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 facade. Below, the bay offered its pristine white beach, gleaming maliciously under an almost 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 cafe 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 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 facade 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. 

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, yet it betrayed you, leaving you isolated? Has anyone ever doubted your professionalism, questioning how your phone remained silent while the chaos of life unfolded? 

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 either the residents or the holidaymakers that 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

 

Have you ever found yourself drowning in the oppressive weight of a phone bill that sends chills down your spine? Have you ever confronted the unsettling reality that, despite being right beside the phone, your friend insists he called, and you ignored him? Have whispers circulated — dark remarks about how you squander your life on the phone when, in truth, it hasn't rung in days? Have prospective clients lashed out with accusations of unprofessionalism, oblivious to the fact that your phone has been eerily silent for an entire week?

If you’ve ever experienced even a fragment of this twisted scenario, then you’ll grasp the nightmare that haunted me for over a decade. It all began when I stumbled into the web of corruption tied to the phone-dependent business I acquired back in 1987 at Cape Bridgewater, a remote corner of rural Australia. Little did I know that an ancient malevolence lurked beneath its quaint surface — a decrepit phone exchange, rusted and forgotten, installed more than 30 years prior, churning with the designation of a ‘low-call-rate area’ by Telstra.

The insidious nature of this telephone exchange was never built to withstand the flood of calls from an unsuspecting populace. By the time I took over, the village was already alive with chatter, yet this relic of an age gone by lay in wait, ready to unleash chaos and doom upon anyone who dared to rely on it. I walked into a trap, not realising that this corrupted system would suffocate my hopes of success.

In December 1987, enchanted by a seemingly idyllic accommodation centre overlooking the serene bay, I believed I had found my path to prosperity. I had already braved the tumultuous seas of the culinary world, transcending from humble beginnings to managing hotels, motels, and restaurants across Victoria. But the omnipresent threat of the archaic phone exchange would prove to be my undoing. 

My dreams became the target of a dark sorcery; by 1988, as I endeavoured to elevate the school camp into a flourishing hub for families and social clubs, the walls started closing in. I had printed 2,000 glossy brochures, eager to spread the word, convinced that inquiries would flood in. Yet, like a cruel joke delivered by a malevolent force, the phone grew silent.

By April, worry morphed into paranoia; accusing eyes fell upon us, demanding to know why our phone remained untouched, as if we were agents of some twisted conspiracy. Suggestions to install an answering machine transformed into scornful admonitions about our supposed incompetence. But even once the machine lurked in the corner, the complaints morphed, echoing with whispers of discontent over long periods of silence when the phone line was inexplicably engaged. 

We were trapped in this sinister cycle, and our cries for help to Telstra fell on deaf ears, the shadows protecting their malevolence. The truth was as cold as the void of that forsaken exchange: the previous owner had faced the same haunting silence, a forewarning we had tragically ignored.

What began as a hopeful venture spiralled into a nightmare, controlled by an invisible hand that dictated our fate while we struggled in vain against this entrenched evil. My story could easily mirror yours, as we both grapple with that stifling darkness that refuses to relinquish its grip.

When Faye and I examined this business, however, we were unaware of the existing phone issues, and so we proceeded with the sale of our home in Melbourne, and I utilised my early retirement benefits to raise the funds to invest in what we expected to be a new and exciting venture.

Understandably, Faye became increasingly frustrated with the complaints we were receiving about the phone system.  We began to doubt ourselves.  Were we talking too long on the phone?  Were we not hearing the phone ring?  Had we forgotten to switch on the answering machine?

Call ‘dropouts’ occurred frequently — the line just went dead.  Mostly, if we had a contact number, we had to ring the caller back but sometimes people rang us back.  If the caller had not yet provided us with their contact information and didn’t ring back, we lost that contact.

This new venture was not turning out to be quite as much fun as we had anticipated.

The real extent of the phone problem, however, didn’t become apparent until well into the Christmas period of 1988, when we hosted a Christmas dinner for the locals in Cape Bridgewater.   During dinner, I mentioned the phone problems we were having.  Our next-door neighbour sympathised; his daughter, ringing from Colac, often complained about how difficult it was to get through to her parents.  Another neighbour, once the owner of ‘Tom the Cheap Grocery’ chain, concurred.  His comment was “After all, what can you expect from Telstra when we’re in the bush?”  He had suffered from similar problems for many years and later provided a written statement to that effect.

As we rolled into the dawn of 1989, we were becoming increasingly aware of what was to become our great nightmare.  The failing phone system became the straw that broke the camel’s back of our twenty-year marriage.  I was beginning to run the business from a position of continual anger. Indeed, I couldn’t blame anyone but myself when the gas bottles ran out in the middle of serving a meal for guests; some of the few who had managed to get through on the phone and make a booking.

My advertising campaign didn’t work I began to feel I hadn’t properly researched the pros and cons before moving to Cape Bridgewater.  I began to ask myself what I had done when I asked Faye to leave her friends in Melbourne, agreeing to sell the family home just so I could satisfy my blind ambition to run my own business.  And so, as bookings dwindled instead of increasing as we had expected, our negativity grew in proportion.

We went touring to South Australia, selling the concept of our camp through the Wimmera area and to numerous schools.  Nothing seemed to work as it should have; sure, there were occasional inquiries, but they were far from frequent.

The closest local township to the Cape Bridgewater camp was Portland, twenty kilometres away.  While there on a shopping expedition one day I realised I had left the meat order list behind.  I phoned Faye only to get a Telstra recorded message telling me that the number was not connected!  I phoned again.  Same message.

Telstra’s fault centre said they would investigate the matter, and so I went about the rest of my shopping, leaving the meat order until last.  Finally, I phoned the camp again; this time the phone was engaged.  I decided to buy what I could remember from the meat order list and hope for the best.

Faye was not happy when I returned.  The phone had not rung once while I had been away, she said, and how come I left the meat order behind anyway?  She thought I was supposed to be such an efficient catering manager.  My poor wife’s frustration was aimed straight at me; she didn’t stop to wonder why I couldn’t ring her from Portland.

According to one of the Telstra FOI documents I later received, between 19^th April 1988 and 10^th January 1989, I phoned from the camp to complain about the phone service on nine separate occasions.  Add to this the letters of complaint that I wrote, plus my complaint from Portland when the recorded message told me my own phone had been disconnected, and a picture begins to emerge.

 

CHAPTER 2

 

Anyone who has used a telephone knows the haunting message that echoes through the line: “The number you are calling is disconnected.” This is not merely an inconvenience; in the telecommunications shadows, these messages are known as RVAs—Recorded Voice Announcements. Among the disturbing pile of FOI documents I uncovered in 1994 was a chilling internal e-mail from Telstra, dated 26th September 1993 and labelled A03544. It disclosed their awareness of a looming crisis, revealing the need to “have a very basic review of all our RVA messages and how they are applied.” The author ominously warned, “...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 admission was a stark reflection of Telstra’s long-standing negligence, suggesting a deeper, darker reality behind their oversight.

