in rural areas.”

They knew.

They had always known.

FOI document A09392 drove the dagger deeper. It revealed scepticism from within Telstra itself.

“Parameters for Cape Bridgewater RCM have been obtained, but I don’t believe them,”

One employee wrote: “Some of the sources providing this data are from ‘old Telecom’.”

The implication was clear: the data was tainted, unreliable, and possibly fabricated. And yet, Telstra withheld this information from my FOI requests. Why? Because the truth was too dangerous.

Describing the anguish endured by the four COT complainants is no easy task. Telstra, then a fully government-owned entity, was a national institution—its name sanctified by decades of advertising and public trust.

And yet, behind the curtain, it operated like a predator cloaked in bureaucracy.

Around this time, Telstra engaged Coopers & Lybrand to audit its fault-handling procedures. The findings were explosive. Coopers were stunned by the evidence presented in the COT cases.

Telstra’s unethical management of our complaints raised serious alarms. But Telstra’s response was not one of reflection—it was retaliation.

On 9 November 1993, Telstra’s Group Managing Director wrote to a colleague:

“I believe it should be pointed out to Coopers and Lybrand that unless this report is withdrawn and revised, their future in relation to Telstra may be irreparably damaged.”

A threat. Plain and simple. The second-highest executive in the nation’s largest telecom monopoly had issued a warning to an international auditing firm.

But Coopers didn’t flinch. They tabled their report in the Senate and released it publicly, unchanged.

The report’s findings were damning:

• 2.20: “Some customers were put under a degree of pressure to agree to sign settlements which, in our view, goes beyond normal accepted fair commercial practices.”
• 2.22: “Telstra placed an unreasonable burden on difficult network fault cases to provide evidence… where all telephone fault information… should have been held by Telstra.”
• 3.5: “We could find no evidence that faults discovered by Telstra staff… are communicated to the staff at business service centres…”

With BCI and Coopers & Lybrand exposing Telstra’s rot, we—the COT Four—finally felt vindicated. We weren’t paranoid. We weren’t exaggerating. Telstra had a case to answer.

The Regulator’s own investigation confirmed it: the Telstra network was flawed, and the COT Four had been right to bring it to public attention. Four ordinary Australians, financially broken, had landed a blow against a Goliath.

But even as we tasted the faintest hint of justice, betrayal loomed.

Despite the mountain of evidence, the Regulator’s Chairman leaned on Telstra—not to reform, but to appoint a commercial loss assessor.

It was a trap disguised as a process. The Fast Track Settlement Process was a mirage, promising swift access to discovery documents while keeping us ensnared in their web.

Telstra pretended to cooperate. They promised to fix the faults before any payouts were assessed. But this was no act of goodwill—it was sabotage. If the faults were fixed before assessment, how could we prove our losses?

It was a masterstroke of manipulation.

We pressed the Regulator’s Chairman for written confirmation that our preparatory costs would be recognized. He recoiled. “Such a concession could set a dangerous precedent,” he warned.

The ground beneath us was treacherous, and we were walking it blindfolded.

Then came the letter from Telstra’s Corporate Secretary, dated 18 November 1993. It seemed innocuous—until you read between the lines. Only the COT Four would be scrutinised by an assessor. We were being isolated.

Targeted. The enclosed amended Fast Track Proposal came with a chilling ultimatum: accept by 5 p.m. on 23 November, or face arbitration—a process designed to exhaust and entangle.

 

We stood at a crossroads. Clause 2(c) of the proposal needed to include consequential losses. Without it, we would be signing away our right to true compensation.

The clock ticked. Every moment felt like a move in a deadly game of chess. And the question loomed like a spectre:

Could we trust the very system that was supposed to protect us?

 

Chapter 16: The Machinery of Misinformation

The ink had barely dried on the FTSP agreement when the machinery of betrayal began to grind into motion.

Graham, Ann, Maureen, and I had signed on 23 November 1993, clinging to the Regulator’s verbal assurances like drowning men to driftwood. We believed—naïvely—that consequential losses would be honoured.

That justice, however delayed, would finally arrive.

I enclosed a letter with my signed agreement, a desperate attempt to anchor the process in integrity:

“I am relying on the assurances of …, Chairman of the Regulator, and …, , General Manager of the Regulator’s Consumer Affairs Department, that this is a fair document.”

But even then, the rot was visible.

“I was disappointed that …  was unwilling to put his assurances in writing…”

The silence was deafening. The omission, deliberate.

Maureen’s health was deteriorating. Her business partner grew cold, irritated by our calls. The pressure on all four of us was immense—media interviews, Senate lobbying, endless documentation.

We were fraying, but I kept pushing. The fight for rural telecommunications reform had become a crusade.

Letters poured in from across Australia. Small businesses. Ordinary subscribers. All victims of Telstra’s decaying infrastructure. Billing anomalies. Deadlines. Phantom charges. I contacted Telstra directly, documenting every plea. They responded with silence. Not even a token acknowledgement. So, I turned to the media.

The public rallied. TV stations and newspapers received letters echoing our plight. One from a firm of insurance loss adjusters in Ballarat, sent to Channel 7’s Real Life, was damning:

STD-fee-based local calls.

• “This number is not connected” messages—false and frequent.
• Engaged signals when lines were free.
• A Telstra bill up 25–30% despite reduced workload and fewer staff.

Another letter, sent to the Herald-Sun in April 1993, confirmed the nightmare:

• Two years of failed attempts to contact Cape Bridgewater Holiday Camp.
• Deadlines.
• Piercing fax-like noises.

Even Telstra’s own tests confirmed the interference. They switched my service to another system. It made no difference.

TV stations reported their phones lighting up after airing stories about Telstra’s failures. The public’s outrage gave us strength. We pressed harder in the Senate.

But behind the scenes, the machinery of misinformation was already in motion.

FOI documents revealed that several Labor Senators were growing alarmed by what we were uncovering. But Telstra wasn’t reporting the truth. More FOI documents hinted at something darker:

journalists were being approached—pressured to kill stories.

FOI document C04054, titled “COT Wrap-Up”, was a masterclass in corporate manipulation:

“These customers are not going to become delighted. We are dealing with the long-term aggrieved and they will not lie down.”

Then the strategy:

 

“Target key reporters in major papers… turn them on to sexy ‘Look at superbly built and maintained network’ stories.”

And the chilling directive:

“Clinton should be targeted for decent Telstra exclusives to get his mind out of the gutter.”

Who was Clinton? What gutter? The memo didn’t say. But the intent was clear: distract, deflect, deceive.

FOI document A04646 confirmed the campaign to muzzle the media:

“Good news re Channel  'News. It didn’t run on the main bulletin last night—we can be certain the story died the death. I wish I could figure which phrase convinced  not to proceed. Might have been one of ’s pearls.”

The last name referred to Telstra’s Corporate Secretary. The reporter and station were redacted—but the implication was unmistakable. A respected journalist had been convinced to drop the story. How? Why?

Had Telstra met with us early on—listened, acted—there would have been no need for media manipulation. No need for the COT group. We only wanted working phones. A level playing field.

Many FOI documents were censored before release. Names blacked out. But others revealed that Telstra’s area general manager had been appointed to “deal with the media/politicians” regarding COT.

I had already recounted how this same manager had misled me during the settlement process. Now she was one of only two people tasked with shaping the narrative.

Would she mislead the media as she had misled me?

And why was the author of the memo so afraid of “tripping up”?

The deeper we dug, the clearer it became this wasn’t just negligence. It was a coordinated campaign. A corporate war against truth. And we were its casualties.

 

Chapter 17: The Anatomy of a Cover-Up (Part 1)
 

On April 22nd, just one day after I initiated arbitration proceedings, the machinery of deception began to stir.

The Regulator received three fax sheets from my office—blank, devoid of content, and conspicuously missing any identifying fax number. It was as if the transmission had been scrubbed clean, deliberately tampered with to sow confusion.

Had I not followed up with a phone call to clarify the contents, those pages might have been dismissed entirely, their origin buried in ambiguity.

Each sheet bore a small icon in the corner—an eerie fingerprint of something sent but erased. I urged the Regulator to examine their fax journal.

The logs confirmed my suspicions: the pages had indeed come from my fax number. But the timestamps told a darker story. A blank fax typically takes thirty seconds to transmit.

These took between one minute and forty seconds to two minutes and twenty-two seconds. Where had the data gone? What had been intercepted, altered, or erased in transit?

This wasn’t a technical hiccup—it was a calculated disruption, timed to coincide with the first day of arbitration.

Then, on April 26th, the corruption surfaced in full view. My son, trying to reach me from his mother’s house, made fifteen attempts to call my 1800 line. Each call met only silence—engaged tones or dead air.

Telstra’s own fault report, document K37932, confirmed the failed attempts. But instead of acknowledging the fault, Telstra billed me for every single call.

Blindly. Brazenly. As if the calls had connected. Was this part of a broader scheme—legitimate calls reclassified as “post-dialling delays” or “short-duration faults,” all to pad their billing and mask the network’s decay?

I cross-referenced my Telstra accounts with their internal data. The truth was undeniable: I had been charged for fifteen calls that never connected. And this wasn’t new.

I had amassed years of documentation proving Telstra’s awareness of the persistent faults. Back in August 1993, I had flagged strange behaviours on my outgoing fax line—customers reported hearing me move around after calls had supposedly ended.

I let it slide, overwhelmed by the chaos. But on April 26th, the same day my son couldn’t reach me, the ghosts of that fault returned.

I contacted a senior engineer at the Regulator. We ran tests. The results were damning. The fault was inside Telstra’s network—not my equipment. We verified it using two identical Telstra phones. The malfunction was systemic.

Institutional. Yet the response was predictable: I was told to contact Telstra again. To endure another round of denial, deflection, and blame.

The layers of corruption were suffocating. This wasn’t incompetence—it was a deliberate campaign to obscure the truth.

I repeated the tests for Telstra’s technician. He agreed to collect the phone the next day. But documents K00940 and K00941—obtained later—revealed the technician already knew the fault wasn’t in the phone. It was heat.

Heat inside the Cape Bridgewater exchange. Internal emails discussed similar failures in another state, caused by overheating inside the exchange. They knew. They always knew.

On April 27th, just after dawn, Telstra called to arrange the pick-up. I had just returned from battling a bushfire with the local CFA—twelve hours on the fire truck, exhausted.

I explained my situation, politely requesting the technician come after 1 p.m. so I could sleep. Later, I reviewed a Freedom of Information document.

The record of our conversation had been butchered. Telstra noted only: “Mr. Smith was tired and wanted to go to bed.” They omitted the context. The fatigue.

The fire. The request. It was a subtle manipulation—language twisted to suit their narrative.

As the arbitration loomed, I felt compelled to compile my own claim, drawing heavily from the Regulator’s “COT report” released in April 1994. But even that report had been compromised.

The Regulator’s chairman, under pressure from Telstra, agreed to revisions. Telstra had threatened an injunction—a legal chokehold that could bury the report indefinitely.

The chairman relented, allowing the COT Four access to only fragments of the truth.

While the Regulator found several of my claims substantiated, I later discovered their conclusions were based solely on Telstra’s data. And that data was false.

Telstra had misled the Regulator about the age of the Cape Bridgewater exchange. I had hired a telecommunications expert from Queensland to support my case.

His analysis relied on the Regulator’s report. But the foundation was rotten. The report claimed the exchange was an ARK model—a relatively modern system.

It was a RAX exchange, designed in the late 1940s or early 1950s for low-call-rate areas. The ARK came two decades later, a significant technological leap.

My claim covered the first three and a half years of ownership, with the full span reaching six and a half years. We had all believed a modern exchange was in place.

But the truth was buried. My expert worked from a false premise. The Regulator relied on incomplete data. And Telstra—Telstra had orchestrated it all.

Was this misrepresentation just another glitch? Or was it a calculated deception—another thread in the web designed to obscure the reality of my persistent phone troubles?

This was beginning to look like a repeat of the tobacco companies and their deceptive conduct over twenty years, hiding their true knowledge about the addictive effects of nicotine and then hiding their understanding of the smoker’s health risks as well. 

Telstra was (and still is) no different, really.  They were fully aware that several of their exchanges around Australia were outdated and were therefore causing enormous difficulties for their subscribers, small-business people and the public alike. 

Still, they hid these facts and did nothing to improve the system. 

For years, Telstra continued to charge me for calls that never connected, for RVA calls and for short-duration (and therefore useless) calls. 

 

Why hasn’t the TIO’s office investigated my irrefutable evidence?  After all, this evidence is supported by Telstra’s own data.

Some nine months earlier, in August of 1993, after being in Melbourne for a COT meeting, I arrived home to be confronted by a Sheriff from the Justice Department. 

He had a warrant requiring payment of an overdue account with one of my suppliers, or seizure of goods in lieu of payment. 

I asked if he would wait fifteen minutes while I tried to talk to the people, I owed money to, but he would not. I placed a judo wrestling hold on him and walked him out of my office.

No punches were thrown. Later I was charged, in the Magistrate’s Court, with assault; I appealed the court action, defended the charge successfully and saved the day there was no conviction once the judge could see there were two sides to this story.

Telstra’s FOI Unit was also interested in this situation since a copy of a newspaper article about the incident, which later came from Telstra’s records, included in documents supplied in response to one of my FOI requests. 

What this has to do with my phone problems is anyone’s guess, although I have since learned that Telstra were accumulating a lot of personal information about me in a file containing details of who rang me, when they rang and from where, as well as when my staff left my business at the end of their working day. 

Apparently, they were not only interested in my complaints about phone faults.

And so, I battled on.  A law student to assist would have been a Godsend!  The mountain of documents continued to grow and threatened to engulf me, while Telstra’s multiplying legal team stood by, waiting to pounce on the slightest crack they could

manufacture in the claim documents I submitted.  The knowledge that highly qualified legal experts would pour over every document I sent, didn’t exactly help to keep my confidence was daunting. 

Finally, I sought out the TIO and his legal counsel, explaining my lack of confidence and reiterating their chairman’s reason for first asking for a non-legalistic hearing for us – he had always believed this would be the best and fairest way for to present our cases.

The TIO could only console me by telling me to ‘do the best you can’.  The TIO’s legal counsel reassured me that the new process was fair and advised me to ‘give it a go’. 

And so, I had no choice but to seek help from professionals in the field.  I began by approaching a local firm of loss assessors in nearby Mt Gambier, just over the border in South Australia,

about one hundred and ten kilometres away. An agent headed this firm for New Zealand Insurance.  When I first phoned, I spoke to him and explained who I was, gave my location and what I hoped to have help with.

There was quite a long pause before he asked me if I had suffered some storm damage at the camp about four or five years earlier. 

I remembered that I had.  It turned out he had acted as the loss assessor back then and remembered having a lot of trouble contacting me by phone, so he had finally written to let me know they were coming to assess the storm damage.

After discussing my current position in more detail, the agent decided that my problems were outside their area of expertise. 

Imagine, Telstra and the TIO expected me to prepare my claim alone, and a professional loss assessor believed the case was too complicated for him to take on. 

Here I was, a marine cook—, a chef—, and the TIO and his legal counsel could only tell me to ‘do the best you can’! I continued my search for assistance in the Melbourne metropolitan area, approaching four communications companies. 

Three didn’t even respond in writing, and the fourth simply wished me luck in finding someone brave enough to go up against Telstra.

It was at this stage that I approached the technical advisor in Queensland, who finally came on board.  He was already working on Ann Garms’s case, and she had suggested I talk to him. 

It was just a shame that he was so far away from me geographically, as this, of course, complicated everything just that bit more. 

When Telstra discovered that we had secured this expert help, they approached him and offered him work:  

They were still trying to close off all avenues for the COTs.  This man, however, at seventy years of age, was having none of that. 

