Discrimination

History

Until the late 1990s, the Australian government owned Australia's telephone network and the communications carrier, Telecom (today privatised and called Telstra). Telecom held the monopoly on communications and let the network deteriorate into disrepair. Instead of our deficient telephone services being fixed, as part of our government-endorsed arbitration process that the government set up to fix the problems, it turned into an uneven battle the COT Cases could never win. Our ongoing telephone and faxing problems were NOT fixed as part of the process, regardless of the hundreds of thousands of dollars it cost us, four claimants, to mount our claims against Telstra. Crimes were committed against us, and our integrity was attacked and undermined. Our livelihoods were ruined, we lost millions of dollars, and our mental health declined, yet those who perpetrated the crimes are still in positions of power today. Our story is still actively being covered up.

Today

Over the last seven years, I have compiled a website and manuscript where all of the main events quoted on the website and the book are supported by copies of the original documents (confirmation data) linked in the text (   ). Clicking on these links with your cursor will automatically open an exhibit PDF. This method will validate the claims being made by following the various files discussed on our multiple pages. Without those documents, most people would struggle to believe that the Casualties of Telstra (COT) claimants have lived through these appalling events. 

The website and book are true accounts of what happened during my arbitration and (not what is recorded in government archives concerning the COT story, one of which you may be aware of. We were a group of small Australian business owners who blindly put their faith and trust in a minority group of Australian bureaucrats who, we later discovered, had secretly worked with the then government-owned telecommunications carrier (the Telstra Corporation) to conceal deliberately from its customers and the arbitrator, just how bad the telephone system was in Australia, back in the 1990s. Two Canadian telecommunication consultants flew from Canada to Australia to investigate our four claims, one in October 1993 and the other in April 1995; they also became involved in concealing how bad Australia's telephone network was as the following link on my website.

Julian Assange - Hacking

 

Click on the Julian Assange caption below to learn more about the COT story.

Graham Schorer prepared a statutory declaration on 7 July 2011 to provide to the Victorian Attorney-General, the Hon Robert Clark. This statutory declaration discusses the hackers who phoned Graham to warn him. The hackers discovered Telstra and others associated with our arbitrations were acting unlawfully towards the COT group. Graham's statutory declaration includes the following statements:

“After I signed the arbitration agreement on 21st April 1994 I received a phone call after business hours when I was working back late in the office. This call was to my unpublished direct number.

“The young man on the other end asked for me by name. When I had confirmed I was the named person, he stated that he and his two friends had gained internal access to Telstra’s records, internal emails, memos, faxes, etc. He stated that he did not like what they had uncovered. He suggested that I should talk to Frank Blount directly. He offered to give me his direct lines in the his [sic] Melbourne and Sydney offices […]

“The caller tried to stress that it was Telstra’s conduct towards me and the other COT members that they were trying to bring to our attention.

“I queried whether he knew that Telstra had a Protective Services department, whose task was to maintain the security of the network. They laughed, and said that yes they did, as they were watching them (Telstra) looking for them (the hackers). …

“After this call, I spoke to Alan Smith about the matter. We agreed that while the offer was tempting we decided we should only obtain our arbitration documents through the designated process agreed to before we signed the agreement.”  Hacking – Julian Assange File No/3

On the covering page of a joint 10-page letter dated 11 July 2011 to the Hon Robert McClelland, federal attorney-general and the Hon Robert Clark, Victorian attorney-general, I note:

"In 1994, three young computer hackers telephoned Graham Schorer, the official Spokesperson for Telstra Casualties (COT), regarding their Telstra arbitrations.

• Was Jullian Assange one of these hackers?
• The hackers believed they had found evidence that Telstra was acting illegally. 
• In other words, we were fools not to have accepted this arbitration file when it was offered to us by the hackers who conveyed to Graham Schorer a sense of the enormity of the deception and misconduct undertaken by Telstra against the COT Cases." AS-CAV Exhibit 790 to 818 Exhibit 817

I also wrote to Hon. Robert Clark on 20 June 2012 to remind him that his office was already in receipt of Graham Schorer's 7 July 2011 statutory declaration. I also approached other government authorities and provided the Scandrett & Associates report (see Open Letter File No/12 and File No/13), which leaves no doubt that the hackers were correct concerning this electronic surveillance.

If the hackers included Julian Assange, he carried out a duty to expose what he thought was a crime. Significant law enforcement agencies and the media have been asking the Australian public to disclose incidents that they believe are crimes because doing so is in the public interest. When I exposed similar crimes to the Australian Federal Police – Australian Federal Police Investigation File No/1 – I was penalised, and Telstra carried out its threats. 

On page 15 of a publication titled The Most Dangerous Man In The World, written in 2011 by the ABC TV Four Corners journalist Andrew Fowler, Mr Fowler notes that Julian Assange was one of those who hacked into Telstra's Lonsdale Street Telephone Exchange computer system in the centre of Melbourne. This is the same Lonsdale telephone exchange which had caused so many problems for my business, as reported in the government's report titled AUSTEL’s Adverse Findings, which notes at Point 209 – 

“Cape Bridgewater Holiday Camp has a history of service difficulties dating back to 1988. Although most of the documentation dates from 1991 it is apparent that the camp has had ongoing service difficulties for the past six years which has impacted on its business operations causing losses and erosion of customer base.”