Another ominous document, numbered C00757, emerged from the archives, revealing the magnitude of the deceit: “As a result of the investigations into difficult customer complaints and associated reports, it has become apparent that the present RVA for incorrect numbers requires revision.” It specifically addressed the insidious message: “The number you have called is not connected or has been changed. Please check the number before calling again. You have not been charged for this call.” This message not only misled callers but left them with the harrowing idea that the businesses they intended to contact were no longer operational, pushing them into despair and confusion. It was a cruel twist of fate, especially for a fledgling business like ours, which relied heavily on phone communications. Yet, when we sought redress from Telstra, we were met with cold indifference, as if our struggles were mere collateral damage in their profit-driven game.

By mid-1989, our financial resources lay in tatters, and the anticipated bookings were nothing but a mirage. We were forced to sell our shares on the stock market, receiving a pittance—around $1.60 each for four thousand shares. Little did we know those shares would skyrocket to $8.20 each by October 1998, a cruel reminder of our lost potential.

Where had our hard-earned savings evaporated? The sale of our home in Melbourne had yielded $140,000 out of the $280,000 we needed for the camp, leaving us encumbered with a manageable $140,000 mortgage. I had confidently believed we were set for life, convinced that with diligence, we would thrive by July 1989. Yet here we were, merely fifteen months into ownership, not thriving but selling off our very lifeblood instead of diminishing our debts. The system had conspired against us, leaving devastation in its wake.

I knew our marriage was suffering; my self-esteem was crumbling like ashes in the wind, and I felt like a total failure. But just when I thought things couldn't possibly get worse, they did. Faye fell and broke her leg, spiralling us deeper into chaos. The relentless trips to the hospital suffocated me; every time I saw her pain, another piece of me shattered. The leg wasn’t healing properly, and it felt like a malevolent force was conspiring against us. Our fleeting trips to Melbourne provided only a hollow cheer for Faye, while I used the distraction to ostensibly market the Camp around Caulfield and Huntingdale. I had decided to give it everything I had, but with a dark sense of foreboding gnawing at my insides. 

One evening, I attempted to check the Camp answering machine using a remote access facility that should have let me know if anyone called. Instead, I was met with an ominous recorded voice: “The number you are calling is not connected or has been changed. Please check the number before calling again. You have not been charged for this call.” Panic set in like a creeping shadow, but I decided not to tell Faye; she didn’t need that darkness to cloud her already despairing mind.

As we drove home, just outside Geelong, an unsettling feeling took hold when Faye asked if I had checked for messages. A white lie slipped off my tongue, masking the dread within. At the next phone box, as we attempted to contact home, the line was engaged. Someone must be leaving a message—a thought that filled me with both anxiety and dread. 

However, we were met with only a stale message from friends in Melbourne, a futile reminder of happier times. Why had I received an engaged signal if there were no new messages? Had we lost countless calls during our absence, like whispers in the dark? How many desperate clients had been silenced by a recorded voice instead of being offered a glimmer of hope? 

Faye continued to make her regular hospital visits, her spirit slowly fraying as she found herself tangled in a web of thoughts, seeking any excuse to escape the grim reality of our failing business. Each trip away felt like another thread of our lives unravelling. The crushing weight of financial ruin, combined with her painful recovery, became too much to bear. On October 26, 1989, our marriage was consumed by the consuming darkness.

I had long been taking prescribed drugs for stress, but then I succumbed to the seductive call of Scotch, locking myself in one of the cabins, seeking solace in its warmth. Faye, in her confusion and fear, called the local police, who stormed the cabin like marauding forces. They shattered my refuge, intent on saving me from myself. As I faced them, the stark reality collided violently with a memory from my past. 

The disjointed echo of an incident from 1967 resurfaced—a time when I had briefly clashed with the ruthless Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution in China. I thought I had escaped their grasp, sailing away from the chaos aboard the MV Hopepeak. But there I was again, back in that suffocating nightmare, feeling the chill of authority and oppression closing in. Those who came to rescue me wore the uniforms of supposed saviours, but in my frayed mind, they echoed the faces of tormentors - Chapter 7- Vietnam-Vietcong-2.

Days later, in a stark hospital room, the doctors assured me I wasn’t losing my mind, but the chill of their sterile presence merely reinforced my paranoia. I returned to the camp the following day, accompanied by Margaret, my mate’s wife—a warm flicker amidst the gathering storm. But this was just the beginning of a sinister descent, one that would see me entangled in shadows where hope dimmed and despair thrived.

 

CHAPTER 3

 

Margaret and I pulled into the camp, only to be met with a scene of utter chaos that struck me like a physical blow. Faye had left the night before, swayed by the well-meaning advice of various "do-gooders" and welfare workers who insisted she must seek refuge in a "safe house." As we surveyed the surroundings, it quickly became clear that the situation was dire. Doors stood ajar, a sense of neglect hanging in the air, while packages of meat lay carelessly discarded on benches, having been hastily removed from the deep freeze that, to our dismay, was now nowhere to be found. It felt as if every corner we turned brought a new problem to confront, each one compounding the sense of distress.

According to my diary, a group of seventy exuberant students from Monivae Catholic College in Hamilton was slated to arrive on the twenty-ninth, just two days away. They were scheduled to stay for five days and four nights, and the weight of that responsibility sat heavily on my shoulders. Without Margaret’s steadfast assistance, I would have spiralled into complete despair.

Our immediate focus turned to cleaning and shopping. In the depths of my heartache—mourning the end of a twenty-year marriage—the daunting shopping list loomed like a mountain I had to scale. What in the world should I prepare for seventy hungry students and their accompanying staff? After what felt like an eternity of planning, I finally managed to ascertain how much meat and dry goods to order. But time was slipping away; it was already Sunday evening, and the Monivae group was due to arrive the very next day. The first meal they would require was dinner, and the clock was ticking.

As if the universe wanted to pile on more stress, the hot water service broke down, leaving the staff and me bracing for cold showers. The grumbling about the lack of hot water echoed through the camp, adding to the overwhelming atmosphere of urgency. Yet, despite these formidable obstacles, from that point onward until 1994, Monivae College continued to return to the camp two or even three times a year, providing consistent support during this challenging period. Their unwavering commitment was more than just appreciated; it was a lifeline that kept the camp afloat and instilled hope amid the turmoil.

I began to sense an unnerving tension surrounding my diminishing mental state, one that Margaret seemed all too aware of. Her decision to summon Brother Greg—a teacher from Monivae—felt like a desperate manoeuvre, a plea for intervention in a spiralling crisis. Later, it became clear that my restless nights had not gone unnoticed; I'd been mumbling incoherently in my sleep, feeding Margaret’s growing alarm.

With the palpable weight of concern hanging in the air, the three of us sat together in the dim light, Brother Greg gripping my hands while Margaret clutched my arms, anchoring me as we delved into my chaotic thoughts. We discussed everything that haunted me: my jarring experiences in China and the poignant end of my two-decade marriage. Margaret weathered those days like a soldier, her support both a lifeline and a reminder of the darkness that prevailed.