 He made it quite clear that, if he took up Telstra’s offer, it would create a definite conflict of interest and severely disadvantage the COT members, and so, bless his beautiful heart, he declined their offer. 

It would seem that at least one Australian was prepared to put himself on the line and face up to Telstra’s bottomless financial public purse.

Finally, after exhaustive searching, I stumbled upon a Loss Assessor company, Freemans, located a staggering twelve hundred kilometres away on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland.

It was then that I enlisted an ex-detective from the National Crime Authority. He agreed to assist me, but only on the rather dubious condition that his payment would be contingent upon winning my claim.

The only compensation he would accept upfront was for his travel expenses to come to Cape Bridgewater from Queensland. 

With a web of professionals in place, the real challenge lay in raising finances to bring this detective to the camp. My business lay in ruins, and I felt ensnared like a butterfly caught in an intricate trap.

The disastrous phone service had inflicted substantial losses that sent my finances spiralling downward, yet I urgently needed funding to sustain my battle.

Bankruptcy loomed over me like a dark cloud, but I was resolute—Telstra’s treachery would not claim my camp.

Government Ministers, Coopers & Lybrand, and the Regulator were all in unison: the COT cases were justified, and Telstra was undeniably at fault. Even Telstra had, in a rare moment of honesty, conceded to the Minister for Communications that my assertions held merit.

Yet here we were, exhausted and without any financial lifeline, left to scrape together the resources to file claims that most other loss assessors would dare not touch.

Amidst this chaos, a deluge of nine hundred to a thousand discovery documents arrived from Telstra, a response to one of my FOI requests.

“Fantastic,” I thought., “Finally, progress!” But I soon realised, the reality revealed itself—Telstra had complied, yet with an insidious twist.

They were required by the FOI Act to present the documents in an orderly fashion, ideally chronological, and with an accessible numbering system. Instead, they delivered a chaotic mass of papers, devoid of any meaningful organisation.

No context was provided to explain what these documents signified, and many were so heavily redacted that they became utterly useless. It was enough to frustrate even the most seasoned attorney.

One document stood out like a cruel mockery of my plight. It began ominously:

“Mr Smith has recently reported further faults which have all been investigated, with some confirmed and corrected. Investigation into others continues.”

Yet the rest of the page was submerged in black ink, rendering it unreadable. How could I possibly support my legitimate claim with deck like this? It was a sinister game, and the stakes felt impossibly high.

 

Chapter 18: Surveillance and Silence

Driven by the gnawing suspicion that something far more insidious was unfolding around me, I orchestrated a plan to summon a detective to the camp.

The goal was simple: expose the sinister web that had entangled my phone lines and my life. His brief stay revealed a chilling truth—short-duration calls, inexplicable fax failures to Queensland, and deadlines that defied logic.

With the instincts of a seasoned investigator, he concluded what I had long feared: I was under surveillance.

This wasn’t paranoia. It was fact—later confirmed by Freedom of Information documents, including K01006, which revealed that Telstra had been meticulously tracking my movements and those of my staff.

Every step, every call, every absence was logged with disturbing precision.

One Telstra email, dated Thursday, 7th April 1994 at 2:05 PM, raised immediate alarm. The timing was no coincidence—it aligned with my engagement in a Regulator-designed commercial agreement with Telstra. One would expect such covert operations to be unthinkable under such circumstances. Yet here it was, in black and white. 

The email went on to note my planned absence from 5th to 8th August 1994. This wasn’t a casual observation—it was foreknowledge.

The author even referenced previous absences tied to documented complaints about “Not Receiving Rings.”

They had tracked my call time on a call from 6th April 1994, a detail so granular it could point to only one conclusion: I was being watched.

How could Telstra possess such intimate knowledge of my schedule months in advance? They have never provided a credible explanation. Instead, they buried the truth beneath layers of silence and denial.

The same Telstra operative had the audacity to claim I had voluntarily disclosed details of a private conversation with a former Australian Prime Minister. This was a blatant lie.

I never shared such information. Yet Telstra remained silent, refusing to correct the record—another chilling indication that my private conversations were being intercepted, even as I battled them in litigation.
One unnumbered FOI document revealed even more disturbing insight:

The writer knew the usual calling location of one of my regular contacts, despite that day’s call originating “somewhere near Adelaide.”

 How could they know this unless they were listening in? The implications shattered every notion of privacy and trust.

I raised these revelations with the Minister for Communications, the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO), and the Federal Police. I presented overwhelming evidence of Telstra’s blatant invasion of my privacy.

Their response? Silence. A silence that reeked of complicity. A silence that left me abandoned. Listening in on private calls is detestable enough.

But the more profound betrayal lay in the official records. Page A133 of the Senate Hansard, dated 25th February 1994, captured a moment of reckoning.

 

 

The then-Shadow Minister for Communications grilled the Regulator’s Chairman, demanding answers:

“Why did the Regulator not immediately refer the COT’s allegations of voice recording to the Federal Police instead of waiting for the Minister to refer the matter to the Attorney General and then on to the Federal Police?”

The question hung in the air like a blade.

FOI document K00701, dated 14th January 1994 and chillingly titled “Voice Monitoring of Priority, Investigation Services,” confirmed what we feared.

It detailed voice monitoring conducted on three Priority Case Investigation services in Country Victoria and Tasmania. The web of corruption was vast. The betrayal was deliberate. The treachery is institutional.

And through it all, the silence remained. A silence that spoke louder than any denial. A silence that confirmed the presence of dark forces operating behind closed doors—watching, listening, manipulating.

 

Chapter 19: The Illusion of Due Process

By the time arbitration proceedings were underway, the illusion of fairness had already begun to unravel. What was presented as a legitimate process—a path to justice—was in fact a carefully orchestrated theatre of control.

Behind the scenes, Telstra’s influence seeped into every corner of the system, contaminating the very mechanisms meant to protect us.

The arbitrator, supposedly impartial, was operating under constraints that were never disclosed to the claimants.

Documents later obtained through FOI revealed that Telstra had been granted access to the arbitrator’s office—an arrangement that defied every principle of neutrality.

They were allowed to submit documents directly, unchallenged, and without oversight. Meanwhile, we—the COT members—were kept in the dark, denied access to critical evidence, and forced to navigate a maze of redacted files and missing records.

One internal Telstra memo, dated during the early stages of arbitration, referred to the COT claimants as “persistent agitators.” The language was telling. We weren’t victims seeking justice—we were obstacles to be managed. The memo outlined strategies to “contain” our influence, including delaying responses, withholding technical data, and subtly discrediting our claims through selective leaks to media contacts.

The arbitrator’s office, rather than acting as a firewall against this manipulation, became complicit.

Requests for discovery documents were routinely denied or ignored. Technical reports were accepted without verification.

And when discrepancies were raised—such as mismatched fault logs or billing anomalies—they were brushed aside as “administrative oversights.”
But the oversights were never random.

They always favoured Telstra.

One alarming FOI document revealed that Telstra had installed monitoring equipment on several COT members’ lines during arbitration. The justification? “Network diagnostics.”

But the timing and scope suggested something far more sinister—real-time surveillance of our communications while we were engaged in legal proceedings against them. This wasn’t just unethical. It was a violation of due process.

Even the Regulator, who had initially shown signs of support, began to retreat. Pressure from Telstra mounted. Meetings were postponed. Reports were diluted. And when questions were raised in the Senate, the answers were vague, evasive, and contradictory.

The TIO, tasked with overseeing the fairness of the process, remained silent. Letters went unanswered. Complaints were buried. And when pressed, their office cited “resource constraints” and “procedural limitations.”

It was a masterclass in bureaucratic deflection.

Meanwhile, Telstra continued to shape the narrative. Media outlets that had once shown interest in our story began to pull back. Journalists who had promised coverage suddenly went quiet.

FOI documents later revealed coordinated efforts by Telstra’s media team to “neutralise” unfavourable press—offering exclusive stories, advertising incentives, and behind-the-scenes access in exchange for silence.

The deeper we dug, the clearer it became arbitration was never about resolution. It was about containment—a mechanism designed to pacify the victims while shielding the perpetrator.

And we had walked into it willingly, believing it was our last hope.

 

Chapter 20: The Vanishing Signals

It was during one of my darkest spirals into depression that I stumbled upon a revelation buried deep within the Regulator’s COT report—a revelation so chilling it felt like a trapdoor opening beneath my feet.

The truth lay in the shadows of November 1993, where Bell Canada International (BCI) and Telstra’s NEAT testing overlapped in a way that defied logic and exposed a sinister orchestration.

Page 157 of the Regulator’s report revealed that Telstra had conducted NEAT testing from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. between 28 October and 8 November 1993 at the Cape Bridgewater exchange.

Meanwhile, BCI’s test report—dated 10 November—claimed their own testing occurred during the same period, save for a suspicious gap on 9 November. That gap was no accident. It was a blind spot—an engineered silence.

Each NEAT test consumed up to 100 seconds, monopolising the line and preventing any other activity. BCI’s tests, by contrast, required only 15 seconds between calls.

The math didn’t add up. There wasn’t enough time in the day to accommodate both sets of calls. And yet, both reports claimed they ran their tests without conflict.

The implication was grotesque: either the tests were fabricated, or someone had manipulated the data to fit a narrative.

The BCI report listed 1,675 calls from Richmond and 328 from South Yarra—calls made to the same numbers as Telstra’s tests.

It was not merely improbable. It was impossible. A calculated impossibility designed to deceive.

Telstra later weaponized fragments of the BCI report to support their façade—that their network was functioning flawlessly.

This fraudulent report was paraded before Parliament and the media, a masterstroke of deception. The test calls were staged, the results doctored to portray a false image of operational success.

In June 1994, I dared Telstra to disprove my findings. What I uncovered next was a smoking gun: FOI document A05254, an internal Telstra email sent to senior officials.

It spoke of a “cleansing” initiative—an effort to suppress the BCI scandal in the wake of the Coopers debacle.

The language was coded, but the intent was unmistakable: erase the evidence, rewrite the narrative.

My investigation deepened. I unearthed an undated Telstra minute titled “Grade of Service Complaint:

Mr Alan Smith…” It acknowledged ongoing congestion between Cape Bridgewater and Portland, admitting only five junctions were available. It hinted at an upgrade, but the tone was evasive—an unsettling admission of infrastructure failure buried beneath corporate doublespeak.

Armed with these documents, I revisited the Regulator’s report and found a venomous contradiction on page 165.

Telstra’s latest evaluation of the Cape Bridgewater RCM fault didn’t align with contemporaneous reports or GAPS records from September 1992.

The discrepancy was glaring—a cover-up of higher complaint rates, a deliberate distortion of reality.

Confusion gave way to dread. Was FOI document A05254 a glimpse into a calculated effort to cleanse an international test report? The chaos in my fax line mirrored the corruption in Telstra’s operations.

I sent letters in desperation—to advisors, to the arbitrator—hoping my voice would pierce the veil of silence.

Two government documents crystallised the madness. One, dated 26 February 1994, stated:

“Attached are copies of correspondence received by the Hon. … MP, from Alan Smith, outlining FURTHER difficulties he is having with his telephone and facsimile service.”

The other, from the Regulator to Telstra’s Group Manager on 10 June 1994, warned:

“Mr. Smith at Cape Bridgewater continues to express concern about his ability to receive and send facsimiles.”

The struggle had become a sinister adventure—one man against a system engineered to deceive.

The Regulator’s unease grew like a shadow over my reality. I sent them relentless proof of fraudulent charges on my 1800 account.

Each time I compared my records to Telstra’s printed data, the truth screamed back: I was being billed for calls that never connected.

Worse, I was charged for faxes that emerged as blank sheets—ghost transmissions billed as successes.

The day after I abandoned the original commercial agreement and signed for arbitration, the “blank fax page” mystery intensified. Each empty sheet bore a strange symbol—sometimes on the left, sometimes on the right—mocking my attempts to communicate.

What did these symbols mean? Why did they appear only on lost transmissions?

I timed the sending of a blank page. It took 10 to 15 seconds. A full document took far longer. Yet these “lost” faxes—sent to my legal advisors and accountant—showed inflated transmission times and arrived devoid of content.

My appeals were met with silence. Not one explanation emerged. My arbitrator ignored the evidence. On 23 May 1994, Telstra claimed my fax failed due to a busy line.

But where was the retry system? Why charge me for a failed attempt? My account showed seven non-connected calls to the arbitrator’s office that day.

On 22 April 1994, I sent three faxes to the Regulator—documents comparing billing records to customer statements. I knew how long a complete document should take.

Yet I was drowning in Telstra’s manipulation. By 2003, the Commonwealth Ombudsman passed all my evidence to the TIO. That evidence confirmed my suspicions: my faxes bore identification numbers from long-discontinued lines.

When I sent the same document to the correct number of moments later, it arrived flawlessly.

What depths of deceit were at play?

Telstra knew their 1800 billing and short-duration faults were affecting the entire country. Yet they denied everything. The trauma they inflicted on me—and countless Australians—was buried beneath a corporate smokescreen.

The Regulator’s conduct turned from passive to sinister. During my arbitration, they wrote to a government minister falsely claiming that all six of my telephone services met the standards.

This was a lie. Prior communications had revealed the opposite. Why mislead the Minister? Why reduce the known 120,000 COT-type customers to a mere fifty in their report?

Perhaps the Telstra liaison officer had pulled the strings. This same officer was implicated by a whistleblower for tampering with FOI documents—obscuring critical details about Telstra’s responsibilities.

A clear indication of corruption lurking beneath the surface of the establishment.

My appeals continued. My questions about the blank pages echoed in the void. No answers. No accountability. Just silence.
And on 23 May 1994, Telstra dared to claim my fax failed due to a busy line.

But I knew better, yet I questioned: what happened to the system that should retry?

Why charge me for an unfulfilled attempt, and where did my documents vanish?

My account reflected seven non-connected calls to the arbitrator’s office that day, a cold reminder of the inexorable battle against a system designed to ensnare rather than serve.

During all this, Telstra knew their 1800 billing and short-duration faults were causing problems across the whole country, yet they denied they existed, regardless of the trauma their cover-up was causing me – and many other Australians.

Back in June of 1994 however, I asked the arbitrator for extra time to prepare my claim. He allowed only one extra week, yet, as the records show,

Telstra was allowed an extra 72 days on top of the original 6 months’ time already given to them by the arbitrator.

Did Telstra deliberately delay the supply of discovery documents to gain more time to prepare its defence?

Or did they delay the supply to give their defence unit more time to go over the discovery documents before my advisors saw them? By this time, why hadn’t the TIO contacted the Minister for Communications and had Telstra pulled into line?

How, in the name of justice, were the members of COT ever going to be able to support the claims they were making if Telstra would not provide the discovery documents the COTs were asking for under FOI?

These delays were severely disadvantaging all the COT members: the longer we were kept waiting, the longer our advisors and researchers were kept waiting, and the more it cost us to participate in this so-called ‘fast-tracked’ procedure.

Personally, I began to wonder if Telstra wasn’t working to a plan—a plan to send me broke before the arbitration was ever settled, simply.

 

Chapter 21: The Dumping Ground of Deceit (Part 1)

In a chilling twist of synchronicity, the American film Class Action was released just as I found myself navigating the treacherous waters of my claim—though not against a pharmaceutical giant, but against a telecommunications monolith whose tactics mirrored the film’s darkest themes.

The movie depicted a corporation that, fully aware of the lethal side effects of its product, chose profit over public safety. A commissioned report had exposed a fatal flaw, but instead of acting with integrity, the company buried the evidence—an act of corruption so brazen it felt eerily familiar.

What struck me most was the legal sabotage portrayed in the film: the tactic of “document dumping,” where a lawyer is buried under a last-minute avalanche of irrelevant paperwork, designed to obscure the truth and derail justice.

