Rupert Murdoch -Telstra Scandal - Helen Handbury
Bribery and corruption are clandestine practices often facilitated by professional intermediaries, including bankers, lawyers, accountants, and arbitrators, who are affiliated with opaque financial systems and anonymous shell companies. These mechanisms allow for the proliferation of corrupt schemes and the concealment of egregious crimes committed by public officials in their purported execution of civic duties. The confluence of bribery, corruption, and political malfeasance poses a substantial threat to governmental integrity, as evidenced by the Casualties of Telstra government-endorsed arbitrations. In Australia, akin to other Western nations espousing governance by the rule of law, such political corruption undermines the operations of businesses, both large and small, and erodes fundamental democratic principles of justice, as demonstrated by the narratives of Casualties of Telstra government featured on absentjustice.com. Even in 2021 and 2022, The then Prime Minister of Australia Scott Morrison persisted in engaging in such reprehensible and treacherous misconduct, including legal abuse or legal bullying, while in government. This misconduct is presently the subject of a Royal Commission investigation, which has rendered adverse findings against several public officials.
I encourage all website visitors to carefully examine and explore the Rupert Murdoch -Telstra Scandal - Helen Handbury link to grasp the intricacies of the Casualties of Telstra story quickly. While it may not be necessary for visitors to read every single word in "My Story Warts and all" or chapters 1 to 34, or in "Absent Justice" chapters 1 to 12, simply skimming through these two books will make it clear that this COT story needs to be brought to light as a matter of public interest, especially within the Australian community.
HELEN HANDBURY - Sister of Rupert Murdoch
I'm grateful for her Helens comments.
When Helen Handbury, Rupert Murdoch's sister, visited my holiday camp a second time after reading my manuscript at absentjustice.com, she promised to provide my evidence supporting this website to her brother Rupert. She believed he would be appalled by Telstra's disregard for justice. I hesitated to inform Helen that Rupert Murdoch knew about Telstra's unethical practices. These illegal activities cost every Australian citizen millions of dollars in lost revenue. This revenue should have rightfully gone to the government and its citizens. This information is well documented in SENATE Hansard; therefore, Rupert Murdoch would have been aware that through Telstra's unethical practices, News Corp and Foxtel were compensated by Telstra for not meeting their cable rollout commitment time. This is quoted from point 10, pages 5164 and 5165→ SENATE official Hansard – Parliament of Australia
Telstra’s CEO and Board have known about the scam since 1992. They have had the time and opportunity to change the policy and reduce the cost of labour so that cable roll-out commitments could be met and Telstra would be in good shape for the imminent share issue. Instead, they have done nothing but deceive their Minister, their appointed auditors and the owners of their stock— the Australian taxpayers. The result of their refusal to address the TA issue is that high labour costs were maintained and Telstra failed to meet its cable roll-out commitment to Foxtel. This will cost Telstra directly at least $400 million in compensation to News Corp and/or Foxtel and further major losses will be incurred when Telstra’s stock is issued at a significantly lower price than would have been the case if Telstra had acted responsibly.
When Helen Handbury, Rupert Murdoch's sister, visited my holiday camp a second time after reading my manuscript at absentjustice.com, she promised to pass along my evidence supporting this website to her brother Rupert. She believed that he would be appalled by Telstra's disregard for justice. I hesitated to inform Helen that Rupert Murdoch knew about Telstra's unethical practices and the promises they rarely ever kept because I greatly respected her. These illegal activities cost every Australian citizen millions of dollars in lost revenue that should have rightfully gone to the government and its citizens.