Amid this turmoil, religion emerged as a flickering beacon, though it felt more like a façade shrouded in uncertainty. Many women from the church rallied around me, but their well-meaning intentions felt deceptively comforting, as if they were guarding me against a lurking despair that threatened to engulf me. Yet even with their help, I couldn’t shake the haunting absence of Faye. The loss after years together left a void—an aching desire for that intimate connection with another, a vulnerability exposed.

Compounding my distress were the ghastly phone problems that seemed to emerge from some sinister force. In mid-November of 1989, Chris from the church casually mentioned how she had attempted to reach me, only to hear the relentless ringing followed by an unsettling silence. I had already launched a barrage of complaints with Telstra’s fault centre, meticulously documenting every glitch in my phone service. It was a twisted game of tracking faults and customer grievances, each entry a reminder of my spiralling madness as the isolation clawed closer.

That fateful day, Chris attempted to make a call from the Kiosk, only to uncover a haunting silence from the line. My mind raced with frantic possibilities. I rifled through the connection box, convinced there was a 'loose wire' harbouring this curse. After an intensive search, all seemed intact, yet the deadline mocked me, an invisible spectre of my struggles. 

Then a twisted revelation struck me: I would test the customer's gold coin-operated phone in the dining room, a device untouched by the malevolent force at work. It offered a brief gleam of hope, a reassuring dial tone, but that too quickly devolved into another nightmare. The disembodied voice of despair echoed back at me: “The number you have called is not connected or has been changed.” Yet, I knew it had been connected—my coins had vanished into the abyss of this sinister machine.

Frustration morphed into panic as I scoured for change and tried the call again from that cursed gold phone. This time, it falsely informed me that my office line was engaged. It was as if the very universe conspired against me, feeding coins into this cruel contraption, only to return shrouded in darkness.

In the months that followed, I resorted to bizarre testing routines, desperate to understand this malevolence behind the phone issues. The question clawed at me: why did this nightmare persist despite the endless complaints to Telstra? Was there a malignant force at play, revelling in my unravelling, indifferent to my pleas for help? The weight of unanswered questions bore down on me, leaving me trembling on the brink of despair.

 

CHAPTER 4

 

Since I was no longer part of a working husband-and-wife team, I continually had to dig deep into my almost non-existent financial reserves to cover labour costs, or risk losing everything.  With Faye gone I was suffering what is commonly known in the world of finance as a ‘consequential resultant loss’; now I had also had to begin to pay Faye a yearly dividend on her financial investment in the business, even though she was no longer contributing her unpaid labour, plus I had to find the dollars from somewhere to pay staff.

As we headed further into 1990, the future looked grim.  The phone faults continued; who knows how many prospective customers were lost because they couldn’t reach me by phone?  Because the camp is in a remote area, phone was the only access city people had.

By now the legal vultures were circling.   I hadn’t been able to abide by the original financial agreement with Faye and her solicitor was demanding more money for his client.  My first payment to her came due, and I couldn’t raise the funds to refinance.  I was having trouble meeting my own legal costs, let alone finding extra for Faye.  The outlook could never get any bleaker, I thought.  How wrong I was!

To pay some of the mounting debts, I had sold the twenty-two-seater school bus I had originally used to ferry customers around and purchased a small utility in its place.

Through mutual friends, I had met Karen, a divorcee from Warrnambool, some one hundred kilometres away.  At least the little Ute meant I could see Karen a couple of times a week and the relationship developed to become quite serious.  When Karen heard that Faye’s solicitor was about to wind up my business, forcing me to sell because I couldn’t raise the funds to make any more payments to Faye, Karen put her house up as security for a loan, thereby giving me two years of breathing space.

At about the same time, I again contacted Telstra’s fault centre in Hamilton to find out what, if anything, Telstra was doing about the continuing phone problems at Cape Bridgewater.  As usual I got the run-around, but I was finally informed that a new exchange, about to be installed at Cape Bridgewater, would alleviate all the problems I had suffered in the past.  Some four years later, because of an FOI request, I acquired a copy of a three-page handwritten file note dated 15 August 1991, which covers the discussions I had with Telstra regarding these faults.  The date doesn’t correlate with my own records because I knew early in 1991 that Telstra was installing a new exchange, and I had, in fact, told Karen early in 1991 that this improvement would solve the phone problems and assure us of a bright future.  This file note recorded my complaint on 15^th August 1991, noting (in passing almost) that this had been “… a continuing problem” and even recording that I was “… losing a lot of business”, as well as clearly stating that I had been told that the problem may have been caused by the age of the existing telephone exchange and that the next, new exchange, to be installed shortly, would solve these problems.  The file notes also confirmed that Telstra would try to get my phones working correctly before then.

 

CHAPTER 5

 

My relationship with Karen began to crumble as we fought against the relentless tide pulling our business under. After months of struggle, Karen sold her home, raising just over $80,000. Yet, in a heartbreaking turn, $65,000 of that went straight to my mounting legal fees and to settle Faye's debts, leaving little hope in our dwindling prospects. It took another long year to finally reach a resolution with Faye, but by then, the damage had been done. Slowly, Karen's name became the only sign of stability amidst the chaos on my business title.

With every passing day, the bookings barely trickled in, leaving the camp in desperate need of repair. The crumbling paint and broken fixtures screamed neglect, and passersby glanced away, disinterested in the sad, bedraggled sight before them. Because no one came to stay, our funds evaporated, leaving us trapped in a vicious cycle of decay—no maintenance, no guests, and no hope for word-of-mouth recommendations.

On the rare occasions when a school or club managed to book, we were left utterly devoid of cash flow, unable to purchase even the most basic food supplies for our clients. The operation side of the business cast a grim shadow over us, amplifying our fears. The mounting stress led to heated arguments between Karen and me, echoes of the strife I once had with Faye. It frustrated her to see her investment slip through our fingers, and I felt the weight of her disappointment. “It’s been twelve months since I moved here, and nothing has improved. The phone issues are still unresolved!” she cried, her frustration pouring over like a relentless storm.

Yet, despite the turmoil, I continued to find solace in sponsoring underprivileged groups to stay at the camp. I organized sponsored food purchases through the compassion of various commercial outlets, allowing these kids to use our facilities without a cost to me. But how can any act of goodwill shine through the looming darkness of my failure? 

In May 1992, I organized a charity week for children from Ballarat and the Southwest, coordinated by Sister Maureen Burke, the unwavering heart of the project. But communication proved to be an insurmountable challenge. I could hardly stand the thought of my inability to connect properly with Sister Burke, who had enormous hurdles just trying to reach me over the faulty phone lines. 

Desperate to finalize our plans, she made the arduous drive of three and a half hours, navigating the fading hopes of what this week could mean for those children. Simultaneously, Karen and I struggled to promote ‘get-away’ holidays designed for singles over forty, but our efforts fell flat, with tepid responses and dwindling enthusiasm, as if no one could even manage to contact us amid the chaos.

Every day felt a little heavier than the last. We were trapped in a cycle of chaos and disappointment, the treachery of broken dreams clinging to us like a dark cloud, draining what little hope we had left.