It was a cinematic reflection of the very manoeuvres Telstra deployed against me.

In my case, another member of the COT group unearthed a critical report among her FOI documents—one Telstra had deliberately withheld from me during my preparation.

The report, titled Can We Fix The CAN, was a damning analysis of the Customer Access Network (CAN)—the final, fragile link where calls often failed, leaving no trace at the exchange. It was the very fault line Telstra had denied existed.

Even more disturbing, Bell Canada International’s testing had ignored the CAN entirely. Their oversight—or was its deliberate omission? —left me blind to the most critical failures affecting rural customers like me.

The CAN was the silent saboteur, and Telstra ensured it remained hidden.

Then came Telstra’s masterstroke of obstruction. Within days of filing their defence, they dumped twenty-two thousand documents onto my desk. It wasn’t disclosure—it was a smokescreen.

A calculated flood of complexity designed to drown me in confusion. I was given just over two weeks to sift through this ocean of paper, to find the one thread that could validate my claims.

It was a cruel joke, timed to coincide with Christmas Eve—the busiest time for my business. While others celebrated, I was buried in a cesspool of corporate corruption.

This wasn’t a procedural misstep. It was a deliberate, underhanded tactic to sabotage my pursuit of accountability.

Telstra’s actions mirrored the betrayal and ethical collapse dramatized in Class Action—except this wasn’t fiction. It was my life.
 

The "Can We Fix the CAN" report was so damning, so central to the truth, that I felt compelled to include it in full. It began with a chilling summary:

This wasn’t just technical jargon. It was a confession. A quiet admission that the infrastructure serving rural Australia was riddled with decay—and that Telstra knew it.

And yet, they buried it.

With over 350 working services and as many spare cable pairs tested to date, it can be said that:

• 25. Any customer beyond the 6.5 dB limit and thus needing either loading or conditioning is seriously out of transmission specification.  Not a single service has been found that is even remotely correct.
• 26. Any service operating on loaded pairs, and terminating in a T200 handset, has serious deficiencies in the sidetone level.
• 27. Any service connected via a rural distribution cable method has a 70% chance of having a DC fault (earth, foreign battery or, loss between) sufficient to significantly degrade the level of service.  An additional 20% have DC faults of a less serious degree.  That is, 90% of services exhibit either a foreign battery, earth, or loss between faults.
• 28. Almost 100% of rural elevated Joints (EJ) exhibit a multitude of DC faults caused by poor work standards.
• 29. Unless a new customer is within a few hundred metres from the exchange, it is impossible to find a totally fault-free spare pair to use.  That is, the fault rate on spare pairs is even higher than on working services.
• 30. Many lengths of cable are being replaced without justification.
• 31. Faults are not being repaired at all – the service restoration method is to transpose around the problem.  This applies to faults in joints as well as cable lengths.
• 32. There is a zero level of field staff understanding of transmission testing techniques and operating principles.
• 33. Modern testing equipment, whilst being adequately supplied, is only being used by a minority of staff.  And even then, in limited variety and circumstance.
• 34. Lightning strikes are being encouraged by our own actions.  Our focus is on quickly getting to the fault rather than preventing the fault.  As a result, we are ensuring that we get hit by lightning far more often.

(This document was hand numbered as FOI folio 101043). - It is painfully evident that Telstra operated with a malevolent awareness of the widespread, insidious problems lurking within their infrastructure.

 

Time and time again, they stood in courtrooms, their lawyers spinning webs of deception that placed the blame squarely on innocent Australian citizens—defenceless individuals caught in a ruthless game of corporate malfeasance.

How many lives, beyond the well-documented COT cases, have been obliterated in the wake of Telstra's treachery?

Years of lies, calculated denials, and heartless manipulation laid waste to countless souls, some of whom were driven to the edge of despair and ultimately chose to end their lives—a tragic consequence of Telstra’s unfeeling decision to cut off vital phone services while fully aware that the fault may rest with them.

The grim truth emerges that rural customers suffered far more than their urban counterparts, grappling with chronic issues that Telstra whispered about only in the shadows of internal memos—documents never meant to see the light of day, concealed from the prying eyes of government watchdogs and the public.

Behind a mask of corporate civility, Telstra orchestrated a calculated neglect of its most vulnerable patrons, sowing seeds of chaos and despair while revelling in the illusion of invulnerability.

The corruption ran deep, a treacherous undercurrent of betrayal that left countless lives shattered and broken in its wake.

 

The Orchestrated Collapse Continues 

Over Christmas—twelve months after my initial request for documents—I found myself buried in yet another avalanche of Telstra paperwork.

I ploughed through what I could, exhausted and disillusioned, only to uncover—too late—several documents that would have been critical to my technical advisor and me during the preparation of my interim claim. The timing wasn’t coincidental. It was strategic.

It was sabotage.

I asked myself again: had Telstra deliberately withheld this information? The answer, buried beneath layers of procedural deceit, was becoming painfully clear.

The arbitrator, appointed as the supposed impartial judge, had a charter to facilitate the provision of requested documents.

I had asked him repeatedly to enforce this. He never did. Not once. I believe now that he never even passed on my requests.

Yet, while my pleas were ignored, the arbitrator dutifully relayed Telstra’s demands to me—forty additional documents, countless attachments, and further particulars.

All were requested under the same discovery process I had used. I complied every time yet still incurred thousands of dollars in fines. 

Telstra’s actions were nothing short of nefarious. Within days of filing their defence, they unleashed a calculated barrage—twenty-two thousand documents dumped on me like a tidal wave of confusion.

It wasn’t disclosure. It was a smokescreen. A strategic bombardment designed to drown me in complexity, to bury the truth beneath an avalanche of irrelevance.

I was given just over two weeks to sift through this chaos, to find the elusive ‘missing link’ that could validate my claims. It was a cruel game, timed to coincide with Christmas Eve—the busiest time for my business.

While others celebrated, I was left grappling with a cesspool of corruption, unsure where to begin in my search for justice.

This wasn’t a procedural misstep. It was a deliberate, underhanded tactic—an echo of the betrayal and ethical collapse dramatized in Class Action. The parallels were haunting.

Over Christmas, twelve months after my original request for documents, I ploughed through what I could of this latest batch.

And there it was—several documents that would have been critical to my technical advisor and me during the preparation of my interim claim.

But it was too late. Again, I asked myself: had Telstra deliberately withheld this information?

The arbitrator, appointed as the ‘judge’ in this matter, had a charter to facilitate the provision of requested documents. I asked him repeatedly to enforce this.

He never did. I believe now that he never even passed on my requests. Yet, he had no hesitation in directing me to provide forty additional documents and countless attachments—requests made by Telstra through him.

I complied every time, incurring thousands of dollars in costs. In return, I received nothing. No fairness. No reciprocity. Just silence.
I began to feel the walls closing in.

Was this a legal process—or a trap? Were Telstra and their highly paid lawyers deliberately setting out to destroy me financially before I could even finish my submission?

The oral hearing on 11 October 1994 revealed the truth in stark relief. I was utterly alone. The arbitrator, who was supposed to be impartial, displayed a clear bias that did not bode well for my case.

I tried to warn the other COT members, but they couldn’t grasp the full extent of the conspiracy.

My instincts were right. We had all been duped by the TIO’s office, which had manipulated even the Senate, assuring them that the process would be free of legal entanglements.

From the day of the oral hearing to 12 December 1994, when Telstra filed their defence, I ransacked my claim materials, clinging to the hope of uncovering the documents that could turn the tide.

All the while, the ordeal was wreaking havoc on my life and business. Dizzy spells. Stress-related pains.

A constant pressure in my chest. My health deteriorated alongside the well-being of the few supporters I had left.

Telstra’s initial claim—that nothing was wrong with my phone lines—had morphed into a gaslighting campaign so intense it made me question my sanity. Despite my growing conviction that I was right, the psychological toll was immense.

Just when I was at my lowest, a letter arrived from a local farmer and businessman. He confirmed what I had long known: the phone system was a disaster. His issues stretched back six years—coinciding with my earliest days in the area. His validation was a lifeline. I wasn’t alone.

A neighbour who had recently moved in added fuel to my resolve. He described his own harrowing experiences with Telstra’s broken system. His reports of faults were ignored.

He even shared a disturbing incident where shearers had to be sent away because he couldn’t confirm whether the sheep were dry. The absurdity of trying to run a business under such conditions was maddening.

Time and again, I confronted Telstra over their billing practices. My bills fluctuated wildly—like a game of financial roulette.

When I refused to pay for accounts riddled with discrepancies, they cut off my service. Their tactics extended beyond financial exploitation.

This was a calculated assault on my livelihood and dignity—perpetuated by a corporation that thrived on the suffering of those it was meant to serve.

This is not just the story of one man’s fight against a colossal entity. It is a testament to the corruption, unethical practices, and unconscionable acts perpetuated by those in power—unchecked, unaccountable, and relentless in their pursuit of silence.

Let me know when you're ready for Chapter 23. The battle continues, and the truth demands to be told.

 

Chapter 22: The Surveillance State Within

The letters from residents—alongside dozens of similar submissions—were presented as part of my arbitration against Telstra.

They were testimonies of failure, of lives disrupted by a broken telecommunications system.

Yet the so-called “independent” technical unit, tasked with assessing my claims, brazenly declared: “A comprehensive log of Mr Smith’s complaints does not appear to exist.” It was a lie. A calculated erasure.

I had compiled a meticulous list of 183 distinct faults between late 1989 and early 1994. Each entry named the individuals who had reported the issues.

I had submitted 42 additional faults logged by Telstra’s own fault centres. I had provided over 70 letters from customers—some of them Telstra employees—describing their inability to reach me.

And still, the technical unit claimed ignorance. Why? Because the arbitrator had withheld the documents. The omission wasn’t accidental. It was deliberate. It was treachery.

The letters from Telstra’s own staff compelled me to reach out to union officials. I made it clear: my grievance wasn’t with the technicians on the ground—it was with the corporate overlords who had engineered this collapse.

Senior management had chosen silence over accountability. Their strategy was simple: ignore the complaints, suppress the evidence, and cut costs at any human expense.

But the rot wasn’t confined to Cape Bridgewater. Reports poured in from metropolitan exchanges.

The disease was systemic. And Telstra’s leadership—entrenched in their fortress of denial—refused to act. Until the culture of deception was dismantled, the suffering would continue.

Then came the revelations about Telstra’s Protective Services Unit—a shadowy division operating like a corporate intelligence agency.

A Labour Senator raised concerns about their activities: surveillance of their own technicians, tracking employees on sick leave, and compiling dossiers on staff movements.

It was Orwellian. And it didn’t stop there.

Members of the COT group began to suspect they were being watched. I had long suspected it myself.

The Protective Services Unit never explained how they knew my schedule in advance. Or how they tracked the precise moments my staff left the office. Their silence was deafening. Their reach terrifying.

One incident shattered any remaining illusion of privacy. I was preparing a tender for a bus company. I wrote to Telstra, requesting a guarantee that their network would function reliably.

I never mentioned the company’s name. Yet in 1994, among FOI documents, I found a copy of my own letter—with the bus company’s name scrawled across the top. How did they know?

Were they intercepting my mail? Listening to my calls? Or both?

This wasn’t speculation. It was surveillance. And it had begun as early as 1992—long before arbitration. This was just one example. More would follow.

But it was enough to confirm what I feared: Telstra was spying on its customers. And it was this grotesque abuse of power that drove me to publish my story.

The Australian public must know. Telstra had weaponised the legal system. They had manipulated the arbitration process.

They had violated the most sacred principle of democracy: the right to privacy.

Documents later obtained through FOI and handed to the Australian Federal Police revealed a disturbing pattern. Telstra officers had documented my private and business calls.

They recorded the names of my callers—my wife, my son, the Regulator, the TIO’s office. They knew everything. Every conversation. Every movement.

Was anything ever private?

This wasn’t just a personal violation. It was a national scandal. It raised terrifying questions about trust, about the rights of citizens, and about the unchecked power of corporations.

Telstra’s ability to “read between the lines” wasn’t metaphorical. It was literal. They knew things they shouldn’t.

They accessed information they had no right to possess. They used it to control, to intimidate, to silence.

This is the story of a corporation that became a predator. A system that turned against its people. And a man who refused to be devoured.

 

Chapter 23: The Machinery of Betrayal

By the time my submission was at the beginning period, the illusion of fairness had long since been shattered. What remained was a theatre of cruelty—an orchestrated campaign of sabotage, surveillance, and psychological warfare.

Telstra was no longer just a negligent corporation. It had become something far darker: a machine of institutional betrayal, engineered to crush dissent and silence truth.

The letters from residents, customers, and even Telstra’s own employees had been submitted in good faith—evidence of a broken system, a chorus of voices crying out for accountability.

Yet the so-called “independent” technical unit, tasked with assessing my claims, dismissed it all with a single, chilling line:

“A comprehensive log of Mr Smith’s complaints does not appear to exist.”

It was a lie. A deliberate falsification. I had submitted a detailed list of 183 faults, each one documented with names, addresses, and dates.

I had provided 42 additional faults logged by Telstra’s own fault centres. I had submitted over 70 letters from people who couldn’t reach me—some of them Telstra employees.

And still, the arbitrator withheld these documents from the technical unit. This wasn’t incompetence. It was collusion.

The betrayal ran deep. Even union officials were drawn into the fray. I clarified that my grievance wasn’t with the technicians—it was with the corporate overlords who had engineered this collapse.

Senior management had made a calculated decision: ignore the complaints, suppress the evidence, and bleed the rural network dry to cut costs. The rot wasn’t isolated. It was systemic.

Reports from metropolitan exchanges confirmed it. Telstra’s disease had metastasised.

Then came the revelations about Telstra’s Protective Services Unit—a name that sounded benign but masked something far more sinister.

This shadow division reportedly shrivelled its own technicians, tracked employees on sick leave, and compiled dossiers on staff movements. It was corporate espionage masquerading as internal security.

Members of the COT group began to suspect they were being watched. I knew I was. The Protective Services Unit never explained how they knew my schedule in advance.

Or how they tracked the exact moments my staff left the office. Their silence was a confession.

One incident confirmed everything. I was preparing a tender for a bus company. I wrote to Telstra, requesting a guarantee that their network would function reliably.

I never mentioned the company’s name. Yet in 1994, among FOI documents, I found a copy of my own letter—with the bus company’s name scrawled across the top.

How did they know? Were they intercepting my mail? Listening to my calls? Or both?

 

This wasn’t speculation. It was surveillance. And it had begun in 1992—long before arbitration. This was just one example. More would follow. But it was enough to confirm what I feared: Telstra was spying on its customers.

And it was this grotesque abuse of power that drove me to publish my story.

The Australian public must know. Telstra had weaponised the legal system. They had manipulated the arbitration process. And they had violated the most sacred principle of democracy:

the right to privacy.

Documents later obtained through FOI and handed to the Australian Federal Police revealed a disturbing pattern. Telstra officers had documented my private and business calls.

They recorded the names of my callers—my wife, my son, the Regulator, the TIO’s office. They knew everything—every conversation. Every movement.

Was anything ever private?

This wasn’t just a personal violation. It was a national scandal. It raised terrifying questions about trust, about the rights of citizens, and about the unchecked power of corporations.

Telstra’s ability to “read between the lines” wasn’t metaphorical. It was literal. They knew things they shouldn’t. They accessed information they had no right to possess. And they used it to control, to intimidate, to silence.

This is the story of a corporation that became a predator. A system that turned against its people. And a man who refused to be devoured.

 

CHAPTER 24 — The Architects of Obstruction

The deeper I dug, the more grotesque the machinery of Telstra’s deception revealed itself. It wasn’t just incompetence — it was orchestration.