It is imperative to underscore the $400 million compensation deal negotiated between Telstra, Rupert Murdoch, and Fox. This arrangement stipulated that Telstra would owe $400 million if it failed to deliver the committed telecommunications services by the specified deadline. My primary concern, however, does not revolve around the fulfilment of this compensation in the event of a missed deadline by Telstra. Instead, I am troubled by the failure to transparently address the persistent telephone issues during the government-endorsed arbitration of April 7 and 8, 1994. Despite the prior validation of our claims by the government regulator and the substantial upfront arbitration fees paid by the COT Cases, our ongoing faults remained unremedied. This disparity underscores a concerning discrepancy in treatment between influential personalities like Rupert Murdoch and ordinary Australian citizens striving to maintain businesses reliant on a dependable phone service. This asymmetry serves to underscore the one-sided nature of the COT story.
An example of the corroded copper wire that the COT Cases and some 120,000 COT-type Australian citizens experienced after the COT Cases arbitrations 1.e.:> Worst of the worst: Photos of Australia’s copper network | Delimiter. In my case, I refer to problems that the new owners of my business were experiencing after they purchased my business in December 2001, six years after the conclusion of my arbitration Chapter 4 The New Owners Tell Their Story
After learning about potential illegal phone hacking, the British government did not conceal the information. They were ready to take action against whoever was responsible for the misconduct. However, when Australian politicians discovered that individuals making COT claims were experiencing phone and fax hacking during a government-endorsed legal process, including illegal interference in the transmission of legal documents and Senate estimate committee hearing material, this information was intentionally hidden to the detriment of the claimants. In the UK, the government acted in the best interests of the victims whose lives were severely affected by the hacking. However, in Australia, the government handled the COT cases poorly, treating the claimants as criminals instead of addressing those who used Telstra's network to hack into their confidential legal documents.
The British Government
In 1999, while I was working on the first draft of Absent Justice, I shared it with Rupert Murdoch's sister, Helen Handbury. She was shocked by the clear denial of natural justice that I had experienced. After reading the draft, Helen visited my holiday camp twice and expressed her intention to have Rupert publish it. She believed he would be surprised by the content.
Although I appreciated her offer to have her brother, Rupert, publish my book, he was unlikely to become involved in my publication due to the history between her brother and Telstra (refer to point 10 page 5164 → SENATE official Hansard – Parliament of Australia. This was especially true since my book criticized Telstra's poor workmanship and unlawful conduct towards me. Helen and her friends were impressed by the 1870 Church on my property, which I had turned into charming accommodation. This brought visitors back to my holiday camp year after year.
Helen was amazed by the evidence I had gathered, demonstrating how long I had been affected by illegal fax hacking. The evidence included threats by Telstra, which were eventually carried out by their associates when I continued to assist the Australian Federal Police with their investigations into phone and fax hacking into my private and business affairs (Refer to Senate Evidence File No 31) and Australian Federal Police Investigation File No/1).
Of course, 1999 was before the hacking scandal linked to Rupert Murdoch and the News of the World saga.
Unfortunately, Helen died in 2004. Some years later, on 26 September 2012, I sent a draft of the original version of this manuscript to her husband, Geoff Handbury, and told him about my conversation with Helen. I asked whether he could suggest the best way for me to get a copy of the book to Rupert Murdoch.
On October 17, 2012, Mr. Handbury replied in a handwritten letter showcasing beautiful, old-fashioned penmanship. At the time, he was 87 years old, and despite being highly respected for his philanthropic support of various projects in Victoria, he regretfully couldn't assist me because too much time had passed. Nonetheless, I am grateful for the comments of the sister of the most prominent newspaper owner in the world, who believed that my "intriguing story" was one that her brother should publish.
Interestingly, on October 13, 1993, a Telstra auditor and his secretary visited Cape Bridgewater. By 2015, the auditor had risen to a very senior executive position within Telstra and is now on the board of Murdoch’s Foxtel. He remembers how shocked he and his secretary were when they saw the information I presented about my Telstra problems. They both commented that they could not believe how poorly Telstra had treated me over the previous five years. These five years were confirmed in a letter from AUSTEL dated June 9, 1993 (see AUSTEL’s Adverse Findings, at points 2 to 212). The letter suggested that Telstra knowingly misled and deceived me during my first settlement in December 1992, which shocked them the most.