On the Saturday that Sister Burke decided to drive to us, just as she finally arrived at the Camp, Karen took a phone call from a very irate man who wanted some information about the singles weekends.  This caller was very angry and quite abusive, and Karen took the full brunt of his fury.  He couldn’t understand why we were advertising a business but never answered the phone.

Karen burst into tears: this was just the final straw as far as she was concerned.  I tried to make a joke of it to relieve the tension by mentioning some of the problems we face when dealing with the public.  Now, Karen was then, and still is, a fine ‘horse lady’.  She rode in cross-country races and played polo amongst other things; she’s not someone you cross unthinkingly.  And she can sure pack a punch!  I know, because she almost flattened me that day.  Not only did my legs fold under me, but my ego went the same way.  And Karen continued to sob.  Right at that moment, Sister Burke appeared in the office. 

I decided that absence was the better part of valour and removed myself, leaving these two fine ladies together.  Finally, quite some time later, Sister Burke advised me that she thought Karen should leave Cape Bridgewater.  It would be in the best interest of both of us, Sister Burke believed, and she would arrange counselling for Karen back in Warrnambool — here we go again, I thought.

The charity camp went ahead in April 1992; thirty-five children for five nights.  It was a great success all round.  While she was at the camp, I asked Sister Burke to describe the phone faults she experienced in that dreadful week before Karen left.  She referred to calls either ringing out or simply getting a deadline — no sound at all.  And this happened for an entire week.  Later, I sent Sister Burke a very early draft copy of this book; after reading it she wrote back, saying:

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

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

“During a one-week period in March of this year I attempted to contact Mr Alan Smith at Bridgewater Camp.  In that time, I tried many times to phone through.

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.”

Twelve months had passed and still there was no improvement to the phone system, even with a new exchange installed in Cape Bridgewater.

Back in May of 1992 however, we could not know, of course, that the stress created by the faulty phone system would continue for so long.

Karen was hospitalised because of this stress, added to the worry that she would lose her investment in my business.  She had come to believe that I had lied to her when I reassured her that the phone problems were over.  I later learned not to believe anything Telstra told me.

After she left the hospital, Karen settled in a rented house in Portland.  Without her assistance at the camp, which had, in the past, given me space to travel around, my promotional tours to schools dropped too almost nil.  Still, I continued to complain to Telstra about the phone faults which seemed to me to be getting worse, not better, since the old exchange had been demolished and replaced.  From August 1991 through May 1992, more complaints of recorded voice announcements came in.

Again, I began to question my decisions.  Why had this move to Cape Bridgewater been so disastrous?  Everyone takes a working phone as a given, but a faulty phone system had now ruined three lives: mine, Faye’s and Karen’s and, indirectly, my two children’s as well.

 

CHAPTER 6

In the summer of July 1992, a conversation with Karen led to the discovery of a fellow business owner grappling with frustrating phone issues that were severely impacting my own business. Karen's friend suggested that this owner operated “The Society” restaurant, a charming establishment tucked away on Bourke Street in the bustling heart of Melbourne.

Navigating the labyrinth of phone lines to contact the restaurant was no small feat, but I finally connected with Sheila Hawkins, the dedicated manager who ran the restaurant. After a brief yet insightful conversation, we arranged to meet, and I eagerly set off on my journey to Melbourne.

Sheila was passionate about organizing a group to confront the telecommunications giant, Telstra, head-on. She shared with me that she had already connected with Ann Garms, the spirited owner of the Tivoli Theatre Restaurant in Brisbane, who was also enduring significant phone problems.

Armed with this valuable lead, I reached out to Ann. As fate would have it, she was planning to visit Melbourne the following week! We quickly arranged for her to meet with both Sheila and the General Manager of Consumer Affairs for the Australian Telecommunications Regulator—referred to in this narrative as ‘the Regulator.’

When Sheila, Ann, and I finally gathered, the atmosphere was electric with enthusiasm. During our meeting, Ann revealed she was aware of yet another Brisbane business facing similar struggles: a Japanese car spare-parts company overseen by Maureen Gillen. Like Ann's restaurant, Maureen's business was tethered to the Fortitude Valley Exchange.

As our network expanded, Sheila had also reached out to Graham Schorer, who operated the Golden Courier Service out of North Melbourne. Just like the rest of us, Graham was battling a frustratingly poor phone service. Eventually, our small collective convened at The Society Restaurant on Bourke Street, though Maureen was regrettably unable to join us on this crucial journey from Brisbane.

In the shadows of the corporate world, where truth often buckled beneath layers of deception, a sinister saga unfolded. Throughout that harrowing week, as I tried to navigate the turmoil inflicted by Telstra, Sheila became my confidante—a beacon amid the chaos. It was she who coined our name, C.O.T.—Casualties of Telstra—a darkly humorous badge for the collective of small-business owners crushed under the weight of corporate negligence. We envisioned a path to justice, yet what lay ahead was a treacherous journey fraught with lies and a chilling corporate cover-up that would unravel the deeper we delved.

The months dragged on through 1992 like a slow poison, but I persevered, fuelled by a simmering rage. I sensed the rot emanating from Telstra, a festering malignancy as their true colours began to seep through the cracks. In October, as we gathered at the Ibis Hotel in Melbourne for our first official meeting with Telstra, the air was thick with tension. We stood united, a coalition of small-business warriors determined to expose the dark underbelly of a company that had long disregarded our existence. Behind the masks of indifference, the Regulator had begun to sense the encroaching storm of our revelations, acknowledging our plight as victims of a callous corporate entity.

While I was diligently filing my Freedom of Information requests, a deliberate stonewalling began to reveal a stark reality. A letter from Telstra’s management brazenly declared there were "no past fault records" prior to June 1991. Yet, lurking within the dark recesses of their archives lay documented evidence of fault records dating back to 1987—a treacherous game of obfuscation, meant to keep us in the dark. What else did they hide?

During one fateful visit, a local technician let slip the truth, masking it under the guise of casual apathy. "Congestion is a given for country folk," he said, as if our struggles were inconsequential. My business was spiralling into oblivion, yet Telstra’s indifferent attitude highlighted their utter disregard for the damage they were inflicting on livelihoods—this was no mere inconvenience; it was systemic betrayal.

As the fog of bureaucracy began to lift in mid-1994, I unearthed troubling documents, each revealing Telstra’s long-standing awareness of the issues plaguing our area. One particularly damning 'minute' document disclosed mind-boggling figures, 11,000 errors per hour in one direction—a staggering indictment of negligence. And yet, the specified acceptable error rate was a pitiful 72 per hour. The disparity underscored a chilling truth: Telstra had known all along but chose to prolong our suffering, playing a cruel game of corporate chess while our businesses faltered.

Further revelations emerged from the murky depths of document A40558, detailing complaints dating back to 1990 that had been buried and ignored for months, while I relentlessly followed every lead. The Cape Bridgewater lines, supposedly upgraded, left me bleeding out months later, promises unfulfilled while corporate lies wrapped tightly around my every complaint. If Telstra’s response was tepid at best, their negligence was downright treacherous.