A calculated campaign of falsification, executed with surgical precision and cloaked in the sterile language of bureaucracy. The technicians weren’t just negligent; they were pawns in a game rigged from the top, their signatures weaponised to silence truth and distort reality.

Behind closed doors, Telstra’s legal unit operated like a cartel of corporate enforcers. Statutory Declarations were churned out like counterfeit currency — each one a forged testament to a reality that never existed.

The truth was buried beneath layers of legalese, and every false statement was a nail driven into the coffin of accountability.

One technician, whose name I will not dignify here, had the audacity to claim — under oath — that the Cape Bridgewater exchange was “fully functional” during the period of my complaint.

This, despite internal memos that painted a picture of systemic collapse: dropped calls, phantom rings, and a network so congested it wheezed like a dying animal. His declaration was not just false — it was a betrayal of every principle the telecommunications industry pretends to uphold.

And then there was the Regulator. That supposed guardian of public interest. Their silence was not passive — it was complicit.

My complaints, meticulously documented and backed by Telstra’s own fault logs, were met with bureaucratic shrugs and procedural dead-ends.

The Regulator’s office became a mausoleum of ignored evidence, where truth went to die.

The Federal Police, to their credit, began to stir. But even their presence was not enough to pierce the veil of corruption. During their five-hour interrogation, Cathy — ever loyal, ever brave — manned the phones.

What she witnessed was no coincidence. It was sabotage. Calls dropped mid-ring. Alarms triggered without cause—a digital poltergeist haunting our lines, mocking our pursuit of justice.

And then came the mail — or rather, the absence of it. Cathy’s survey, meant to expose the breadth of Telstra’s failures, vanished twice from the Ballarat Courier’s office.

Promised bundles of responses, gone without a trace. No theft report. No explanation. Just a void where truth should have been. Someone, somewhere, had decided that those voices — the voices of ordinary Australians betrayed by their service provider — were too dangerous to be heard.

This was no longer a dispute over faulty lines. It was a war against institutional rot. A war fought not with weapons, but with documents, silence, and the slow suffocation of truth.

And I was not backing down.

 

CHAPTER 25 — The Arbitration Illusion

When I signed the arbitration agreement, the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) assured me — with the polished certainty of a bureaucrat — that all original commercial rules would remain intact.

 Among these was a confidentiality clause, a gag order dressed as protocol, forbidding any claimant from ever revealing the value of their award. If, of course, an award was even granted. But let’s not pretend this was a negotiation.

The COT Four signed under duress, cornered by financial ruin and the slow bleed of justice denied. We were coerced into silence, shackled by a process designed not to resolve, but to erase.

Then came Telstra’s defence documents — a masterclass in evasion. Not a whisper about the billing faults I had meticulously detailed.

Not a rebuttal to the phone bugging allegations the arbitrator had promised would be addressed. Promised. That word, in this context, was a cruel joke.

I had already handed over evidence to both the TIO and the arbitrator — proof that Telstra had doctored FOI documents, rearranged fax headers, and manipulated data to dilute their liability.

But behind the curtain, darker truths were festering. A Telstra whistle-blower, brave and disillusioned, had written to the government on 13 October 1994. His letter was a bombshell:

Telstra executives had adopted an “unprofessional adversarial approach towards customers,” he wrote, accusing them of deception, manipulation, and outright lies.

He outlined three grotesque pillars of Telstra’s strategy:

• Erasing or distorting evidence of liability
• Suppressing compensation owed to COT claimants
• Treating privacy breaches with contempt

 

Under the arbitration rules, we should have received that letter. But it was buried. Silenced. Just like the truth.

Then came the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s intervention — a letter to Telstra’s CEO condemning the avalanche of redacted documents. Pages blacked out like state secrets.

Copies were sent to the arbitrator and the TIO. And yet… nothing. No pause. No investigation. No justice. The arbitration continued, a grotesque pantomime of fairness.

Only the Commonwealth Ombudsman Office acted as a government agency that should act when twenty-one Australian citizens were being systematically abused by the forces at work who were unofficially assigned to protect Telstra at all Costs. 

This wasn’t a legal process. It was a conspiracy — a coordinated effort between Telstra and the arbitrator to bury the truth and protect corporate interests. I had stayed silent for too long.

But now, I speak because I believe in the rights of every Australian. I believe in the law — or at least, I used to. The COT arbitrations have shattered that faith.

They were a farce, and the rules meant to uphold justice were nothing more than window dressing for a rigged game.

Christmas 1994 passed in a haze of stress and sickness. The new year loomed, and I had just two weeks to respond to Telstra’s defence. Thousands of discovery documents lay before me, each one a potential key to unlocking the truth — or another dead end.

My health was crumbling. Giddiness attacks struck twice a week, leaving me reeling. My business, already battered, was on life support.

Cathy had moved into the camp house by then — a lifeline in human form. Without her, I wouldn’t have made it through. A Queensland detective made a brief stopover in Cape Bridgewater.

Together, we worked through New Year’s Eve, dissecting Telstra’s web of deceit while Cathy celebrated in Portland with family. At 1:30 a.m., the revellers returned, armed with Scotch and Port.

After two days of relentless labour, the drinks knocked us out cold. The detective flew home the next day, leaving me to face the storm alone once more.

 

CHAPTER 25 — Part 2: The Machinery of Manipulation

February brought a rare reprieve — the camp was heavily booked, a flicker of hope amid the chaos.

The Year Seven coordinator from Hamilton High School (now Bainbridge College) returned with his group, as he had every year since 1990. Despite years of phone failures and deadlines, he remained loyal.

His continued support, along with that of other regulars, was the only thing keeping the business afloat while the arbitration process drained me of time, money, and sanity.

But even loyalty had its limits. Upon returning to school, the coordinator penned a letter — a damning account of his ongoing struggle to reach me by phone.

In the week March 1st to 5th, he wrote,

“I made 5 or 6 attempted phone calls to Alan, but I was unable to get through. The line was ‘dead’. Had I not known of Alan’s phone problems, I would have used another camp site.”

That letter was a quiet scream — a warning that Telstra’s negligence was not just affecting me, but my customers too.

The Birchip Community Centre group, long-time patrons since 1988, echoed similar frustrations. My coin-operated gold phone — installed for camper use — was “always on the blink.”

They left on a Friday. Lake Bolac Secondary College was due Monday. And I was drowning in paperwork, with the deadline for submitting supporting claim material looming like a guillotine.

Then came the revelation. In 2002, I received a document from the TIO confirming that the arbitration project manager had written to them on 18 April 1995, stating:

“It is unfortunate that there have been forces at work collectively beyond our reasonable control that have delayed us in undertaking our work.” Forces?

What forces?

Who were these invisible hands sabotaging the process from within? Was this the shadow of Telstra’s whistleblower — the one who had exposed document tampering and liability manipulation?

The TIO never grasped the full picture. I wasn’t just running a business — I was working in it, day and night, with only part-time help. November to May was peak season.

How could I possibly prepare a complex legal claim while juggling bookings, staff, and a failing phone system?

Had Telstra provided a reliable service from the start, I could have hired full-time staff, expanded operations, and focused on my case.

Instead, I was left scrambling, watching losses mount while Telstra denied the obvious: their infrastructure was outdated, overwhelmed, and collapsing.

The COTs — a handful of small-business owners — were forced to battle the legal juggernauts of one of Australia’s most powerful corporations. It was a slaughter disguised as arbitration.

Every request I made to the arbitrator was swallowed by silence. No documentation. No answers. Just a void. My frustration grew daily, festering into fury.

On 23 January 1995, I received a response to a letter I had sent ten days earlier, asking for clarification on the Bell Canada report. The arbitrator replied:

“Telstra does not consider it has any further information of relevance in its possession.”

He then demanded I respond within 24 hours to “be certain that there is no confusion between the parties.”

I complied. My fax account confirmed that the two-page reply was sent — 2 minutes and 19 seconds of transmission time. It was received.

Or so I thought.

According to the arbitration rules, the arbitrator was required to forward all documents to Telstra. But twelve months later, through FOI and the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s Office, I discovered the truth: Telstra never received my critical response.

Worse, forty-two other claim documents — all faxed, all confirmed as sent — had vanished. No trace. No explanation. Just silence. A black hole where justice should have been.

Then came the Bell Canada report — the cornerstone of Telstra’s defence. FOI document N00040, dated 20 June 1994, exposed glaring inconsistencies in the test results between Richmond and Cape Bridgewater.

The data contradicted the official narrative. But I didn’t receive this evidence until three years after arbitration, thanks to another brave whistleblower.

Three weeks after the arbitration was deceptively closed — and my appeal window slammed shut — I was handed three more FOI documents: N00005, N00006, and N00037. N00005, dated 6 September 1994, was a smoking gun.

It stated: “The number of calls made during the test run could not have been completed within the time span shown.”

N00037, an internal Telstra email titled “Smith’s Query on BCI Tests,” admitted:

“Mr. Smith is correct… the test results… are impracticable.”

Then came the Hansard record. On 26 September 1997, Telstra misled the Senate about the BCI report. They lied — publicly, brazenly.

My phone issues had persisted long after the supposed settlement in December 1992. Fearing another round of deception, I escalated the matter to the Regulator.

Telstra, cornered, reluctantly sent representatives to conduct “verification testing.” But it was all theatre — a performance to placate the arbitrator and Regulator while continuing to twist the truth.

 

CHAPTER 25 — Part 3: The Final Betrayal

On the day Telstra commenced their so-called testing process, Cathy and I submitted Statutory Declarations to the arbitrator, warning that the tests were flawed — a sham dressed in technical jargon.

I wrote twice to Telstra’s arbitration defence counsel in early October 1994, raising serious concerns. The arbitrator? Silent. Telstra, however, responded with a bold lie:

their tests not only met the Regulator’s standards — they exceeded them. This claim was supported by Report B004, which was wrapped in a Statutory Declaration signed by a Telstra officer, who had already been advised by the Regulator that the tests were deficient.

Yet this same officer stood before a solicitor, under oath, and declared the tests were flawless. It was perjury in plain sight — and no one blinked.

The rotten apples within Telstra ran deep, and filth ran through the arbitrator's camp, a camp full of traitors.

The TIO-appointed technical resource unit, in its report dated 20 April 1995, admitted that it had ceased investigating my claim documents back in August 1994.

Why? Because they had blindly accepted Telstra’s sworn statements that my phone service was fault-free. The fox had not only guarded the henhouse — it had written the inspection report.

In February 1995, two arbitration project advisors arrived at my business, accompanied by a Telstra representative, to assess my financial losses. Arbitration rules strictly prohibited any party — FHCA, Telstra, or me — from being alone with one another.

Yet FHCA arrived two hours before Telstra and conducted a solo inspection of the premises.

When Telstra finally showed up, we toured Cape Bridgewater together, and it became painfully clear: FHCA had already made up their minds.

My evidence was dismissed, my words ignored, my business belittled in front of Telstra. The fix was in.

I couldn’t leave the camp — guests were in residence, and it was peak holiday season. So, I arranged lunch for FHCA and Telstra at the camp. Cathy brought fresh bread rolls; I prepared pasta, salad, and cold meats.

They declined. Instead, they adjourned to the beach kiosk — a blatant breach of arbitration protocol. What could I do? I was trapped, watching the rules crumble like wet paper.

They returned briefly, stayed fifteen minutes, then vanished back to Melbourne. I tried to submit new evidence — brochures and documents from similar guesthouse businesses, proof that my location had untapped potential. But I was blindsided by another rule: late evidence, if deemed “irrelevant,” would not be accepted.

Telstra’s FOI responses were arriving months after my original requests.

The system was rigged to ensure I failed.

Those brochures? Never seen again. Not even when my claim materials were returned post-arbitration. They had vanished — like so many other documents — into the black hole of procedural sabotage.

Then, in 2002, the final dagger was revealed. FHCA had written to the arbitrator — eighteen months after the so-called conclusion of my arbitration — admitting they had withheld several letters addressed to the arbitrator from Telstra as well as from the regulator AUSTEL.

These letters, from the Regulator, was demanding answers from Telstra and the arbitrator as to whether I had raised the 1800 short-duration call faults. If they had not been raised in my arbitration claims, then AUSTEL would be duty bound to investigate those 1800 problems in the public interest.

Telstra stated to AUSTEL that they would address my 1800 faults in their defence. FHCA deliberately kept them from both the arbitrator and me. I was denied the chance to question why Telstra failed to address these faults. And by burying them, Telstra continued to overcharge me for another two years.

This wasn’t arbitration. It was a corporate cover-up, sanctioned by silence and executed through deceit. The rules were twisted, the evidence buried, and the truth — the raw, unvarnished truth — was sacrificed at the altar of Telstra’s reputation.

 

CHAPTER 26 — The Betrayal

The holiday season brought no respite. My days were consumed by the relentless grind of camp duties — managing schedules, overseeing activities, and keeping the business afloat.

Only in the dead silence of night could I turn to the mountain of legal chaos that awaited me.

Just as I began to make headway through the twenty thousand documents dumped on me after Telstra lodged their defence, another avalanche arrived, burying me in confusion and despair.

The sheer volume was suffocating. My workspace became a tomb of paper — every surface buried, every document screaming for attention.

Each sheet felt vital, yet I was left to navigate this labyrinth alone, without guidance, without support. It wasn’t just overwhelming — it was isolating.

And while Telstra paraded their army of lawyers, funded by the Australian public, I couldn’t even afford a law student to help shoulder the burden. The COT group wasn’t asking for miracles — just justice.

But Telstra’s tactics were anything but fair. They were calculated, underhanded, and designed to crush us.

As 1995 dragged on, the FOI documents kept coming — each batch more convoluted than the last.

My anxiety grew with every delivery. I began to doubt myself, haunted by the fear that my lack of legal training would sabotage my case. The arbitrator, once a beacon of hope, now seemed increasingly disinterested in any new evidence. The walls were closing in.

Despite Telstra’s own technical data proving I was charged for calls that never connected, I hesitated to submit the documents.

Instead, I reached out to the arbitrator, pleading for another oral hearing — a chance to explain, to be heard. I also sought help from the technical resource unit, desperate for someone to help me structure my evidence. But every step felt like walking a tightrope over a pit of vipers.

During a tense phone call, I laid everything bare: my spiralling $25,000 debt to my technical advisor, my inability to continue without support.

The arbitrator offered hollow reassurances, suggesting the technical resource unit would soon visit Cape Bridgewater. He said their presence might help. But just before their arrival, the mask slipped.

The technical resource unit — a respected Australian firm known for its telecommunications expertise — abruptly withdrew.

Their reason? A conflict of interest. Telstra had dangled lucrative contracts in front of them, and they took the bait. It was a textbook case of corporate manipulation.

Was this Telstra’s strategy all along? To corrupt the very experts meant to validate our claims. The timing was no coincidence. The betrayal was deliberate.

Then came the replacement: a new technical unit led by a former Telstra employee with over 20 years' experience within the company. The fox was now guarding the henhouse.

This unit was handpicked under the supervision of the TIO’s office — a move that reeked of collusion.

After eleven months of navigating this rigged process, we were handed over to a team with deep ties to the very corporation we were fighting.

We objected. Loudly and Formally.

But the TIO brushed us aside, as if our concerns were mere noise. To pacify us, they brought in a Canadian telecommunications company — a token gesture, a distraction. The damage had already been done.

This wasn’t arbitration. It was a masquerade of justice, orchestrated by Telstra and rubber-stamped by government-appointed officials.

The arbitrator, the TIO, the resource units — all compromised. All complicit. The rules were bent, the process corrupted, and the truth buried beneath layers of bureaucracy and deceit.

What unfolded was not just a failure of process — it was a betrayal of principle.