I included that letter from AUSTEL in the draft of Absent Justice that I provided to Helen Handbury, and I believe that was what prompted her to say I should get Rupert to publish it. The British Government pulled no punches about the ongoing saga now, in 2015, three years after it first went viral across the world. But in Australia, although the government knows that not only did many COT members have their phone lines illegally bugged during their arbitration with Telstra (and after my arbitration was over), but our faxes were ALSO being screened/intercepted by a secondary fax machine (in my case, for at least seven years before sent on to the intended destinations.
In Australia, the COTs have suffered too, just like those victims of the News of the World disaster in Britain; for instance, we couldn’t make a phone call or send a personal fax without being aware that somebody was probably listening in to those calls or intercepting those faxes., Scandrett and Associates prepared the Fax Interception Technical Report exhibit (Scandrett & Associates report Open Letter File No/12 and File No/13), and Peter Hancock of Total Communications Victoria provided a sworn statement to me on 17 December 2014, stating:
“I still stand by my statutory declaration that I was able to identify that the incoming faxes provided to me for review had at some stage been received by a secondary fax machine and then retransmitted, this was done by identifying the dual time stamps on the faxes provided.” (Front Page Part One File No/14)
It is also clear from Front Page Part One File No/1, File No/2-A to 2-E, File No/3, File No/4, and Front Page Part One File No/5 that numerous documents faxed from my office to the arbitrator's office did not reach their intended destination.
Question 81 in the following AFP transcripts, Australian Federal Police Investigation File No/1, confirms that the AFP told me that the AUSTEL, the Government Communications Authority General Manager of Consumer Affairs (John MacMahon), had supplied the AFP evidence that my phones had been bugged over an extended period. Why did the arbitrator not award me in his official findings concerning this evidence after he was supplied with these AFP transcripts?
"... does identify the fact that, that you were live monitored for a period of time. See we're quite satisfied that, there are other references to it".
However, regarding the validity of that report, Senator Boswell never contacted me regarding the outcome of the Senate estimate’s investigation or any other government investigation into this report, which is easily comparable to the News of the World hacking scandal.
The Federal government has not contacted me concerning this fax hacking/interception issue. Still, if such hacking had taken place in the halls of Britain’s parliament, it would have been even more significant than the News of the World Murdoch hacking fiasco that led to the 2011 shutting down of that newspaper, first circulated in 1847.
In Australia, though, during a government-endorsed arbitration process, with faxes travelling between claimants, their lawyers and advisors, various government officials, at least one senator and the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s office, the Telstra Corporation had so much power, even over the government-endorsed legal process, that it was able to cover up this hacking scandal.
On April 18, 1995, John Rundell, the Arbitration Project Manager, communicated with the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, Warwick Smith, and copied the arbitrator, Dr. Gordon Hughes and the arbitration Special Counsel, Peter Bartlett, to explain that unforeseen circumstances beyond their control had caused delays in their work (Prologue Evidence File No 22-A). These "forces at work" may have been the same "forces at work" Julian Assange warned Graham Schorer about in April 1994, a year earlier.
Is this why Warwick Smith and others would not investigate what the hackers had warned Graham Schorer about because to do so would have exposed the raping of aboriginal Childen in Senator Collin's office and other places where this rape occurred?
George Close - COT Case Technical Consultant
Exhibit AS 492-A file AS-CAV 488-A to 494-E is a letter dated 26 August 1998 from George Close to the new Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman. The fax header records that the fax was sent from Mr Close’s residential fax number at 17:54. Our Main Evidence File (see Open Letter File No/12 and File No/13) contains the technical findings of both Scandrett & Associates and Peter Hancock, showing that they both agree that if the fax header does not include the correct business identification of the respective COT business, it indicates that a secondary fax machine intercepted those faxes and then redirected to the intended destination. This intercepted letter from Mr Close was copied to the offices of twelve different Government Ministers in Parliament House Canberra, raising several important questions. It is worth considering whether government offices in Parliament House are also routed through Telstra’s Fax Streaming centre, and if so, what could happen to the documents that go through that system without the government’s knowledge. This prompts the question of whether privileged, in-confidence material 'leaks' out of Parliament House through Telstra's Fax Streaming process, meaning that private information may not be as secret as assumed.