Even in their reports, the tone was mocking—Serious matters stamped with a label of "vocal customer" turned me into a mere statistic, a nameless face among the casualties of corporate disregard. The suggestion that I should bear the burden of their failures was a twisted cruelty that left me questioning my very sanity. When they finally decided to act, it wasn’t because of my relentless pursuit of justice; it was borne from a desperate attempt to silence my voice.

As if the betrayal couldn't deepen, a letter dated July 12, 1993, recalled events that took place over a year prior, revealing a chilling pattern of misconduct. The layers of deceit unfurled, each document offering a glimpse into a corrupt system intent on protecting its interests over those of the very customers it had sworn to serve. I was caught in a web spun from neglect, conspiracy, and treachery, and the struggle for truth had only just begun.

The COT group was ensnared in a web of deception spun by the Regulator and Telstra, who conspired behind closed doors to undermine my case. Their relentless pressure finally bore fruit, but in a twisted manner: Telstra extended a sinister proposal for a compensation payout, shackled by a confidentiality clause that silenced me from revealing the true worth of their settlement. On the fateful day of December 11, 1992, I was coerced into signing this grim agreement, and I have since upheld the silence imposed upon me by Telstra, a silence laden with treachery.

That same day, in the ominous confines of Telstra’s offices, I found myself in a tense standoff with Telstra’s area general manager. The discussions were long and laden with suspicion as she attempted to minimise my considerable losses, accumulated over four and a half years of struggle against their heinous negligence regarding my phones. This manager and I were the sole participants in this charade, yet I was acutely aware of the stakes at hand. I handed over a multitude of letters from clients and tradespeople, each echoing tales of betrayal and frustration, as they desperately sought validation for the financial devastation wrought by Telstra's faulty products. 

As we navigated this duplicitous dialogue, she would leave me alone to peruse dubious documents, under the guise of offering me privacy. Each time she exited, she would ominously close the door, a gesture I now see as an attempt to isolate me in her game of manipulation. With access to a direct outside line, I phoned Karen to calculate her needs for a relocatable house, hoping to restore her financial stability, while knowing the dark forces at play sought to diminish my worth.

The documents the manager provided were littered with hand-written lies, including sinister claims that there had been merely a single fault causing my phone number to be deemed ‘not connected’ for a mere three weeks. They brazenly suggested that this minor hiccup accounted for a staggering 50% loss of incoming calls. Who were they kidding? Other memos acknowledged trivial faults and implicitly strove to minimize their moral responsibility, suggesting acceptance on my part would absolve them of any true accountability. 

Naturally, I lashed out against their audacity, contesting their fabricated narrative. I reiterated the overwhelming complaints from my clients, only to be met with her cold, condescending response: this was Telstra’s final offer. This take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum left no option for negotiation or justice. Her parting words insinuated that Telstra had an inexhaustible supply of time and resources, while I was merely a mortal with dwindling funds to fight back in court. With heavy heart and a spirit battered by their underhanded tactics, I reluctantly accepted their 'final' offer, defeated by their relentless machinations.

Fast forward to 1994, when I stumbled upon a shocking piece of evidence: notes from the same manager, revealing that she had been keeping tabs on my calls to my advisors while she was momentarily out. How could she possess such knowledge if I was ostensibly using a direct line? Had she unlawfully listened in on my discussions, 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 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 lasted far longer than I had ever been informed. Telstra’s deliberate deception had tricked me into a settlement ripe with corruption and betrayal, casting a shadow of doubt on their 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

 

As I sifted through the FOI documents, a disturbing pattern emerged — Telstra had issued numerous documents marked ‘Secret,’ particularly concerning the so-called ‘guarantees’ I received from them. Among these hidden records was a mention of “RVA on congestion,” a sinister code for the disconnection of my service. Alarmingly, in 1993, the Regulator affirmed that Telstra's ‘congestion’ tone cunningly mimicked an engaged tone. This deceptive tactic meant that unless one was acutely aware of the subtle differences — which the average person certainly wouldn’t be — callers were misled into believing my line was busy when it was just hopelessly congested. The antiquated technology at the Cape Bridgewater exchange meant that congestion was a constant reality, likely driving away countless potential customers who assumed I had gone out of business. It’s no wonder my bookings dwindled.

In another ‘Secret’ document (C04007), an ominous note surfaced regarding:

“... — Mr Smith’s service problems,” labelling them as “network related and spanning a period of 3 - 4 years.” Document C04008 echoed this troubling narrative, indicating that “Overall, Mr Smith’s telephone service had suffered from a poor grade of network performance over a period of several years.”

The handwritten note at the bottom of C04008, signed by the area general manager I had interacted with previously, read, “These are preparational notes recorded at the time of settlement. Alan Smith was not prepared to provide better substantiation of his claim.” This reveals a chilling reality; the writer clearly understood the depth of the faults I had endured. Given her prior knowledge of the “poor grade of network performance” spanning years, how could she have rationalized issuing the two guarantees just three months prior? It’s shocking to note that the document also admits to “some difficulty to detect exchange problems in the last 8 months,” meaning these issues had likely begun at least as far back as April 1992. As a senior corporate manager, how could she allow such blatant deception — the issuance of guarantees knowing the network was failing? It’s a glaring indictment of corruption and negligence that casts a long shadow over Telstra’s integrity.

 

CHAPTER 8

 

By this point in our ongoing battle, the weight of loss was heavy upon me. With two partners gone and my health deteriorating, I watched my business suffer increasingly. The members of COT, however, found resilience in one another, forming a tight-knit support network. We gathered for numerous spirited discussions, desperately seeking a satisfactory way to confront the deception perpetrated by Telstra management. However, the reality was sobering; we were merely five small business owners fighting against the formidable power of a colossal corporation—a daunting challenge, to say the least.

As we trudged through the end of 1992 and welcomed the New Year of 1993, doubts began to creep in. Had settling with Telstra, through the area general manager, been a misstep? It felt as though nothing had changed. Phone faults persisted incessantly, making it nearly impossible for me to keep my business afloat. How could this be happening? The new telephone exchange was supposed to have rectified all my ongoing issues, yet here I was, plagued by the same frustrations.

Amidst these trials, my mortgage payments loomed like a dark cloud, causing me severe anxiety. I had been compelled to refinance my loan, adding extra setup fees to my already burdened finances. As a result, I couldn't afford to maintain the once-vibrant camp buildings, which now stood in disrepair, giving off an air of abandonment.

During this tumultuous time, Ann Garms and Graham Schorer emerged as my steadfast "comrades in arms" in this relentless war we were waging. We often pondered whether we could ever expose Telstra’s unethical corporate strategies and their ongoing, seemingly deliberate mishandling of our complaints. Ann had begun to voice her suspicions that, during the rare moments when our phones functioned correctly, our lines were possibly being bugged, adding another layer of tension to our already precarious situation.

 

CHAPTER 9

 

On 19th August 1992, as the shadowy COT group was taking its first steps into the dark underbelly of telecommunications, a Telstra document surfaced, ominously referencing Ann Garms’s business, The Tivoli Theatre Restaurant. It included a haunting notation:

“Description: Line 1 NDT NRR suspect sabotage ?????” The acronym ‘NRR’ stands for ‘not receiving ring.’ But what truly sent chills down the spine were the comments scrawled at the bottom of the document: “… maybe the bug has slipped off” and “Looks like a job for super sleuth Sherlock Kelly?????”