A system designed to protect the vulnerable had instead become a weapon for the powerful. And we, the COT claimants, were left to fight a war we were never meant to win.

Let me know when you're ready to continue with Chapter 27. We can push deeper into the fallout — perhaps a whistleblower resurfaces, or the media begins to take notice.

 

CHAPTER 26 — Part 2: The Anatomy of a Cover-Up

The truth, however, was a grotesque distortion of what we were led to believe. In writing, the TIO assured us that the Australian team — led by a former Telstra insider — would merely assist the Canadian experts.

But that promise was a lie. The Australians weren’t assisting; they were running the show. The Canadians were little more than window dressing, a decoy to lend credibility to a process already poisoned.

I felt duped, betrayed, and cornered.

This misrepresentation by the TIO cut deep, especially knowing the arbitrator himself was affiliated with a law firm that had secured contract work from Telstra.

The conflict of interest wasn’t subtle — it was institutional. The deeper I looked, the clearer it became: the entire system was colluding to protect Telstra, not to uncover the truth.

The COT Four weren’t participants in a fair process — we were targets of a coordinated suppression campaign.

As April 1995 approached, the deception escalated. On April 6, a Telstra official arrived unannounced at the camp, throwing everything into chaos.

We scrambled to collect a representative from the newly formed technical unit, and together we inspected the Cape Bridgewater and Portland exchanges.

A local technician — one who had previously denied any issues — was confronted with his own contradiction when I presented Telstra’s internal complaint records. The truth was undeniable.

I had unearthed damning documents. One FOI record dated April 7, 1994, contained a chilling admission:

“At 4:55 p.m. on 6/4/94, I was informed by Network Ops that the route into the Portland exchange would be increased by 30%... This should alleviate any problems Mr Smith or anyone else has been experiencing with congestion.”

But another memo, dated just a day earlier, revealed plans to double the exchange capacity — from 30 to 60 circuits. Telstra had grossly underestimated the problem by 70%. The deception was deliberate.

The new technical unit, to their credit, exposed this discrepancy during their visit.

The discomfort among Telstra staff was palpable — made worse by the fact that I had received a personal call from Telstra’s CEO just weeks earlier. Why would the head of a telecommunications empire reach out to a small holiday camp operator if my claims were baseless?

He promised to investigate. But FOI documents later revealed the truth: his call was a smokescreen. The investigation was a farce, designed to perpetuate the deceit.

A Telstra internal memo dated 30 March 1994 (FOI document K01007) confirmed the scale of the problem:

 

“On 27th March Mr. Smith complained that he did not receive two calls on Sunday night from Melbourne. The customers calling Mr. Smith received ‘Busy Tone’. During the period 20:00 to 21:00, Telstra’s traffic monitoring equipment indicated that the number of calls being made into Portland exceeded the available junctions.”

The system was collapsing — and Telstra knew it.

Could the average caller even distinguish between a ‘busy tone’ and a ‘congested tone’?

Were these sounds engineered to obscure the truth? The memo confirmed what I had long suspected: the Portland exchange was gridlocked, and Cape Bridgewater was decaying.

Every call was a gamble — a journey through a labyrinth of dysfunction. No wonder customer complaints surged as my arbitration dragged on.

On April 6, as the technical team stumbled through Cape Bridgewater, I tried to raise the issue of fraudulent billing — charges for calls that never connected.

But I was told the arbitrator had instructed the team to ignore any new claims. I was stunned. The arbitrator had previously assured me that newly accessed FOI documents could be submitted.

Now, after sleepless nights preparing my case, I was met with a wall of silence.

Driven by desperation, I forced the arbitrator to examine a critical document while Telstra’s representative was present — a damning excerpt from my 1800 call account.

I demanded an explanation: how could I be charged for a 9.49-minute call at 11:50 a.m. on 13 January 1995, and again for a 42-second call just seven minutes later? Two calls on the same line, overlapping? Physically impossible.

The technical staff’s eyes widened as I laid out more examples — calls from 10 and 11 January that were billed as connected even though they generated engaged signals.

Again, on 13 January, the charges defied logic. This wasn’t a clerical error. It was systemic fraud. My account had become a ledger of deception, a monument to Telstra’s corruption.

Yet no one commented. No one challenged the evidence. They offered only hollow reassurances that it would be “addressed” during arbitration.

Then came the final betrayal. Telstra and the technical representatives left together — without me. A flagrant violation of the arbitration protocol. What was discussed in that clandestine exit? What deals were struck?

The truth of that conspiracy remains locked behind closed doors, perhaps known only to Telstra and the arbitrator — the very person entrusted with delivering justice.

As both resource units prepared their reports, my instincts screamed: we had been deceived. The arbitrator glossed over my inquiries, ignored the ongoing issues with my fax and phones, and dismissed the mounting evidence. I was being dismantled — methodically, deliberately — by the very system meant to protect me.

The arbitration was a charade. A performance. A mechanism designed to silence me with a token payout and bury the truth.

Had the new technical unit been exposed to the flawed verification testing and Telstra’s manipulation of the BCI results, they might have demanded answers.

Had the arbitrator grasped the depth of Telstra’s deceit, he would have been legally bound to act.

But he didn’t. And so, the dark saga continues — a twisted web of corruption, betrayal, and institutional rot, spun to ensnare the unsuspecting and protect the powerful.

 

CHAPTER 27 — The Illusion of Justice

By early 1994, Cathy had become a partner in the business, but the harsh truth was unavoidable:

I could barely afford to pay her. The financial strain was suffocating, and once the Telstra technicians and representatives departed, a tense silence settled over us. I believed I had uncovered a critical opportunity — a crack in Telstra’s armour. Cathy, ever pragmatic, remained sceptical. She had seen too many promises dissolve into silence.

Then, a flicker of hope emerged from an unlikely source: the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s Office.

Unlike the TIO, whose impartiality had long since eroded, the Ombudsman’s team appeared to operate under the rare and rigid principles of natural justice.

Their support for my claims — particularly regarding Telstra’s mishandling of FOI documents — felt like oxygen in a bureaucratic vacuum.

It was terrifyingly clear that this was one government department that had not yet been infected by the political rot surrounding my case.

I sensed they were preparing a report — a meticulous catalogue of every fax I had sent, every call made, every document exchanged. It was a dangerous game of chess, and I believed I had manoeuvred into a position of strength.

I requested that all future communication be routed through my 1800 free call number, knowing full well that the Ombudsman would document every interaction. It was a calculated risk — one I hoped would expose Telstra’s billing discrepancies.

Two years later, on 28 February 1997, the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s Office forwarded a damning report to Telstra.

It revealed that I had sent them 315 faxes, containing 1,369 attachments. In return, they had sent only 21 faxes with 209 attachments.

The call records were even more disturbing: 163 calls from my office to theirs, and just 43 calls from them to my 1800 account.

And yet, Telstra had billed me for 92 calls from the Ombudsman during that same period.

I had lost a few pages of my 1800 account records — pages that might have confirmed the full extent of the fraud. But even without them, the discrepancy was glaring.

Telstra offered no explanation. No refund. No accountability. By December 1998, the charges remained — a silent monument to their deceit. The TIO’s office, predictably, ignored the matter entirely.

 

The rabbit hole was deeper than I had feared.

The implications were staggering. Both my 1800 line and fax line had been subject to incorrect charges for at least two years after the arbitrator’s so-called “award.”

This wasn’t just an oversight — it was a deliberate omission. Neither Telstra nor the arbitrator addressed the billing issue during the proceedings.

Despite the Ombudsman’s evidence that Telstra’s billing system continued to malfunction for twenty months post-award, the arbitrator turned a blind eye.

How could any award be legitimate when the very issue that triggered the arbitration persisted unabated?

I contacted the TIO and Telstra repeatedly, demanding answers. Their silence was deafening. It wasn’t just frustrating — it was suspicious.

The refusal to acknowledge the incorrect charges related to the Ombudsman’s calls suggested a coordinated effort to bury the truth. A deliberate attempt to sweep the evidence under the rug.

May 11, 1995, was meant to be the day of reckoning — the day the arbitrator delivered his “award.” Instead, I received a technical report that masqueraded as a comprehensive assessment.

It addressed just 26 of the many points I had raised. Less than half of my submitted documents were considered. The omissions weren’t accidental — they were strategic. Telstra benefited from every ignored claim, every lost document, every unanswered question.

None of my concerns about incorrect charges or missing claim materials made it into the arbitrator’s final considerations. The ongoing phone faults? Completely disregarded.

I was left without the means to re-engage my technical advisor, and the process revealed itself for what it truly was: not a pursuit of justice, but a calculated effort to absolve Telstra.

The arbitrator issued a minimal payment — a token gesture — while sidestepping the broader scope of damages.

The technical report acknowledged a few valid claims, even ruled against Telstra on isolated issues. But the scale of the problems I documented was vastly understated. The entire process reeked of systemic failure — if not outright collusion.

This wasn’t arbitration. It was a cover-up. And it demands accountability.

 

CHAPTER 28 — The Rot Beneath the Surface

The mask was slipping. The deception that had cloaked the arbitration process in a veneer of legitimacy was beginning to unravel, and the decay festering within the arbitrator’s office was finally showing its grotesque face.

The fault assessments in the technical report — drawn from Telstra’s own data — focused on the local telephone exchange known as RCM 1, the very system my coin-operated gold phone had been tethered to for most of its life. The findings were damning:

Assessment: Service was less than reasonable.

Assessment: Service was less than reasonable.

Assessment: Service was less than reasonable.

And yet, in a stunning act of contradiction, the report concluded that the gold phone — long connected to this faulty exchange — had received a “reasonable level of service.”

Eleven days to remove it after a lightning strike was deemed acceptable, despite earlier stating that four days was already unreasonable. The hypocrisy was staggering.

The Government Communications Authority (AUSTEL, now called ACMA) produced a report on 3 and 4 March 1994 that supports my whole case. Yet, AUSTEL concealed it from me until November 2007, thirteen years after the conclusion of my arbitration. 

This report mentioned in detail the mountain of diary notes and customer letters I had submitted to Telstra and AUSTEL before my arbitration — each one a testament to the gold phone’s persistent failures.

Instead, the technical unit drafted a covert document for the arbitrator, sanitising the system’s history and erasing my evidence from the record.

Worse still, the technical unit openly admitted they hadn’t assessed all my claim documents. This wasn’t oversight — it was orchestration.

Who had the power to instruct an “independent” unit to ignore critical evidence in a legal proceeding? Who could bend the rules, manipulate the arbitrator, and subvert justice with impunity?

The reference to a “lightning strike” only deepened the rot. FOI documents in my claim showed the Cape Bridgewater exchange suffered lightning damage in November 1992, affecting a bearer component.

The fault wasn’t resolved until late January 1993 — two months of downtime, not eleven days. This wasn’t just a technical failure. It was a deliberate distortion of the timeline to minimise Telstra’s liability.

And then came the most chilling revelation: Telstra technicians had failed to connect a fault alarm at the unmanned Cape Bridgewater exchange. This alarm was the only lifeline for Portland technicians to detect issues.

For eighteen months — from August 1991 to March 1993 — the alarm was left disconnected. The technical unit never mentioned it. The report was silent. The consequences were catastrophic.

I fought back. I challenged the technical unit’s assessment with Telstra’s own documentation and letters from customers who had endured the chaos.

In December 1995, I refused to pay the gold phone bill until Telstra acknowledged the faults. Their response? They cut off the phone.

It remained disconnected until I sold the business in 2001. The TIO’s office offered hollow reassurances, claiming they were “looking into the matter.” They never were.

And if the technical report was a dagger, the financial report prepared by FHCA was the poison. On 9 May 1995, my forensic accountant submitted a scathing 39-page critique to the arbitrator, exposing the report’s failings:

This wasn’t incompetence. It was sabotage. A deliberate effort to obscure the truth, minimise the damage, and protect Telstra at all costs. The arbitrator, the technical unit, the financial assessors — all played their part in a performance designed to silence me.

The rotten apples in the arbitrator's brewing house were no longer hidden. The cider ale had turned to vinegar.

 

 

CHAPTER 29 — The Empire of Lies

And unbelievably, the plot thickened — not with justice, but with a fresh layer of rot. On 23 May 1995, another seven hundred FOI discovery documents arrived, cloaked in the stench of Telstra’s calculated deceit.

It was a move so brazen, so strategically cruel, it could only have been designed to mock the very notion of fairness. Why now? Why not a year earlier, when these documents could have fortified my claim?

Why not even ten days earlier — because two of those documents were nothing short of dynamite. Had I received them just days before, I could have challenged the arbitrator’s ruling.

A month earlier, and I could have rewritten the foundation of my case. But Telstra knew exactly what they were doing.

By the time these documents reached me, the only path left was the Supreme Court — a path they knew I couldn’t afford to walk.

The two documents in question were damning: letters exchanged between Telstra and Bell Canada International in August and September 1994.

They didn’t just hint — they admitted outright that the BCI tests, the very ones used to prop up Telstra’s defence, were “impracticable.” The Cape Bridgewater report, dated 10 November 1993, was a farce — a carefully staged illusion designed to deceive.

Telstra had orchestrated a performance, and the arbitrator had applauded.

Three years later, another document surfaced — N00040 — from a fellow COT member. Dated 20 June 1994, it bore the chilling title “Smith Query — BCI tests to Cape Bridgewater.”

It stated, “It would appear that there is an error of some sort in the report of the testing from Richmond on the afternoon of the 5/11/93.” This wasn’t a request for clarification.

It was a smoking gun — a desperate internal scramble to conceal the truth.

Telstra knew. They knew their BCI report — the one they paraded before the Senate — was a lie. A grand illusion crafted to portray a world-class network while the real infrastructure crumbled in silence. And still, they pressed on.

On 6 September 1994, Telstra sent a letter to Bell Canada — FOI documents N00005 and N00006 — dripping with falsehood.

They referenced test times from Richmond to Portland, knowing full well the results were impossible.

But the real betrayal? They said nothing about the concurrent NEAT testing at Cape Bridgewater — testing that would have exposed the entire charade.
 

This letter was just the tip of a monstrous iceberg. A trove of internal Telstra documents echoed the same narrative: the tests were flawed, the data manipulated, the truth buried.

FOI document L68979 revealed a letter from Telstra to the arbitrator dated 13 September 1994. In it, Telstra admitted the arbitrator had issued no directive to release the raw BCI test data — data I had explicitly requested. That data never came.

Not from Telstra. Not from the arbitrator. Not from the discovery process. It vanished — as if it had never existed.

And yet, Telstra wielded the BCI report like a weapon. They knew it was fraudulent. They knew it was a lie. But they used it, anyway, embedding it in their defence.

A clinical psychologist, hired by Telstra to assess my mental state, confessed to reading the BCI report before our meeting. The implication was clear: if the network was flawless, then I must be delusional. It was character assassination by design.

The BCI report claimed a 99.5% success rate across thousands of test calls. To the untrained eye, it painted a picture of perfection. But it was a lie — a calculated, criminal lie. Telstra knowingly submitted a fabricated document in a legal proceeding. That’s not just unethical.

That’s perjury.

And where was the government — the very entity that owned Telstra? Silent. Complicit. I pleaded with the Communications Minister. I begged the TIO to retract the report.

But my cries vanished into the void. Telstra’s own FOI documents confirmed they had known for six months before filing their defence that the BCI report was fatally flawed.

And yet, the TIO and government ministers did nothing. They failed — spectacularly and wilfully — to protect the public.

I was left powerless. Financially broken. Legally cornered. The Supreme Court was a fortress I could not breach.

Then came the final insult. A letter to the Commonwealth Ombudsman revealed Telstra’s pathetic attempt to cover their tracks. They spoke of “lost or destroyed” documents — a convenient excuse.