Just to let you know, although the George Close exhibits are of poor quality (having been copied several times), the poor quality does not diminish the fact that these exhibits, when viewed together, still prove our claims.
Exhibit AS 492-B file AS-CAV 488-A to 494-E, a report faxed by Mr Close on 16 April 1998, has the correct identification across the top of the page (see 61-74-453198 — GEORGE CLOSE & ASSOC—17:34). In simple terms, those with access to Telstra’s network were able to use ‘keywords’, so only specific faxes leaving Mr Close’s residence were intercepted. I have used these two examples because they were sent at approximately the same time in the afternoon, although months apart.
When Geroge Close (the arbitration technical advisor to the COT Cases) visited my residence in Cape Bridgewater after learning his Buderim (Queensland) residence and his office was the conduit (the central location) to where this screening of the advice he gave the COT Cases on what documents they needed to access from Telstra under FOI detailing why this technical information was needed to support their arbitration claims, I showed him Open Letter File No/12, File No/13, Front Page Part One File No/1,Front Page Part One File No/2-A to 2-E, Front Page Part One File No/4 and Front Page Part One File No/5, we discussed the effect of these intercepted/hacked faxes on the COT Cases overall submissions to the arbitrator. Mr Close later sent me an email on 5 August 2011 to assist me in exposing what the Telstra Corporation had been able to do (and get away with) during the COT arbitrations to gain an advantage over all of the COT Cases claims before the arbitrator. His eyes were full of sadness, thinking it was his residence and office, and the advice was given to the COT Cases from it that had caused the COT Cases so much damage (see Front Page Part One File No/26).
“I recall a discussion with Senator Ron Boswell during the late 90’s.
“He had been shown fax’s [sic] which had clear indication of change in the headers, indicating interruption in transmission by a third party or parties.
“He questioned whether it was possible that faxes to and from senators could be interrupted, read or copies.
“My response in the affirmative brought about an expression of extreme anger. Stating that if it could be proven that it occurred the offender(s) would be jailed.
“If required I am prepared to re-state this on an affidavit.”
So far, no one in Australia has even been brought to account, let alone jailed, for the terrible invasion of the COT cases’ private and business lives.
Many of the documents were unreadable.
Telstra was the CAT, and the COT Cases were the mouse.
In the case of Dr Gordon Hughes, the COT arbitrator, it is essential that he should have disclosed to the COT Cases and their legal representatives that he operated as an 'ungraded arbitrator' and achieved graded status only after the conclusion of my arbitration. Additionally, he should have informed the COT Cases and their legal representatives that his Sydney-based firm was examining the business affairs of the NSW (Sydney) arm of several Telstra employees. It is also important to note that he should have disclosed that the faxes intended for the COT Cases sent to his Melbourne office were rerouted to his Sydney office outside of standard business hours and during weekends.
When the arbitrator returned the claim documents we had submitted after our arbitrations, we were surprised to discover that many documents and reports were stapled together with unrelated material. Some of the papers even belonged to a different claimant. Despite reporting the issue to the arbitrator and arbitration administrator, John Pinnock, no investigation was conducted as our arbitrations had concluded.
This document mixing-up occurred one month into my arbitration after I received documents and reports from Telstra under Freedom of Information (FOI). In several instances, the FOI documents did not match the accompanying text and fax-header sheets. Realizing the seriousness of the issue, I sought intervention from Superintendent Detective Sergeant Jeff Penrose of the Australian Federal Police on May 14, 1994.