These eerie remarks will expose a deeper web of intrigue in Chapter Eighteen.

Another document, B00474, delves further into the enigma that enveloped Ann's establishment, raising more sinister questions. It spoke of “… 3 particular customers” and lamented that the writer was “… continuously bombarded by these allegations from customers…”—allegations that they merely “shrugged off.” Who were these three mysterious figures? And what about the cryptic mention of “Compass Security”? Could it be linked to Compass Airlines, a small airline that once struggled in Fortitude Valley? This company went belly-up amid swirling rumours of sabotage that plagued its operations. Their owner claimed that continual phone issues were a fatal blow to their ambitions, feeding the insidious speculation that someone was deliberately undermining them. This document only thickens the fog of suspicion swirling around the truth.

One particularly chilling question arises from the request for a ‘bug scanning device’ by someone in ‘protective services.’ What unseen threat were they safeguarding against? 

Reading these documents, it becomes all too clear why Ann Garms and I felt a gnawing paranoia whenever we used the telephone. Who was eavesdropping on our conversations, and what sinister agenda prompted such intrusion?

Graham Schorer, appointed as the COT spokesperson, boldly stepped into the murky waters of politics in early 1993, meeting with the very chairman of the Regulatory body. As February gave way to March of that year, whispers of our plight began to resonate among politicians. Yet one haunting question loomed: would they dare challenge the mighty Telstra Corporation, or would they continue to protect their golden goose?

Desperate and depleted of resources, the COT group embarked on a fraught mission to storm the walls of the Australian Senate, pooling what little money they had left to travel to the seat of power in Canberra.

At this point, the relentless issues with my phone service had reached a climax, but through some careful manoeuvring with the banks, I managed to stave off a repossession order, though it felt like a mere band-aid on a festering wound. 

By then, I had amassed more than seventy letters of complaint from frustrated customers unable to connect with me. One particularly startling letter, dated 5th February 1993 from Mrs. Elsie Teer of the Werribee Outreach Centre, conveyed their need to cancel a booking due to ‘poor membership response’—a response adversely affected by the ringing silence on the other end of the line. “It appears that you don’t answer your phone,” she noted, a question dangling ominously in the air.

Despite the dire situation, when I reached out to report difficulties in getting through to Graham Schorer, I was met with dismissive apathy by Telstra's staff, who initially promised to investigate. Then I stumbled upon FOI document K00045. In it, a Telstra employee’s handwritten note revealed a chilling disregard: once they recognised Schorer as a COT member, they opted not to test the service—an outright abandonment of duty.

In another unsettling incident, an unnumbered FOI document detailed my own complaint regarding the abysmal state of my phone service. The Telstra worker's notes chillingly stated: “Probably caused by ‘RCM.’ No need to investigate, spoke with Bruce, he said not to investigate also.” 

It seemed clear: Telstra had either dismissed the members of COT as fools or knew all too well that the faults we reported were part of a systemic disaster they were determined to ignore. It was a blatant conspiracy to silence dissent and protect their interests—even if it meant trampling on small businesses and the truth.

 

CHAPTER 10

In the first five months of 1993, I received eleven additional written complaints, a relentless stream of issues that had plagued my business since April 1988. The negligence and deceit from Telstra seemed relentless, but as June approached, there were glimmers of hope—or was it a deceptive facade? There was now a Shadow Minister for Communications showing an interest in our predicament. A National Party Senator, his motivations seemingly pure, stepped into the fray, reaching across the vast distance from Queensland to offer his support to our beleaguered community in Victoria.

Yet, it became increasingly clear that behind the political curtain, deals were being struck—secretive conversations taking place in dimly lit rooms, where the truth was obscured and manipulation reigned. My local Member of Parliament, too, answered our desperate call for help, positioning himself as an ally. But was he truly fighting for us, or merely positioning himself for his own political gain? 

During the June 1993 political campaigning, the Opposition Senator and the National Party Senator sought a Senate Inquiry into our claims, pushing against the tide of Telstra's corporate machinations. I’ve been told by an ex-Telstra employee that they were on the cusp of bringing this inquiry to fruition. If they had succeeded, it could have spelt doom for those at the top of Telstra—the very individuals who have wreaked havoc on our lives yet continue to wield power with impunity.

While the politicians played their games, negotiating their interests, I was left to confront the labyrinth of deception alone. The Regulator, uneasily aware of the chaos underneath, seemed more of a pawn than a protector. Between February and June of 1993, I flooded them with mounting evidence of Telstra's fraud—overcharging on my 1800 free call service and other lines crucial to my business.

As I attempted to uncover the cause of these short duration calls that inexplicably disrupted my business, I sensed the shadow of foul play lurking in the background. Phone calls that rang once and fell silent, or deadlines that mocked my attempts to connect—they were more than just annoyances; they were the echoes of a larger conspiracy. Was evidence mounting that these calls were being diverted surreptitiously, manipulating my business for someone else’s gain? 

What seemed absurd in the early days—the notion of faxes and phone calls being secretly hijacked—now bore the weight of reality. If I were onto something, what implications did that have for all phone subscribers? Had we opened the door to a world where our communications could be twisted and turned against us?

The Commonwealth Ombudsman’s Office was drawn into this treachery alongside the Regulator, both of which were complicit in a game of stonewalling. My requests under the Freedom of Information Act for data from the testing equipment at the exchange, essential to understanding the scope of these violations, were met with silence. It has now been fifteen years since my first inquiry, and the only paltry response I received covered a mere six-day period in May 1993—disguised incompetence or calculated obstruction? 

As I pieced together the sinister puzzle, the threads of corruption and betrayal tightened around me. How deep does this deception run? And who will pay the price when the truth finally comes to light?

 

CHAPTER 11

 

 

Due to my relentless complaints to the Regulator about the myriads of phone faults I had endured—ranging from erroneous charges to dropped calls—Telstra's so-called 'Network Investigations' department eventually, grudgingly, decided to intervene. Two shadowy figures from Telstra's National Network Investigation Division arrived at my office on June 3, 1993, under the pretence of uncovering the truth. Little did I know, this was merely the beginning of what would become infamously known as ‘The Briefcase Saga.’

As they swept into my office with an unremarkable briefcase in tow, I had high hopes of finally confronting those responsible for my grievances. Instead, what ensued was a facade of professionalism, with these investigators dancing around the issues, offering little more than vague nods and empty platitudes while I felt my anger and frustration swell. When it was time for them to leave, my own means of transportation had vanished—sold off to settle some of my mounting debts—and they offered me a ride. Along the way, we made a quick stop at the local exchange where one of them, with an air of secrecy, replaced a tape from one of Telstra's machines, performing their version of a cover-up.

After spending hours in Portland, a neighbour gave me a lift back to my office, where I stumbled upon a shocking discovery. Sitting innocuously in my office was an unlocked briefcase belonging to one of those Telstra technicians. Without a way to contact him directly, I was left in a frenzy of anticipation until the following morning when I could reach out to my local exchange.