They acknowledged conversations with me, yet the specifics were buried in secrecy. Their representatives feigned ignorance while orchestrating a pantomime of concern.

And in a handwritten note scrawled by a Commercial General Manager for Victoria and Tasmania, the true face of Telstra emerged. He pondered whether to charge me — even if they couldn’t fulfil any of my requests.

It was a moment of pure contempt. They knew they had nothing to offer. They knew they had failed. And still, they considered extracting more money from me.

This wasn’t just a corporate failure. It was a moral collapse. A conspiracy of silence, deception, and institutional betrayal. Telstra had become a fortress of corruption, protected by the very bodies meant to hold it accountable.

And I — like so many others — was left to rot in its shadow.

 

CHAPTER 30 — The Gatekeepers of Silence

By this stage, the daily running of the camp was slipping through my fingers. Cathy had taken on nearly everything, while I drifted in a fog of exhaustion and despair.

My self-esteem had been gutted. Years of marketing experience, promotional savvy — all useless now. I couldn’t think straight, couldn’t speak to guests, couldn’t even summon the strength to write a simple advertisement.

 

The fight had hollowed me out.

How could this happen in Australia — in the 1990s — in a country that claimed to be a democracy? How could the government stand idle while Telstra buried the truth?

How could lawyers twist the rules to shield a corporate giant? I was trapped in a nightmare masquerading as due process, and every door I knocked on led deeper into the shadows.

Eventually, I made a formal request for the return of my claim documents — a right guaranteed under the arbitration rules.

I waited. And waited. Weeks passed in silence. Finally, I decided to drive to Melbourne and retrieve them myself. I thought I had reached the peak of my anger. I hadn’t. By the time Cathy and I arrived, I was ready to erupt.

I walked into the arbitrator’s reception area, trying to hold myself together. I asked the secretary for my documents. She told me they weren’t ready. The arbitrator was “unavailable.”

Of course, he was. That word — unavailable — had become the anthem of this entire corrupt process.

My restraint snapped. I shouted, demanded my property, reminded her of the three-month delay and the five-hour drive. “I’m not leaving without those documents,” I said. “Call the police if you want. I don’t care. You have my property, and I want it back.”

Finally, a young man emerged from the lift, pushing a trolley stacked with boxes. He asked me to identify which were mine. I didn’t hesitate — I took the lot.

We loaded the boxes into the car and drove away, unaware that buried among my own documents were papers I had never seen before.

Papers that should have been sent to me under the arbitration rules. Papers that were never meant to be in my hands.

Inside one unmarked brown envelope was a collection of letters from Telstra to the arbitrator — correspondence that had been deliberately withheld.

One letter, dated 16 December 1994, referenced three attachments. None of them had ever been forwarded to me. None had been disclosed. None had been shared with the TIO’s legal counsel, as required.

This wasn’t a clerical error. It was a calculated breach of protocol. In any arbitration, transparency is sacred. Any document submitted by one party must be circulated to the other. That’s not just procedure — it’s the foundation of fairness.

But in my case, the rules were twisted, bent, and buried. The arbitrator’s office had become a vault of secrets, and I had just cracked it open.
What else had they hidden?

What other truths had been buried in the name of Telstra’s protection?
The brown envelope was more than a bundle of paper. It was a symbol — a quiet confession that the system had failed.

Or worse, that it had never intended to succeed.

Here’s Chapter 30 Part 2, rewritten with a tone of sinister corruption, betrayal, and institutional decay — the machinery of arbitration exposed as a tool of concealment:

 

CHAPTER 30 — Part 2: The Letters They Buried

The deeper I dug into the brown envelope of forgotten documents, the more grotesque the betrayal became.

Among the papers were three letters — each one a nail in the coffin of the arbitration’s integrity:

1. Letter dated 4 October 1994 from the Regulator to Telstra
2. Letter dated 11 November 1994 from Telstra to the Regulator
3. Letter dated 1 December 1994 from the Regulator to Telstra

These weren’t casual memos. They were critical communications that directly addressed the heart of my claim: the fraudulent billing of short duration calls on my 008 service.

 

 

 

And yet, they were never disclosed to me during arbitration. Never forwarded, never acknowledged. They were buried — deliberately.

In the first paragraph of Telstra’s 16 December letter, the truth was laid bare:

The Regulator was clearly concerned. Page two of the same letter revealed Telstra’s proposed solution:

But I received no such invitation. No correspondence. No indication from the arbitrator that this arrangement was even being considered.

Instead, the Regulator wrote to the arbitrator acknowledging Telstra’s promise to answer the questions posed on 4 October.

And yet, Telstra never did. The arbitrator knew this — and allowed it.

In a letter dated 1 December, the Regulator noted that other Telstra customers in the Portland region had also complained about incorrect 1800 charges. Their letter of 8 December made the stakes clear:

This wasn’t just about me. It was about systemic fraud. And still, the arbitrator withheld these letters — in direct breach of the arbitration rules.

No written finding was made regarding the incorrect charging. Telstra had promised to address the issue. They didn’t. The arbitrator knew — and let it slide. This wasn’t incompetence. It was collusion.

Among the loose documents, I found even more damning evidence — records dating back to the day the COT Four signed for arbitration, 21 April 1994.

We had chosen arbitration over a commercial agreement because we believed Telstra’s billing system needed scrutiny. We believed the public deserved to know. We were wrong.

I had been instructed to lodge all phone complaints with Telstra’s solicitors. In one letter, I detailed the incorrect charges on my 1800 account.

On 18 June 1993, the Regulator wrote to Telstra, referencing numerous instances where the time between calls was less than one minute — and demanded an explanation.

An internal Telstra letter dated 25 November 1993 to the corporate billing directorate in Brisbane stated:

 

It was a lie. I told Telstra’s general manager for consumer affairs that this policy was not reflected on my line. I had the evidence. I had the records. And still, they denied it.

Over the years, I proved to the Regulator — again — that Telstra was charging for RVA calls.

I used my claim advisor’s account as just one example, matching my 1800 records with Telstra’s own data. The evidence was irrefutable.

Because these issues were ignored during arbitration, the Regulator visited Cape Bridgewater in late 1995. I presented six bound volumes of new evidence.

Three had already been submitted during arbitration. Telstra had written to the Regulator on 11 November 1994, promising to address them. They never did.

The Regulator’s team reviewed the volumes and were visibly stunned. They said they had never seen such detailed evidence. They took the volumes with them.

Weeks later, they returned them — but offered no formal recognition of my effort.

On 6 December 1995, the Regulator wrote:

They were still investigating. Still chasing ghosts. But the damage had been done

Among the loose documents, I found three technical reports compiled from my claim documents. One, dated 7 April 1995, was marked “Draft for Discussion Purposes Only” — written by the Australian component of the technical resource unit.

The other two, dated 30 April 1995, appeared to be duplicates — one from the Canadian team, one from the Australians. Identical covers. Identical dates. Neither signed.

But were they duplicates? Or was one altered?

The deeper I went, the more the truth twisted. The arbitration wasn’t a process. It was a trap — a carefully constructed illusion designed to protect Telstra, silence the COT claimants, and bury the evidence.

 

 

And I had just begun to uncover how deep the corruption ran.

 

CHAPTER 30 — Part 3: The Fabrication of Truth

Back in May 1995, when I received my copy of the technical report — the one I was required to respond to under the rules of the Fast Track Arbitration Procedure — I asked a simple question: why hadn’t it been signed off as a complete document?

The arbitrator never responded. Silence had become his signature.

But when I uncovered the so-called “duplicate” versions of the report — buried among the documents I retrieved from the arbitrator’s office — the truth began to rot through the surface.

I compared all three versions. Lo and behold, discrepancies emerged. Not minor edits. Not formatting tweaks. But deliberate alterations — all in Telstra’s favour.

One glaring anomaly stood out immediately: page numbering. One version flowed logically to page twenty-seven, but then — inexplicably — every subsequent page was also numbered twenty-seven, save for one. What did this signify?

A printing error? Or a deliberate attempt to obscure the document’s integrity?

More disturbing still was the section titled “Scope of Report” in the early draft dated 7 April 1995. It stated:

It listed the documents used to compile the report. But when I compared this with the “secret” version dated 30 April — the one I was never meant to see — I found that only 20% of my claim documents had been provided to the technical unit.

The rest? Ignored. Suppressed. Erased.

Then came the most damning revelation. Among the documents I received from the TIO in 2001 and 2002, I discovered that the arbitrator had drafted his award before the technical unit had even received my claim documents.

Let that sink in the technical findings in the final award was not based on the official report. So, who fed the arbitrator the data? Who whispered the conclusions before the evidence was even reviewed?

It wasn’t just the arbitrator. The project manager was complicit too. In a letter to the TIO dated 18 April 1995, he claimed that the director of the Canadian company had arrived in Australia on 13 April and worked over Easter “particularly on the Smith claim.” He added:

But the Australian company had already prepared their draft on 7 April. The Canadian expert hadn’t even arrived yet. And he never visited Cape Bridgewater.

The final report — dated 30 April — was merely a cosmetic rebranding. The investigation was conducted entirely by the Australian company, whose director was a former Telstra employee.

The Canadian name was slapped on to lend credibility. It was a façade—a forgery.

The discrepancy in document volume was equally damning. How could the technical unit assess faults prior to August 1994 if they only saw half my claim?

This wasn’t oversight. It was sabotage — a calculated effort to protect Telstra and defraud me of a proper assessment.

Then came the contradictions within the reports themselves. On page one of my version, the second paragraph read:

But in the arbitrator’s version — page two — the same paragraph continued:

Billing discrepancies. Again. Always just out of reach. On page three of the arbitrator’s copy, two paragraphs stood out:

These paragraphs were missing from my version. Erased. Sanitized. Did they think I would forget about the billing issues if they stopped mentioning them?

It was bad enough that Telstra failed to address the billing problems, despite promising to do so.

But to discover that letters discussing these matters were sent to the arbitrator and the Regulator — and not copied to me — was a betrayal of the highest order. If the arbitrator was shielding Telstra, then he was no longer impartial. He was complicit.

And then, to learn that the technical resource team intended to address the billing issues — only to have that section omitted from the final report — confirmed what I had long suspected: a conspiracy was at play.

A coordinated effort among high-ranking individuals to suppress the truth and protect Telstra.

I returned to pages 175 and 176 of the documentation, under the heading “Cape Bridgewater Documentation.” Both pages referenced more than four thousand documents “examined by us.”

Yet in the arbitrator’s award, he claimed to have reviewed over six thousand. What happened to the other two thousand?

Were they discarded? Hidden? Or did they contain truths too dangerous to be acknowledged?

This wasn’t arbitration. It was a masquerade. And I was its unwilling participant — trapped in a theatre of lies, where justice was scripted to serve the powerful.

 

CHAPTER 30 — Part 4: The Vanishing Evidence

Let’s be generous. Let’s assume that four hundred of the arbitrator’s six thousand documents were purely financial and didn’t require technical review.

That still leaves sixteen hundred documents unaccounted for — a number that eerily matches the volume of claim materials the technical unit itself admitted they never assessed.

Could it be that the technical unit — the very body tasked with evaluating the core of my complaint — never saw the full scope of my evidence?

The answer, it seems, is yes.

Buried in the final lines of the technical unit’s own summary was a statement so absurd it bordered on surreal:

This wasn’t just inaccurate. It was a lie. I had submitted a meticulously detailed log of 183 fault complaints spanning late 1989 to early 1994.

I had added 43 more during arbitration, supported by over 70 letters from customers and witnesses.

That’s 226 documented fault calls — and the technical unit claimed they saw none of it.

 

This wasn’t oversight. It was an obstruction.

And it didn’t stop there. I had evidence — hard, documented evidence — that Telstra had bugged my phone both before and during arbitration.

When combined with the rampant billing anomalies on my 1800 account, the only logical conclusion was that it was a conspiracy.

Diversion of calls and faxes had already been explored earlier in this book, but the deeper I dug, the darker it became.

An FOI document dated 23 September 1993, from inside Telstra, discussed “long held” and “incoming unanswered” calls lasting 4–8 seconds.

The author suspected these were diverted calls and recommended further investigation. But that investigation never came — at least not for me.

Other cases confirmed the pattern:

• A hairdresser in Adelaide, known to the COT group, suspected her calls were being diverted. The Regulator and police investigated. The calls were going to another hairdresser. Telstra settled out of court.
• A massage parlour operator in Melbourne suspected her calls were being redirected to a competitor. Police confirmed it—another quiet settlement.

And then there was my case.

On 3 June 1994, during arbitration, I called Telstra’s fault service to report that customers were struggling to reach my business. A bus charter operator was in my office and witnessed everything.

I used my fax line — separate from my 1800 service — to call Telstra. I asked the fault operator to dial my 1800 number and test the connection.

Moments later, while still holding on to the fax line, we heard a faint one-ring burst on the 1800 line. I picked up. The line was dead. I hung up.

Then the Telstra operator returned to the fax line and said she had heard someone mention a “holiday camp” on the 1800 line. But I hadn’t said a word. Neither had the charter operator. So, who answered the call?

The witness confirmed the event in writing. I even produced a professional video reenactment of the incident — a five-minute clip submitted to arbitration.

FOI documents show the arbitrator passed this evidence to Telstra. And yet, like so many other damning pieces, the issue of illegal call diversion was never addressed.

The pattern was unmistakable: evidence vanished, complaints ignored, and Telstra shielded at every turn. The technical unit claimed no log existed. The arbitrator allowed Telstra to sidestep their promises.

And the Regulator, despite acknowledging the gravity of the situation, remained silent.

This wasn’t arbitration. It was a coordinated cover-up — a theatre of justice where the outcome had already been written, and I was cast as the disposable antagonist.

 

CHAPTER 31 — The Surveillance State of Arbitration

As I sifted through the documents handed to me by the arbitrator’s secretary, a creeping dread settled in.

Among them was a file titled Ferrier Hodgson Corporate Advisory Working Notes — the FHCA. It was no ordinary report.

It was a glimpse into the machinery behind the curtain, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was staring into the eyes of something far more insidious than a simple legal dispute.

For once, the FHCA draft seemed to validate my position. It cited tourism statistics for the Portland region from 1991 to 1994 — numbers I had submitted, backed by Parks Victoria and the Victorian Tourism Domestic Monitor.

The figures showed a steady rise in visitors: 1.396 million, then 1.49 million, then 1.565 million. Yet the arbitrator’s final award absurdly suggested a decline in tourism as a factor in my business losses.

It was a lie — a deliberate distortion of fact to serve Telstra’s narrative.

Fuelled by this revelation, I contacted the president of the Institute of Arbitrators. Despite the cost of long-distance calls from Western Australia,

I pressed on. His response was measured but concerned. He acknowledged the irregularities I described, particularly the arbitrator’s conduct. But concern wasn’t enough. The damage was already done.

 

Only one figure stood beside me with conviction — my Federal MP, David Hawker. As far back as 1992, he had written to Telstra on my behalf, demanding answers about the phone faults crippling my business.

Telstra’s general manager admitted I was operating on outdated technology. It was a rare moment of honesty — and a small comfort.

But the rot ran deeper. I brought Hawker reports from other locals — stories of interference, dropped calls, and unexplained disruptions. Their experiences mirrored mine. We were all caught in Telstra’s web of deceit.

In late 1995, Hawker arranged a meeting with the then-Shadow Minister for Communications.

The senator’s concern was immediate and genuine. He requested documentation, eager to expose the unethical conduct infecting my arbitration — a process that was supposed to be simple, fair, and transparent. He, too, had been misled.

Then came the bombshell. FOI documents revealed that Telstra had fabricated test results and allowed the discredited BCI Addendum Report from 10 November 1993 to remain in the public domain.