Page 21 in the 26 November 1996 Telstra Arbitration Briefing Document for Graham Schorer (COT spokesperson) also refers to problems at the Lonsdale Street Telephone Exchange, noting that the issues affected the service lines of Graham's courier business. So what did Julian Assange and his friends find at the Lonsdale Street Telephone Exchange that prompted them to telephone Graham Schorer?

My statement to Mr Pinnock, Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (the second appointed administrator to my arbitration) in my 20 October 1995 letter that: "This phrase has now come home to roost" (refer to exhibit 537 - GS-CAV 522 to 580) was my way of saying that the advice Graham Schorer received from these hackers – concerning Telstra, the government and others, were acting unlawfully towards the COT Cases was all part of a combined effort to stop us COT Cases from wholly proving our claims. Even in 2024, no one has ever provided advice on why my China privacy issues associated with my arbitration have been repeatedly investigated. 

The website and book are true accounts (not those recorded in government archives concerning the COT story one, which you may be aware of. A group of small Australian business owners who blindly put their faith and trust in a minority group of Australian bureaucrats who, we later discovered, had secretly worked with the then government-owned telecommunications carrier (the Telstra Corporation) to conceal, deliberately, from its customers and the arbitrator, just how bad the telephone system was in Australia, back in the1990s. Two separate Canadian telecommunication consultants flew from Canada to Australia to investigate our four claims, one in October 1993          

It was during those arbitrations that three young computer hackers, later confirmed as Julian Assange, contacted the COT spokesperson to advise him they had hacked into Telstra's telecommunications network and uncovered how we arbitration claimants were being crucified by those conducting the arbitrations and did we want copies of this evidence (see https://www.absentjustice.com/hacking-julian-assange/chapter-8-hacking-unresolved-privacy-issues/..

We declined the offer because we thought it might have been set up by Telstra or the government, unaware that the hackers were telling us the truth.

Please view this website to verify what I am saying.

Julian Assange - Hacking shows Julian warned the COT Cases about corruption and legal abuse in Australian-conducted arbitrations. He exposed these heinous and scandalous crimes committed against the COT during their arbitrations three years before the Senate uncovered the same.   &nbs

As has been shown on Julian Assange Hacking and elsewhere on this website absentjustice.com three young computer hackers contacted Graham Schorer, COT Cases spokesperson, informing him Telstra and others associated with our arbitrations were acting unlawfully towards us and did we want copies of the Telstra documentation to support this. We declined that offer, thinking it might be a trap of some type to catch us COT Cases accepting documents outside their agreed arbitration process.   

During the COT arbitrations of 1994 to 1999 and beyond, certainly up to 2006, COT Case Graham Schorer, Ann Garms, and I discussed and, on several occasions, what Julian Assange and his hacker maters advised the COT Cases spokesperson Graham Schorer concerning what he had read via the documents he wanted to proved us including his clear statement,  that Telstra and their lawyers and others associated with our arbitrations were acting unlawfully towards us when Graham Schorer asked Warwick Smith (who was the then Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) as well as the administrator of our arbitrations) what the outcome of his investigations concerning what the hackers had conveyed about Telstra's and others Warwick Smith stated they had been apprehended.

I later made an appointment to see Warwick Smith with a witness. I asked him what the result of his investigations into what these hackers had told Graham about Telstra's unlawful conduct, citing what I had recently provided Sue Harlow, Deputy Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman office in a statutory declaration dated 16 May 1994, at the suggestion of Superintendent Detective Jeff Pensore of the Australian Federal Police. That statutory declaration detailed that Telstra had acted unlawfully towards me, altering and deleting evidence on requested discovery documents.

Warwick Smith said to continue my arbitrations and that his office would handle this matter. Nothing else was shared with me. I did not know at this time that Warwick Smith had been assisting Telstra before the arbitrations began to turn the first four commercial assessment processes into a highly hush-hush legalistic arbitration process where once it was signed, all issues, such as Telstra's unlawful conduct during our arbitrations could not be discussed publically because of the confidentiality clause.

When Senator Ron Boswell discovered Telstra, Warwick Smith and Dr Gordon Hughes had allowed Telstra to threaten me because of what I  had exposed to the Jeff Penrose of AFP concerning Telstra's destroying and altering information on my requested discovery documents, he disclosed this conduct at Senate Committee hearing on 29 November 1994, when it became evident Telstra had carried out those threats in full view of Warwick Smith and Dr Gordon Hughes. Warwick Smith and Dr Hughes have received the 'The Order of Australia' medal for their service to Australia.

Documents provided to both my first AAT 2008 hearing and my 2009 Institute of Arbitrators Mediators Australian investigation into my arbitration claims, which included the none release of FOI documents by the government and Telstra, raised the issues concerning the statements made by the hackers when they contacted Graham Schorer COT spokesperson. The issues raised on absentjustice.com Julian Assange - Hacking pages are not newly invented. These issues were raised in 1994, 1995, and 1996 and are still present today. 

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