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Bad bureaucrats and the establishment

 

Absent Justice - Australian Senate

Rorted millions from the government coffers - no one has been jailed

Perhaps even worse, however, on 25 June 1997, the day after Lindsay White informed the above aforementioned Senate committee that he was told by Telstra he "had to stop the COT Cases at all cost" from proving our claims page 5163, SENATE official Hansard – Parliament of Australia, shows Telstra employees rorted millions upon millions of dollars from Telstra shareholders: i.e., the Government and Australian citizens, who then owned Telstra. The pressure Senators Alston and Boswell applied for a Senate investigation into the Casualties of Telstra (COT cases) phone fiascos was one of the reasons Telstra agreed to settle the COT cases' issues in a proposed Fast Track Settlement Proposal signed by Telstra and the four claimants in the third week of November 1993. It seemed Telstra could not afford a further investigation into its operation: NSW was not the only state where this rorting, and others, was taking place. Many people made threats against the COT cases because our persistence to gainfully functional phone systems was about to expose other unethical behaviour at Telstra, including at the management level. The fact that both the Telstra CEO and board knew millions upon millions of dollars (again, see 5163 of SENATE official Hansard – Parliament of Australia) were being unlawfully syphoned from the government coffers is unbelievable. In fact, figures running into the billions have also been quoted.

The fact that Frank Blount, Telstra's CEO, was able to sell his book admitting while he was at the helm, Telstra had an 1800 problem and that AUSTEL knew that this same 1800 problem was linked to incorrectly charging Senate above did not demand answers from Frank Blount to ask the Telstra board to make understand to the COT Cases arbitrator the COT Cases arbitration claims where they say they lost money as well as business must be taken into account by the arbitrator shows once again how corrupt Telstra is.

Reading my produced Telstra's Falsified BCI Report and by doing so you will discover the truth behind Telstra's Falsified BCI Report and the deception exposed in this investigation. Explore the details at Absent Justice as well as follow the link Evidence - C A V Part 1, 2 and 3 -Chapter 4 - Fast Track Arbitration Procedure, which confirms Frank Blount, Telstra's CEO, after leaving Telstra in co-published a manuscript in 1999. entitled Managing in Australia. On pages 132 and 133, the author exposes the problems Telstra were hiding from their 1800 customers:

Frank Blount's Managing Australia https://www.qbd.com.au › managing-in-australia › fran can still be purchFiguresmage|157]SENATE official Hansard – Parliament of Australia

At the time, those COT Cases who had NOT already lost their businesses (as a direct result of the poor network services provided by Telstra) didn't know that, after being pressured into signing up for the arbitration process, once they had been actually locked into that process, the ongoing telephone problems that sent those claimants into arbitration in the first place were then covered up by the arbitration process so that the arbitrator then only awarded the claimants for damage caused BEFORE they went into arbitration, while completely ignoring the problems that continued to haunt those businesses and, eventually, drive them to the wall. In other words, the arbitration process was nothing but a ruse that led to the COT Cases paying dearly while Telstra played catch-up, and the end result of all that was a very poor, Australia-wide, National Broadband Network (NBN) system as the following segments show below.

As we started to tell our COT vs Telstra arbitration stories and place each collusive and deceitful act into some sequence, we found many further acts of collusion and deceit committed by others outside of our arbitrations. As the website grows, we have discovered some issues related to more than one event that are often linked to multiple events. therefore, one event may need to be repeated in different sections of the website to enable the depth of the corruption and illegal activities committed during the arbitration to be fully understood. Hence, several previously detailed situations in other parts of absentjustice.com are used here again, and we make no apology for that.

It became apparent that many problems the COT cases experienced originated from either negligence or deliberate by several government agencies. Therefore, we have used page 3 of the Australian Herald Sun newspaper dated 22 December 2008, written under the heading Bad bureaucrats as proof that government public servants need to be held accountable for their wrongdoings.

“Hundreds of federal public servants were sacked, demoted or fined in the past year for serious misconduct. Investigations into more than 1000 bureaucrats uncovered bad behaviour such as theft, identity fraud, prying into file, leaking secrets. About 50 were found to have made improper use of inside information or their power and authority for the benefit of themselves, family and friends“

It is also essential to link how, on 2 February 1995, AUSTEL (the Government Communications Regulator) public servants decided to withhold their accurate findings from the then-Minister for Communications, Michael Lee MP; at the same time, in the deficient arbitration Service Verification Tests (SVT) were conducted at my Cape Bridgewater business on 29 September 1994. My story on the website absentjustice.com includes examples of how some evil bureaucrats favoured Telstra during the COT arbitrations to the detriment of the claimants. Altering the conspiracy, their findings are appalling enough. Still, according to the Telecommunications Act 1991, AUSTEL was duty-bound, under Section 342 of the Act, to provide the Communications Minister (the Hon. Michael Lee MP) with all their findings regarding the deficiencies in their Cape Bridgewater Holiday Camp SVT process.