This report — a cornerstone of Telstra’s defence — was a fraud. Yet it was paraded on national television, including A Current Affair, to bolster Telstra’s false claims of network reliability.

I flooded the senator’s office with evidence — proof that Telstra had been eavesdropping on my private calls throughout arbitration.

Despite assurances to the Australian Federal Police and Telstra’s board chair that surveillance had ceased, it continued unabated. The senator, a former lawyer, understood the gravity.

Telstra was stealing strategic insights from my calls — weaponizing surveillance to dismantle my case from within.

They knew where I was. They knew what I was submitting. And they made the most damaging documents disappear before they ever reached the arbitrator.

In December 1994, I received FOI documents R11612 to R13587 — including questions for Senate Estimates, placed on notice by the Shadow Minister. Document R13587 was chilling.

It cited a former Telstra security manager who confirmed that Telstra had installed computer links between its billing systems and external organisations — including Australia Post. The implications were staggering.

The questions posed to Telstra were damning:

 

•  Which organizations were linked to Telstra’s billing system?

•  Did intelligence agencies have access to customer files?

•  Could these organizations access billing details without restriction?

•  Could Telstra guarantee that MPs connected to COT members weren’t being shrivelled?

•  Who authorized the taping of COT members’ calls?

•  How many customers had their calls recorded without consent?

•  How many of those were involved in compensation claims?

And then, the final dagger: an internal Telstra memo regarding me, Alan Smith of Cape Bridgewater. It stated:

 

They knew. They always knew.

 

The senator, armed with this knowledge, understood Telstra had been illegally tapping calls. And those of us who had read the documents — who had lived the nightmare — knew it too.

It’s astonishing how easily those with the right connections can dig up inside information. Telstra, the very corporation I was battling, was watching my every move. They knew when I faxed. They knew what I faxed. And they had the power to intercept and erase.

In December 1994, the FOI documents painted a picture of a surveillance network masquerading as a telecommunications provider. A former Telstra insider confirmed that sensitive customer data was accessible through external links. The web of collusion stretched far beyond Telstra’s walls.

The questions asked of Telstra were not just technical — they were existential. Who was watching? Who was listening? And why?

 

When the coalition government took power in 1996, the shadow minister became the Minister for Communications and the Arts. I sent him an 82-page report — a chronological record of Telstra’s misconduct.

The response? A cold, perfunctory acknowledgement. The support I once had vanished. The pursuit of justice was replaced by political expediency.

Even when I raised concerns about the TIO’s deceptive practices, the priority was not truth — it was agenda.

This wasn’t just unethical. 'It was evil'. A corporation, backed by government silence, had weaponised surveillance, manipulated evidence, and corrupted a legal process to protect its empire.

And I was left to fight it alone.

 

CHAPTER 32 — Corruption at Its Worst

The infamous “beer in the phone” saga, took a far darker turn on 28 November 1995 — six months after the arbitrator issued his award, and nearly a year since I first requested access to the T200 phone Telstra had seized from my office.

That phone, they claimed, was soaked in beer — a convenient scapegoat for the persistent “lock-up fault” that plagued my service. I caused the faults, they insisted, not the problems in their network.

I’ve always maintained the beer was introduced after the phone left my premises. Yet the arbitrator blocked my forensic document researcher from examining the draft of Telstra’s technical report. Why? What were they hiding?

On that November day, I uncovered a bundle of late-discovered Telstra documents and lab reports. They revealed a damning truth: beer left inside a phone casing evaporates or dries within 24 hours.

Telstra’s own lab staff concluded beer couldn't remain moist for the twelve days between the phone’s removal from my office and its arrival at their lab.

This wasn’t a misunderstanding. It was a fabrication. Telstra had concocted a false narrative to absolve their failing network — descending into outright fraud to protect their reputation.

The revelation ignited a fire in me. In a moment of desperation, I dialled the arbitrator’s home number at 8 p.m. His wife answered. Panic surged. I didn’t want her to think I was causing trouble, so I used the name of a well-known project manager — the first name that came to mind. The call lasted twenty-eight seconds. A brief, frantic plea for justice.

I then contacted the TIO, armed with evidence that Telstra had not only falsified the BCI report but had also fabricated the T200 phone report. Tampering with evidence in a legal arbitration is a criminal act. Would Telstra’s corruption finally be exposed?

The TIO’s response was chillingly dismissive. He declared my arbitration “concluded” and refused to investigate further. Days later, I received a letter from the president of the Institute of Arbitrators — enclosing a letter from the TIO that twisted the truth beyond recognition.

The TIO claimed I had called the arbitrator’s home at 2 a.m., using a false name. While I admitted to the pseudonym, the time was a lie. The insinuation was clear: I was being painted as unstable, untrustworthy — a threat.

Why would the TIO distort the truth? He was supposed to be impartial. Instead, he smeared my character, casting doubt on my integrity. If he was willing to lie about me, what else had he buried? Was he protecting Telstra — or serving the public?

The TIO forwarded his misleading letter to the arbitrator. Surely the arbitrator’s wife could confirm I called at a reasonable hour and was courteous. But the arbitrator remained silent. He didn’t refute the lie. He didn’t defend the truth.

At least the institute president allowed me to respond. I seized the opportunity, expecting the arbitrator to corroborate my account. I had irrefutable evidence that the T200 phone had been tampered with after leaving my office.

The TIO should have acknowledged this in his letter. Instead, he ignored it — just as Telstra ignored the truth.

Telstra signed a statutory declaration affirming the integrity of their report — knowing it was fabricated. One technician even signed a declaration blaming “customer operator error” for faults with my fax machine, despite knowing the faults were network related.

FOI Document D01026 exposed the truth. Telstra knew the Exicom T200 phones had moisture issues that caused incorrect billing. Yet both Telstra and the arbitrator ignored these faults during arbitration — despite Telstra’s promise to the Regulator to address them.

Telstra knowingly re-deployed faulty phones — 450,000 of them. Cape Bridgewater, with its high moisture levels, was a prime target only after my relentless complaints was the local exchange sealed against moisture.

But what about fish and chip shops, bakeries, industrial kitchens, and heated indoor swimming pools? How many customers were unknowingly overcharged?

The legality of Telstra’s actions was non-existent. FOI Document D01026 stated that faulty phones should be deployed in “areas of lower moisture risk.” Telstra evaded the Trade Practices Act, bypassed parliamentary oversight, and operated as if above the law.

They showed no regard for Australian business owners or citizens. They profited from deception — from locked-up calls and phantom charges. My case was just one example of a massive overcharging scandal.

A 2001 document confirmed Telstra acknowledged wrongful billing on my 1800 line during arbitration. The TIO knew.

On 3 October 1995, he demanded answers from Telstra about their failure to investigate my faults. But nothing changed.

This wasn’t just corruption. It was corruption at its worst — systemic, deliberate, and protected by silence.

 

CHAPTER 33 — Part 1: The Unqualified Arbitrator 

When the TIO and his legal counsel first pressured the COT Four to abandon the commercial Fast Track Settlement Proposal (FTSP) and sign onto the Fast Track Arbitration Procedure (FTAP), they failed to mention a critical detail — the Institute of Arbitrators did not grade the appointed arbitrator until months after the completion of my arbitration.

In other words, he was not qualified to preside over any arbitration, let alone one as complex and far-reaching as ours.

In 1996, the Institute's president confirmed this in writing, stating that appointing a non-graded arbitrator was “always a risk.” But this wasn’t just a risk — it was a calculated gamble with lives, livelihoods, and legal integrity. To add insult to injury, I later learned that the arbitrator sat and failed his grading examination while overseeing our cases.

This damning information was passed to the Minister for Communications and the TIO. And yet, silence. No explanation. No accountability. Why were an unqualified arbitrator chosen to oversee a multi-million-dollar legal process? Who made that decision — and what were they trying to protect?

Even if the arbitrator was unqualified, we believed the TIO would act as a safeguard — an impartial observer ensuring fairness. But again, we were wrong.

The TIO’s office was governed by a board composed of executives from Australia’s leading telecommunications companies — including Telstra. And the person responsible for authorizing the release of FOI discovery documents to COT members?

He was Telstra’s own representative on the TIO council.
This wasn’t oversight. It was infiltration.

The arbitration was a highly legalistic affair, costing Telstra over eighteen million dollars to defend. And yet, the COT members — the claimants — were forced to rely on Telstra’s documents to support their claims.

Documents controlled by a Telstra insider embedded within the TIO. This gave Telstra private access to the TIO himself, bypassing the claimants entirely.

Later, I discovered that in January and February 1996, after I lodged a formal complaint with the Institute of Arbitrators, the president wrote to the arbitrator requesting an explanation.

On 23 January 1996, the arbitrator wrote to the TIO, expressing concern about how to respond — especially if he was to:

What facts was he afraid to disclose? What secrets were buried beneath the surface?

Not long after, I uncovered a TIO fax cover sheet dated 26 June 1995 — just six weeks after my arbitration concluded. It revealed that the TIO’s office was already strategizing how to suppress my letters to the arbitrator. The fax asked:

Can of worms? This was supposed to be an independent ombudsman overseeing a legal arbitration. What were they so afraid of? What truths were writhing beneath the surface, threatening to spill out?
This wasn’t justice. It was containment. A system designed not to resolve disputes, but to bury them — to protect Telstra, silence the COT claimants, and preserve the illusion of fairness.

And the gatekeepers? They were never neutral. They were part of the machine.

 

CHAPTER 33 — Part 2: The Credibility Conspiracy

 

On 12 May 1995 — just one day after handing down his decision in my arbitration — the arbitrator wrote a letter to the TIO admitting what no one dared say aloud: the arbitration had not been a credible process. His words were damning.

He acknowledged that the rules had failed to account for delays in document production, the need for further particulars, and the time required to prepare technical reports.

Even the project manager had complained of “not enough time.”

Had the TIO shared this letter with me at the time, I could have challenged the arbitrator’s findings. After all, how could any appeal judge in the Supreme Court rule against the arbitrator’s own admission that the process was flawed?

In that same letter, the arbitrator wrote:

But did anything change? No. The arbitrator and the TIO continued to arbitrate the remaining COT cases under the same defective rules — rules they both knew were not credible.

And while the arbitrator was quietly confessing the process’s failures, the TIO was busy issuing a media release celebrating the “successful conclusion” of the first COT arbitration. The release claimed:

But was there any mention of the arbitrator’s assessment that the process itself was broken? Of course not.

Was there any public acknowledgement that the “customer premises equipment” fault — likely the fabricated TF200 beer-in-the-phone report — was based on a manufactured lie? No.

 

Did the announcement mention that the faults continued to plague my business long after the award? No.
 

The deception was layered. While the project manager was complaining to the TIO about time constraints, he also claimed that his private property in Brighton had been damaged — and that the local police planned to interview me.

This letter was passed to the president of the Institute of Arbitrators by the arbitrator himself. Once received, the president refused to investigate my case any further.

But the entire allegation was a lie.

I contacted the Brighton CIB and asked them to check their records. They had never heard of me. No interview was planned. No investigation was underway.

And yet, the arbitrator failed to mention to the Institute president — who lived in Western Australia and likely didn’t know Victorian geography — that I lived nearly 500 kilometres from Brighton.

In his letter to the Institute president, the arbitrator also claimed to have “viewed” all 24,000 of my claim documents — and that the project manager and technical unit had done the same. But we know this to be a fabrication.

The technical unit admitted they hadn’t received all my materials. The arbitrator’s claim was a lie — a deliberate attempt to sanitise the record.

As an ever-growing number of documents trickled into my possession, I found it increasingly impossible to turn my back on the unfolding chaos.

 

Each new piece of evidence was like a brushstroke on a canvas, gradually painting a vivid and unsettling picture that revealed I had been the target of deliberate sabotage.

The bizarre incident involving "beer in the phone" was merely the tip of the iceberg; it hinted at a deeper, more insidious manipulation. A pressing question loomed over me like a dark cloud:

Why did the arbitrator neglect to address the critical issue of lost faxes, both before and during the arbitration? These faxes contained crucial evidence essential to my case, yet they vanished without a trace, lost within Telstra's sprawling network, never reaching the arbitrator’s office or the designated resource unit. 

Telstra's explanation—that alcohol had infiltrated the equipment—felt like a flimsy smokescreen, a desperate attempt to deflect blame.

Wasn’t it glaringly evident that this was a calculated manoeuvre to obscure the truth?

The real issue lay shrouded within Telstra’s malfunctioning lines, obscured by a web of bureaucratic confusion. Gaining access to the necessary documentation, buried deep within the company’s archives, was the only way any COT member could hope to substantiate their claims.

But how feasible was it to pry open the vault of critical records locked away in a labyrinth of red tape?

 

**Senate Testimony and Whistleblower Revelations**

During the Senate Environment, Recreation, Communications, and the Arts Legislation Committee hearings held on 24 and 27 June 1997, a brave whistleblower from within Telstra stepped forward, shedding a piercing light on the company’s inner workings.

 This courageous individual revealed the existence of a dedicated team—comprised of technical experts and accountants—tasked with meticulously processing Freedom of Information (FOI) documents before they were handed over to COT claimants.

These documents were securely stored on Telstra's mainframe, meticulously catalogued in Excel files.

Shockingly, the whistleblower disclosed that these lists were never shared with the claimants, meaning that you and others received crucial information a staggering two and a half years after the arbitration decisions had been finalised.

This unforgiving delay rendered the material virtually useless for your claims, leaving countless unanswered questions hanging in the air like unsettling spectres, cutting to the very core of a system riddled with secrecy and manipulation. 

Even the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s office, which worked tirelessly on my behalf, struggled to elicit meaningful responses from Telstra. When I requested copies of a significant letter that Telstra had sent to the arbitrator on 25 January 1994, along with related faxes from 11 February 1994, Telstra eventually claimed they "finally located" these documents, hidden away in a dusty file belonging to a former senior executive. Only then were they forwarded to the Ombudsman.

This fleeting moment felt like a small, hard-won victory, yet it paled in comparison to the mountain of undisclosed documents still obscuring the truth from those desperately seeking justice.

In the initial stages of the arbitration, I had submitted a Freedom of Information request for records that would illuminate the genesis of the arbitration rules, particularly the elusive first draft.

The response from Telstra was both baffling and infuriating. They claimed that the files had been "disposed of" by a personal assistant after the executive had left the company.

How convenient. While everyday correspondence could be easily unearthed, the critical evidence tied to the legal process had seemingly vanished into thin air.

These missing documents might have shattered the carefully constructed illusion of so-called "independent" rules, exposing them for what they truly were—anything but.

As time passed, vital documents mysteriously disappeared, and organisations deliberately distanced themselves from the unfolding disaster.

When I raised my concerns with the Institute of Arbitrators in January 1995, the president dismissed me, claiming the Institute had “absolutely no connection” to my arbitration.

Yet I possess damning written evidence from the TIO’s office that this same president played a role in drafting the very arbitration rules used against me. Today, he sits in a position of power as a County Court Judge.

From the outset, this so-called “non-legalistic” arbitration was a twisted maze of deceit and betrayal. No one has ever provided a satisfactory explanation for the vanishing of my critical claim documents.

When I discovered that the technical resource unit only evaluated faults from February 1988 to August 1994—wilfully ignoring crucial periods—I began to see the outlines of a sinister conspiracy.

This was not just between Telstra and the arbitrator; it extended to senior figures who had the means to bury the truth. Were my faxes intercepted on route to the arbitrator? Or did the arbitrator’s office purposely fail to forward them to Telstra’s defence team?

Between May 26 and August 19, 1993, Telstra’s own experts admitted that malicious call-tracing equipment locked my 1800 line for a full 90 seconds after each call, effectively blocking all incoming communication. Their own data reveals that at least 80 calls were diverted during this critical period.