Opening that briefcase was like peeling back the layers of deception that had wrapped around my life for years. The first thing my eyes landed on was a file labelled “SMITH, CAPE BRIDGEWATER.” This was the culmination of over five torturous years battling Telstra, and here was a glimmer of hope—an insight into the company's secretive narrative. Some documents were far too technical for me to grasp, crafted specifically to obfuscate the truth. Yet, among them were records pertaining to an ex-gratia compensation payment I had received on December 11, 1992. That was when I froze, my heart pounding in my chest, as I turned the page and confronted the chilling words: “Problem 1.” The implications of that revelation sent shivers down my spine.

This document reveals a dark truth about Telstra's deception regarding the so-called three-week RVA fault in March of 1992, which they had the audacity to hide had plagued me for a harrowing eight months. By concealing this information, Telstra crafted a web of lies, purposefully misleading me—such treachery, under these circumstances, is nothing short of illegal.

Dated 24th July 1992, and bearing my phone number like a sinister mark in the top right corner, this document details my escalating frustration as callers were met with a chilling “service disconnected” message. It lists the numerous faults, including one from Station Pier in Melbourne dated 22nd July 1992, and a “similar fault reported” on 17th March 1992. The damning final sentence declares, “Network investigation should have been brought in as fault has gone on for 8 months.” 

A glimpse into another dark document—a minute from Telstra dated 2nd July 1992—reveals that the local technicians were acutely aware that my complaints were justified. They recognized the horror of the “service disconnected” RVA on my line and bleakly noted that this issue was spiralling, affecting more customers.

Fast forward to November 1992, just before my settlement orchestrated by Telstra’s area general manager, the company had the gall to reiterate that this RVA fault had lasted a mere three weeks, claiming it caused an average of 50% call loss during that time. How conveniently contradictory! On one side, we have Telstra’s reports insisting the fault was just a fleeting three-week nightmare, while on the other, there are damning internal documents revealing that this fault had tortured me for eight relentless months, with technicians corroborating my truth. Whom are we meant to trust?

Desperate to expose their malevolence, I sent numerous Statutory Declarations detailing the shocking evidence I uncovered in the briefcase. Yet, the Regulator was misled, told they received all the information from the briefcase—a blatant lie. In a chilling realization in late 1994, among a release of FOI documents, I found that crucial evidence had been withheld from the Regulator, shrouded in shadows.

Upon discovering this damning document in 1994, I was compelled to send a copy to the TIO’s office, desperately highlighting the gravity of Telstra’s manipulation, which had deceived the Regulator into believing they possessed everything from the briefcase. 

A letter dated 27th August 1993, from Telstra’s Corporate Secretary, coldly referred to the briefcase documents, stating: “Although there is nothing in these documents to cause Telstra any concern in respect of your case, the documents remain Telstra’s property and therefore are confidential to us.” With chilling indifference, Telstra’s Corporate Secretary deliberately ignored the vital evidence that had been kept under lock and key during our negotiations for compensation. The contents of that briefcase illustrated a sinister truth—senior Telstra management had orchestrated a grand deception, all while pretending that my phone service was up to network standard when, it fell dreadfully short of that mark.

 

On June 17, 1993, the General Manager of Telstra Commercial for Victoria and Tasmania composed a confidential internal memo addressed to the Manager of Network Investigations. This memo revealed a troubling reality: not only was Telstra’s area general manager fully aware—at the time of my settlement on December 11, 1992—that she was providing me with misleading information, but the General Manager of Commercial Victoria/Tasmania also knowingly participated in this deception. This concerted effort to mislead me had a significant and detrimental impact on my understanding and judgment regarding the situation.

Such misleading and deceptive conduct during a commercial settlement constitutes a direct violation of the Australian Trade Practices Act. Alarmingly, this serious issue has never been adequately addressed by Telstra. Even more disturbing, when the arbitrator issued his award on May 11, 1995, he failed to question Telstra’s unethical actions, despite my explicit concerns being documented in my claim. I highlighted that Telstra had deliberately deceived me at the previous settlement meeting, which unfairly placed me at a considerable commercial disadvantage.

Furthermore, in a letter dated June 8, 1993, the Regulator communicated to Telstra that I had lodged a formal complaint regarding ongoing phone faults that persisted even after the so-called “settlement.” The letter went on to state: “Additionally, he claims that the Telstra documents contain network investigation findings that starkly contrast with the information provided to the affected customers.”

In summary, if these allegations are true, they suggest that, in the context of the settlement, I—Mr. Smith—was provided with a misleading portrayal of the situation, which formed the basis for my decision-making. Additionally, it indicates that other complainants identified in the correspondence have also been knowingly supplied with inaccurate information.

I respectfully request your immediate response to these serious allegations. Moreover, you are urged to promptly supply the Regulator with copies of all relevant documentation that was inadvertently left at my premises for their assessment. This information, combined with your comments, will assist me in formulating an appropriate recommendation for the Regulator’s consideration regarding any necessary actions.

Regarding my ongoing service difficulties, please provide a detailed statement about whether Telstra believes I have been receiving a telephone service that meets standard network quality since the settlement. If the service falls short, please outline the specific problems known to Telstra, indicate how far these issues deviate from established network standards, and identify the underlying causes of these service disruptions.

Given my ongoing claims of service difficulties, I will work with you to establish a mechanism that allows for an objective assessment of these issues. 

It appears that the Regulator’s concerns about the sensitive information I first discovered in this briefcase were indeed justified!

 

CHAPTER 12

 

By April 1993, the number of articles that had appeared in my local newspaper and interstate gossip about the COT group was beginning to grow.  As a result of this the Channel Nine ‘Sixty Minutes’ program 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 brought 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 in Cape Bridgewater, we acquired a logo especially for the over-forties singles club which we were calling “Country Get-A-Ways” and 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 were able to 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 26^th 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 rung seven times to get an engaged signal.  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 for six minutes and another call at 12:18, lasting for eight 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 around the Melbourne metropolitan area and talking personally to 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, the Mt Gambier-Border Watch etc. 

Complaints about the phones continued.  People had enormous trouble getting through to the camp and, although some obviously persevered, God knows how many simply gave up trying. 

I received two letters from the TIO, both indicating a less-than-enthusiastic response from Telstra when the Deputy TIO attempted to extract from them an explanation of entries missing from the White Pages telephone directory in 1993.  These entries were specifically for my Country Get-a-way Singles Club holidays, and I went ahead with an extensive advertising campaign, unaware that the entries were not in the telephone books.  I now wonder if there is more to these missing entries than meets the eye because, if there was a simple, above-board reason for my advertisements being left out of eighteen major phone directories, then why has Telstra never offered an explanation?  As the Deputy TIO says in his letter of 29^th March 1996, he believed his office would simply “be flogging a dead horse trying to extract more” from Telstra on this matter.