We will never know what action the Hon. Michael Lee MP might have taken in 1994 had the government bureaucrats advised the Minister that the SVT testing at my Cape Bridgewater business had not occurred according to mandatory government communications regulatory specifications. On 12 December 1994, as part of Telstra's arbitration defence, it was stated under oath to the arbitrator that all three of the service lines tested at my holiday camp on 29 September 1994 had exceeded all specifications. However, the person who made this statement could not get the SVT monitoring device to work with its sister device installed at the Cape Bridgewater unmanned roadside exchange.

It is clear from Telstra's Falsified SVT Report  that these tests had not been performed; however, Telstra stated under oath that they had been. Further exhibits on absentjustice.com and Telstra correspondence to AUSTEL during November 1994 show that Telstra dictated to AUSTEL which information they could or could not provide to the Australian public concerning the SVT testing process of the six cases tested to that date, which included my business.

In simple terms, in 1994, Telstra called the shots on how the Government, as the regulator during the COT arbitrations, could or could not proceed. Sadly, the Herald Sun statement concerning the corrupt conduct of government bureaucrats suggests this conduct was still present in their ranks 14 years after the COT arbitrations.

The COT Cases themselves have been saying for years that, if AUSTEL and Telstra had advised correctly the relevant government communications ministers of the truth about the poor condition of the copper-wire network, some of the decisions made by those government ministers during the selling off of Telstra and the upgrade of its infrastructure, might have been entirely different. The latest news (in 2018) regarding the NBN (see  NBN boss blames Government's reliance on copper for slow speeds and dropouts ) suggests that someone should have been listening to the complaints that the COT Cases lodged about the ongoing problems that continued to haunt them, even after their arbitrations were over, and they should have been listened to as a priority.

When the COT Cases disclosed to the various Telecommunication Industry Ombudsman (TIO-bureaucrats) the truth surrounding how bad Telstra's network was affecting their businesses, those bureaucrats were recycled into another position where they assisted the powers to be to conceal the truth in what the COT Cases had proved.

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Absent Justice - My Story - Senator Ron Boswell

Threats made and carried out.

Page 180 ERC&A, from the official Australian Senate Hansard, dated November 29 1994, reports Senator Ron Boswell asking Telstra's legal directorate why were my FOI documents being withheld from me during my arbitration:

“Why did Telecom advise the Commonwealth Ombudsman that Telecom withheld FOI documents from Alan Smith because Alan Smith provided Telecom FOI documents to the Australian Federal Police during their investigation?”

After receiving a hollow response from Telstra, which the senator, the AFP and I all knew was utterly false, the senator states:

“…Why would Telecom withhold vital documents from the AFP? Also, why would Telecom penalise COT members for providing documents to the AFP which substantiate that Telecom had conducted unauthorised interceptions of COT members’ communications and subsequently dealt in the intercepted information by providing that information to Telecom’s external legal advisers and others?” (Senate Evidence File No 31)

As I have reiterated throughout this website, the threats against me during the arbitration proceedings came to fruition, and the withholding of pertinent documents is deeply concerning. Regrettably, neither the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman nor the government has investigated the detrimental impact of this malpractice on my overall submission to the arbitrator. Despite assisting the Australian Federal Police (AFP) in their investigation into the illicit interception of phone conversations and arbitration-related faxes, they never came to my aid.

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“I am writing in reference to your article in last Friday’s Herald-Sun (2nd April 1993) about phone difficulties experienced by businesses.

I wish to confirm that I have had problems trying to contact Cape Bridgewater Holiday Camp over the past 2 years.

I also experienced problems while trying to organise our family camp for September this year. On numerous occasions I have rung from both this business number 053 424 675 and also my home number and received no response – a dead line.

I rang around the end of February (1993) and twice was subjected to a piercing noise similar to a fax. I reported this incident to Telstra who got the same noise when testing.”

Cathy Lindsey

“Only I know from personal experience that your story is true, otherwise I would find it difficult to believe. I was amazed and impressed with the thorough, detailed work you have done in your efforts to find justice”

Sister Burke

“…the very large number of persons that had been forced into an arbitration process and have been obliged to settle as a result of the sheer weight that Telstra has brought to bear on them as a consequence where they have faced financial ruin if they did not settle…”

Senator Carr

“…your persistence to bring about improvements to Telecom’s country services. I regret that it was at such a high personal cost.”

The Hon David Hawker MP

“…your persistence to bring about improvements to Telecom’s country services. I regret that it was at such a high personal cost.”

Hon David Hawker

“Only I know from personal experience that your story is true, otherwise I would find it difficult to believe. I was amazed and impressed with the thorough, detailed work you have done in your efforts to find justice”

Sister Burke

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