So where did my faxes end up? Were they rerouted to some hidden, undisclosed location?

How many Australian businesses have been quietly dismantled—snatched away in their most vulnerable moments—because someone had malicious access to their phone lines? How many legal battles were lost at the eleventh hour because the opposition unearthed sensitive information at just the right time?

How much private and confidential data, entrusted to Telstra’s network, was mercilessly hijacked and used as a weapon against honest small businesses?

In my own case, Telstra’s list of received claim documents was shockingly short by 43—crucial documents I had sent directly to the arbitrator for Telstra’s lawyers.

Even the most unscrupulous arbitrator wouldn't dare to suppress such a substantial amount of evidence. So where are these documents hiding?

Lost faxes were troubling enough, but lost calls meant devastating financial loss. Forty missed calls in just three months—forty potential customers—gone forever. Some clients returned year after year, but I simply could not afford to lose new business opportunities.

Then came the explosive Senate revelations. On June 27, 1997, a courageous Telstra whistleblower stepped forward, confirming that the team responsible for handling COT FOI documents operated from the same building as Telstra’s solicitors.

Four technical specialists and six accountants meticulously filtered every single document before it ever reached us. The whistleblower’s testimony exposed a coordinated effort to stifle the truth.

What transpired was not arbitration; it was a calculated, malicious demolition of truth, justice, and the livelihoods of small businesses like mine.

 

CHAPTER 34 — The Machinery of Malice

The breakdowns weren’t mere technical glitches—they were symptoms of something far more insidious.

A steady stream of letters arrived, each one a cry from the shadows: fax failures, corrupted transmissions, and inexplicable distortions. These weren’t isolated incidents.

They were coordinated malfunctions, as if the system itself had turned predator.

June 1998 marked a turning point. Five separate businesses sent me letters—each one a testament to the creeping horror infecting my fax line. The most damning came from a local secretarial service, whose words dripped with desperation:

 

• Blank pages materialising mid-transmission
• Strips of paper like surgical scars
• Figures warped beyond recognition
• Entire sheets drowned in suffocating black ink

 

They wrote, “As the sole secretarial service in the area, my fax machine is indispensable, and I’ve never faced issues with any of my other clients.” Their testimony was clear: something was sabotaging the line. Something deliberate.

Then came the cold slap of institutional indifference. On July 30, 1998, the Australian Federal Police dismissed my claims as “not important enough.” Forty-three missing faxes—legal documents meant for arbitration—vanished without a trace.

If the Federal Police couldn’t comprehend the gravity of this digital theft, who could? Couriered documents come with accountability. Telstra’s network came with impunity.

August 18 brought another rejection, this time from the Attorney General’s office. Their message: “We cannot be of assistance.” The very guardians of justice had turned their backs.

The silence wasn’t passive—it was complicit.

I began to suspect a deeper rot. Fax piracy wasn’t just a Telstra problem—it was endemic.

On July 1, I contacted the deputy Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman again, armed with mutilated documents: pages faxed to the arbitrator that returned blank, shredded, or grotesquely altered. Telstra still charged me full price. The TIO’s office? Silent. Unmoved.

The corruption grew bolder. Bank statements I faxed to the project manager arrived stripped of crucial data.

One bore a handwritten note: “Smith’s Bank Statements”—in handwriting that wasn’t mine. I demanded answers. I got none.

Under point 25 of the arbitration rules, I was entitled to all the material in my claim. But Telstra’s defence counsel never returned the missing faxes. The TIO didn’t compel them.

 Why? Because they knew those documents never reached Telstra’s legal team. The entire process was a facade.

I reached out to every high-ranking official I could: the Minister for Communications, the Minister for Justice, the Attorney General, the Federal Treasurer.

I begged them to intervene. To retrieve what was stolen. To restore what was lost.

Instead, I discovered something grotesque. The TIO and the Minister for Communications had accepted an all-expenses-paid trip to the Atlanta Olympic Games—courtesy of Telstra.

A gift wrapped in corruption. Not illegal, perhaps. But undeniably unethical. How could they accept such a bribe while Telstra brutalized the very people they were meant to protect?

The TIO had coerced the four COTs into abandoning a commercial assessment process in favour of arbitration, promising simplicity and fairness.

It was a lie. The arbitrator they appointed wasn’t qualified. The Institute of Arbitrators Australia—whose name was used to lend credibility—was not involved.

The arbitrator was still sitting exams. He failed them.

 

This wasn’t incompetence. It was orchestration. A system designed to fail us. A tribunal built on deception. A network of officials who knew—and chose silence.

We kept them informed. We sent documentation. We pleaded for justice. And still, the machinery churned on, grinding our claims into dust.

My arbitration was not just flawed. It was a performance—staged, corrupted, and weaponised against me.

 

CHAPTER 34 — Part 2: The Anatomy of a Cover-Up

The rot ran deeper than anyone dared admit.

At the heart of the deception lay the financial report—once a beacon of truth, now a mutilated relic. Commissioned to assess the economic damage Telstra had inflicted upon me, the report was gutted on the arbitrator’s orders.

Key figures—those that would have laid bare the scale of my losses—were surgically removed. The project manager, complicit and obedient, stripped the data clean.

It was a calculated act, designed to cripple my forensic accountant’s ability to respond. With the evidence excised, my case dangled over the abyss, its foundation sabotaged from within.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation captured the stench of this conspiracy in a chilling headline: “QAI says Telstra hid report.” The date was 20th September 1998.

The story? A $14 million claim by QAI Australia Limited, accusing Telstra and the Federal Government of burying a damning report on billing irregularities.

The government, cornered by the Freedom of Information Act, reluctantly released a redacted version. Telstra, ever the puppet master, appealed to block even that.

Transparency was the enemy. Obfuscation was the strategy.

QAI’s managing director posed the question that echoed through every corridor of power: “If the report is not material… why the big secret?” The answer was obvious. The truth was radioactive.

Meanwhile, I received a letter from the Minister for Communications on 17th June 1998—a masterclass in bureaucratic evasion.

Despite my exhaustive documentation of fraudulent 1800 number charges, the minister shrugged off responsibility: “The government has no jurisdiction to intervene.”

A convenient abdication. The TIO was investigating, they claimed. But the TIO, too, was playing its part in the charade.

The deception was layered. A Hansard record from 30th November 1995 revealed that the Senate had once demanded an independent inquiry into Telstra’s predatory conduct.

The motion passed unopposed. Yet when the new Communications Minister took office—armed with the power to act—he chose silence. The inquiry vanished into the void.

The duplicity deepened. In the same June 1998 letter, the Minister’s office claimed I had only “just raised” the issue of incorrect 1800 charges. A lie.

I had written to the TIO as early as 3rd September 1995, followed by ten more letters, the last dated 31st October 1995.

In total, I sent over 120 letters, most of them detailing the same fraudulent billing practices. The TIO had replied to many of them. One such reply, dated 28th November 1995, admitted that references to billing discrepancies were deliberately deleted from the technical report.

The justification? There wasn’t enough time. A convenient excuse for a deliberate erasure.

Even more damning, on 17th February 1998, I sent the TIO a 49-page submission, complete with transcripts from the 11th of October 1994 oral hearing.

Pages 92 to 94 confirmed that my evidence on incorrect billing had been formally accepted into the arbitration. The arbitrator himself had said, “I don’t think we need any further examples.” And yet, years later, the TIO claimed the issue only became “current” in April 1995. A blatant rewriting of history.

On 28th October 1997, the TIO finally asked Telstra whether they agreed that the 1800 billing issue had been ignored during arbitration. I never saw Telstra’s reply. It vanished—like so many of my faxes, like so much of the truth.

Why the silence? Because a ruling against Telstra would have detonated a legal precedent. It would have exposed a pattern of systemic overcharging. It would have opened the floodgates.

But the corruption didn’t stop at billing.

Transcripts from the arbitration hearing—pages 31 to 41—revealed another grotesque truth: Telstra had been eavesdropping on my private calls during arbitration.

The arbitrator acknowledged the allegations but warned that unless I could prove them, they would be dismissed as “not relevant.” I insisted they remain in my claim. I wanted the truth on record. But Telstra was never forced to answer. The allegations were buried.

And this was while Telstra was still government owned. What horrors would unfold once it was fully privatised, free from even the illusion of oversight?

A Melbourne Age newspaper article from 10th October 1998 confirmed what many feared: anyone with access to the phone network could intercept faxes and calls without detection. Telstra, with its godlike access, could monitor, record, and store private communications.

The article asked the questions that haunted me: What could someone do with this information? What if it’s misinterpreted? Where does it end up?

The answer, I feared, was already written—in redacted reports, in missing faxes, in the silence of those sworn to protect justice.

 

CHAPTER 34 — Part 3: The Vanishing Trail

 

The truth was buried beneath Telstra’s own archives—buried but not erased.

Three damning internal documents, all irrefutable, stood in direct contradiction to the statutory declaration made by Telstra’s first technical officer.

The declaration, presented as gospel during arbitration, claimed my fax faults were due to “operator error.” But Telstra’s own records told a darker story:

 

1.  Fault Report – 5 March 1993: “Rang Cape Bridgewater but Mr Smith was out… received several calls where on lift off all she heard was dial tone… may be tied up with the Portland AXE Network problem.”

2.  FOI Document K00960 – 31 January 1994: “Fax tests to Cape Bridgewater needed… Telstra’s had problems faxing Smith Telstra information.”

3.  FOI Document R37914 – 19 March 1994: “Found fault to be in RCM at Cape Bridgewater. Common equipment card due to data corruption.”

Not even Telstra’s own engineers or the National Facsimile Support Centre could send faxes to my business. Yet the arbitrator accepted the technical officer’s declaration as fact.

Perjury, in a legal arbitration process. And the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO)? Silent. Complicit. Perhaps they believed the lie. Or maybe they helped craft it.

The TIO board, stacked with representatives from Telstra and other carriers, had every reason to investigate. They had the evidence. They had the authority.

They had the obligation. But they did nothing. I submitted the full dossier in August and September 1999. I’m still waiting.

The timing was no coincidence. The COT arbitrations were a liability—one the Australian Government couldn’t afford to expose before Telstra’s public sale.

My evidence proved Telstra had systematically overcharged me across all three service lines. A clear violation of the Australian Trade Practices Act. If it happened to me, how many others were fleeced? How much of Telstra’s profit was built on fraud?

The Minister for Communications had a duty of care. He should have launched an independent investigation. He should have disclosed the billing irregularities in Telstra’s share prospectus. He did neither. Silence was safer.

And silence echoed from every corner. I alerted the president of the Liberal Party—also chair of the TIO’s counsel—to the disturbing ties between Telstra’s lawyers and high-profile politicians.

No response. No inquiry. No accountability. They had the information. They chose the shadows.

This book is not just a chronicle of injustice. It’s a warning. A spotlight on the legal vultures and corporate predators who orchestrated a cover-up so vast it threatened the very integrity of Australia’s telecommunications system.

Even the TIO’s own handwritten notes—obtained under the new Privacy Policy Act—betrayed concern. One note read: “These are quite serious allegations. We need to respond to specific letters Smith says weren’t forwarded or received and provide answers on each.” But no answers came. The lockups continued. The billing faults persisted. The silence deepened.

On 26 February 1999, I sent three faxes to another COT member. Two arrived. One vanished. Telstra’s records showed that all three transmissions were successful.

I was charged for all three. If I hadn’t called to confirm, the disappearance would have gone unnoticed. But this wasn’t a one-off. It was a pattern.

Back on 23 May 1994, I sent seven faxes to the arbitrator. Telstra later admitted they didn’t arrive—blaming a busy fax line. Yet their technical data showed all seven were received. My account showed I was charged. The lie was seamless.

And then there were the forty-three missing faxes—documents critical to my claim. Telstra’s defence unit never received them. Yet Telstra charged me for every transmission. Some lasted up to eight minutes. These weren’t single-page slips. They were full dossiers. Gone.

So, we must ask:

1.  Where are these forty-three documents?

2.  Are they buried in the same digital graveyard as the recent fax that vanished between two COT members?

The answers remain locked behind corporate walls and government silence. But the questions will not fade.

 

 

 

CHAPTER 34 — Part 4: The Phantom Network

If you still believe these missing faxes were mere technical hiccups—blips in a flawed system—then consider this: on 19 March 1999, something disconcerting unfolded.

A six-page fax from my Melbourne secretarial agency began printing at my office. But instead of cutting each page, the machine rolled out a single, unbroken strip of paper.

As I watched, the line—already engaged—began to ring. The fax stopped mid-transmission. Then, inexplicably, a two-page fax from my solicitor appeared. Different sender.

Different subject. Same line. The phone rang again. The solicitor’s fax ended, and the final three pages from the secretarial agency resumed printing—all on the same strip.

Three pages from one address. Two from another. Then three more from the first. One continuous stream. One line. One machine. This wasn’t a glitch. It was a breach.

Then came the phantom diversions.

A Telstra document—FOI A03610—casually noted that short-duration calls might be “diverted.” But I had no call diverter. No message bank. Just a standard answering machine. So where were these calls going? Who rerouted them? And why?

This wasn’t isolated. Another Telstra customer, whose calls were diverted to a competitor, confirmed the same interference. Telstra acknowledged it. The Victoria Police were informed.

Still, no investigation. No accountability.

Just silence.

Then came the absurd: Telstra issued a disconnection notice for a fax line that had already been disconnected. Stranger still, they billed me $60 rental for that same deadline—up to June 1999. A ghost account. A ghost charge.

After a meeting with Telstra on 14 January 1998, I received file notes from the TIO in 2002. Attached was a letter from Telstra to the TIO dated 4 February 1998, admitting that 1800 billing faults persisted even after arbitration.

 

The TIO had the admission. He had the authority. He did nothing.
Worse, the TIO wrote to my MP, Mr Hawker, claiming all billing faults had been investigated—despite knowing from the project manager and technical unit that they hadn’t been.

Why lie? Why mislead Parliament?

By 2000, despair had set in. A new optical fibre installed in October 1998 reduced some issues, but no one ever inspected the faulty wiring I’d complained about during arbitration.

Then, in 2001, FOI documents from the Regulator confirmed what we’d known all along: the rural network was broken. Even Telstra’s board admitted it. So, what was my arbitration for?

Why did Telstra lie under oath when their own executives knew the system was failing?

I had reinvested what little remained of my settlement into my business—new cabins, urgent repairs—yet the TIO knew the faults hadn’t been fixed. How could a phone-dependent business survive under a sabotaged network?

Then came the revelation: a 2001 document showed Telstra had written to the TIO on 11 January 1994, stating that arbitration details would only be released “after consultation with the TIO.”

The TIO, who had already changed the rules of arbitration without my consent, had misled me into signing an agreement that allowed Telstra and the TIO to vet every discovery document.

 Nothing would be released unless both parties agreed. Independence? A farce.

Between 2004 and 2025, I compiled a detailed timeline of this saga and sent it to government officials. No investigation has ever found in my favour.

At one point, the Senate began investigating five COT claimants from a list of twenty-one. I’ve seen in camera Hansard reports from that inquiry. I’m forbidden from revealing their contents under threat of imprisonment.

But I can say this: one Senator believed that compensating five while ignoring sixteen was grossly unjust. The five received substantial payouts. The rest? Nothing.

During the arbitrations, the Australian Federal Police produced a report on their investigation into COT claims. That report is now buried in government archives, sealed for thirty years. If there’s nothing to hide, why bury it?
And still, the problems persist. On 8 November 2002, the Portland Observer reported that the new owners of the Cape Bridgewater Holiday Camp—my former business—were experiencing the same phone issues I had battled for years.

The ghosts of Telstra’s network hadn’t vanished. They had simply found new victims.