He encouraged me to provide evidence of this misconduct to the arbitrator and administrator through a statutory declaration, which I promptly did. Refer to File 76 and 77 - AS-CAV Exhibit 48-A to 91. Despite providing the arbitrator and the administrator with a copy of Statutory Declaration File 76 - AS-CAV Exhibit 48-A to 91), which had been given to the Federal Police, neither investigated the FOI document issue.
Concerning document 77 - AS-CAV Exhibit 48-A to 91, Sue Harlow, Deputy (TIO) Ombudsman, was entrusted with evidence regarding 56 reports that had been tampered with to the extent that they were indecipherable. Notably, the issues relating to tampered arbitration documents from 1994 and 1995 remain uninvestigated as of 2024.
It is profoundly concerning that neither Dr. Gordon Hughes (the arbitrator) nor Warwick Smith (the administrator to the arbitrations) saw fit to investigate why Telstra was engaging in such questionable practices when supplying FOI documents. In my case (File 76 - AS-CAV Exhibit 48-A to 91), I confirmed I found that '56 reports' fax header introduction pages' were stapled with information irrelevant to the attached content. This blatant disregard for proper document handling was unacceptable and warranted immediate attention. It received no response whatsoever.
My Story Warts and all
I am committed to presenting My Story Warts and All using images and the extensive exhibits supporting Absent Justice. The evidence needed for My Story Warts and All can be obtained by thoroughly engaging with absentjustice.com.
Chapter 1
Learn about government corruption and the dirty deeds used by the government to cover up these horrendous injustices committed against 16 Australian citizens
Chapter 2
Betrayal deceit disinformation duplicity falsehood fraud hypocrisy lying mendacity treachery and trickery. This sums up the COT government endorsed arbitrations.
Chapter 3
Ending bribery corruption means holding the powerful to account and closing down the systems that allows bribery, illicit financial flows, money laundering, and the enablers of corruption to thrive.
Chapter 4
Learn about government corruption and the dirty deeds used by the government to cover up these horrendous injustices committed against 16 Australian citizens. Government corruption within the public service affected most if not all of the COT arbitrations.
Chapter 5
Corruption is contagious and does not respect sectoral boundaries. Corruption involves duplicity and reduces levels of morality and trust.
Chapter 6
Anti-corruption policies need to be used in anti-corruption reforms and strategy. Corruption metrics and corruption risk assessment is good governance
Chapter 7
Bribery and Corruption happens in the shadows, often with the help of professional enablers such as bankers, lawyers, accountants and real estate agents, opaque financial systems and anonymous shell companies that allow corruption schemes to flourish and the corrupt to launder their wealth.
Chapter 8
Corrupt practices in government and the results of those corrupt practices become problematic enough – but when that corruption becomes systemic in more than one operation, it becomes cancer that endangers the welfare of the world's democracy.
Chapter 9
Corruption in government, including non-government self-regulators, undermines the credibility of that government. It erodes the trust of its citizens who are left without guidance are the feel of purpose. Bribery and Corruption is cancer that destroys economic growth and prosperity.
Chapter 10
The horrendous, unaddressed crimes perpetrated against the COT Cases during government-endorsed arbitrations administered by the Telecommunication Industry Ombudsman have never been investigated.
Chapter 11
This type of skulduggery is treachery, a Judas kiss with dirty dealing and betrayal. This is dirty pool and crookedness and dishonest. This conduct fester’s corruption. It is as bad, if not worse than double-dealing and cheating those who trust you.&a
Chapter 12
Absentjustice.com - the website that triggered the deeper exploration into the world of political corruption, it stands shoulder to shoulder with any true crime story.
Summary of Events
Read about the corruption within the government bureaucracy that plagued the COT arbitrations. Learn who committed these horrendous crimes and where they sit in Australia’s Establishment and the legal system that allowed these injustices to occur.
Sub Story Warts and All
Rupert Murdoch Telstra Scandal and Helen Handbury Sub Story. The website that triggered `the deeper exploration into the world of political corruption stands shoulder to shoulder with any true crime story.