One Saturday evening a couple of Scotches left me in tears of complete frustration.  I knew I was easily capable of running the camp as I pictured it, but I was trapped, like a rabbit in car headlights, with no way to turn.  It was a vicious merry-go-round.  Without customers I would go broke quickly and the customers couldn’t reach me because the phones didn’t work.  Right then Graham Schorer, the COT spokesperson, rang.  He kept urging me to hang in there, convinced that we would win out in the end.  Later, even Ann Garms, who is usually so strong and determined, broke down over the phone, crying that it was impossible to go on.  This time it was my turn to be strong; “Hang in there, Ann.”  I told her, “We’ll beat the bastards yet, you’ll see.”

The process became even more of a roller-coaster ride.  My spirits rose once I had hosted a few successful Country-Get-Aways in the following few months, but it was only a few, not nearly as many as I knew should have been responding to my advertising and marketing and, inevitably, my spirits sank again as bookings dwindled.

Finally, in desperation, I remembered a clinical psychologist the COT members had contacted back in 1992, when we were first formalising the group.  At the time this psychologist had written a report regarding his opinion of our individual psychological conditions, noting the breakdown in our psychological defences and referring to the excessive and prolonged pressures we were being forced to endure and noting:  “All of these clients have been subjected to persistent environmental stress as a result of constant pressure in their business and erratic patterns of change in the functioning of their telephones which were essential to the success of their businesses.”

Now it was May 1993 and nothing had changed.  I rang the psychologist’s office, looking for support.  My conversation with his office was interrupted three times by phone faults.  Later I received a letter from his office, saying: “I am writing to you to confirm details of telephone conversation difficulties experienced between this office and our residence mid-morning this day, 5 May 1993.  At approximately 11.30 am today Mr Alan Smith telephoned this office requesting to speak with (the psychologist).  (The psychologist) was not available to take his call.  During this time the telephone cut out three times.  Each time Mr Smith telephoned back to continue the call.”

Between May and October of 1993, I received many letters from schools, clubs and singles clubs, each one writing of the difficulties they had experienced trying to contact the camp by phone.  The executive officer of the Camping Association of Victoria, wrote on 6^th May 1993 to say that ten thousand copies of their ‘Resource Guide’, in which I had advertised, had been direct mailed to schools and given away.  Most of the other advertisers with ads like mine, he went on to say, had experienced an increase in inquiries and bookings after the distribution of these books and so it was clear to him that the “malfunction of your phone system effectively deprived you of similar gains in business.”  He also noted that he had himself received complaints from people who had been unable to phone my camp.  They were asking him why I was not answering my phone. All in all, during this period, I received thirty-six letters from different individuals as well more than forty other complaints from people who had tried, unsuccessfully, to respond to my advertisements.  The Hadden & District Community House wrote in April 1993: “… problems with contacting you by phone.  Several times I have dialled (my phone number) and received no response — deadline.  I have also experienced similar problems on your 008 number.

Our youth worker, experienced similar problems while organising our last year’s family camp, over a six-month period during 1991/1992.”

In August of 1993 the Chilean Social Club wrote: “I tried to ring you to confirm our stay at your camp site.  I found it impossible to get through.  I tried to ring later but encountered the same signal on the 10th of August around 7 - 8.30 pm.  I believe you have a problem with the exchange and strongly advise you contact Telstra.

            Do you remember the same problem happened in April and May of this year? I apologise but I have decided with another camp.”

As more letters like this arrived in my office, I became convinced that Telstra senior executives were hiding the true facts of the problems at the Cape Bridgewater exchange.  Surely, they must have been aware by now that I was not inventing the problems I was complaining about.

The Regulator’s General Manager of Consumer Affairs was becoming more concerned at the evidence COT members were producing; evidence of continuing complaints like these, as well as evidence of incorrect charging.  These two problems — people not being able to get through and calls being charged incorrectly, come together in a note from a lady in Croydon who wrote regarding her problems getting through on 22^nd May 1993 and explained how she continually reached a recorded voice announcement saying that my phone had been disconnected.  She commented that she thought this message was ‘quite strange’.  My Telstra 008 account for that day showed several very short calls.  Apparently, I was being charged for RVA messages, short duration and faults that Telstra calls ‘post dialling delay faults! 

I told the Regulator of my suspicions that COT members’ phone calls were being intercepted by Telstra and some of the short duration calls I had been billed for, but which I had not answered, were incoming calls that were being diverted to an unknown location.

The Regulator did not agree with these suspicions and yet, in an in-confidence, internal Telstra memo dated 25^th November 1993, on the subject of short duration calls on my phone lines, Telstra stated:  “Mr Smith is obviously well aware that customer premises equipment (CPE) is a significant source/cause of charging and billing disputes, particularly those involving short calls which the customer believes were unsuccessful and should not be charged.  Telephone answering machines, facsimiles and call diverters typically are at the centre of these disputes.”

I have evidence which proves that neither my answering machine nor my fax machine could have answered many of these short duration calls.  This leaves call diverters as the only ‘culprit’ possible and, since I had not authorised any call diversion on any of my lines, this raises the question:  Who then had authorised the diversion of at least some of my incoming calls?

The true level of short duration and post dialling delay faults were well known to Telstra as early as October 1993, but they chose to hide the problems and continue to collect revenue from their customers (you and me), regardless of the level of customer complaints.  In some cases, Telstra forced customers to pay incorrect accounts by threatening to disconnect the customer’s phone lines, even though the customer complaints may well have been quite real.

A Telstra FOI document (H36291) dated 11^th October 1993, states “I am receiving a disturbing number of instances where the 1800 prefix ‘does not work’ in the network.  Given we are now part way through a major (direct mail) National campaign launching free call 1800 statewide, I need to know the extent of the problem of missed areas across the country.”

Another FOI document dated 1^st November the same year, and from Telstra (H36293), goes even further: “All administration groups are being inundated with complaints from customers who have advertised their numbers as 1800, but their customers are simply unable to get through to them.  I have spoken to our fault staff at Waverley who are also being inundated with the same complaints.”

An even more alarming Telstra FOI document (H36178) indicates that, even while being fully aware that they were promoting a faulty service which would not provide the service it was advertising as providing, Telstra continued to charge their customers for calls that Telstra knew were not connecting correctly, where the caller reached a dead line, thought they had dialled incorrectly and hung up, but the charge still registered at the other end – on the 1800 customer’s account.  In this document, H36178, Telstra discusses concerns: “…that the matter requires fixing at a national level, not just on a fault-by-fault basis” and notes that someone: “… also raises the question whether we should be actively promoting 1800 in the circumstances.”

 

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^th 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 on 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 hand-written memo, dated 17^th August 1993, reports Tina’s attempt to contact me and refers to the complaint from the Community House to 1100, recording the times they had tried to get through to my phone.

A copy of my itemised 1800 account (R11519) for 17^th 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 had reported their experience to the fault centre, Telstra began to take a pro-active 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 some one hundred test calls would take place on 18^th August 1998 to my 1800 free-call service.

That morning, I answered two calls from Telstra commercial, one lasting six minutes and another lasting eleven minutes — these two occurred first thing in the morning as they set up ready for more test calls throughout the day.  Over the rest of that day however, I only answered eight or nine calls in all.  Certainly, I was stressed by then, possibly I wasn’t thinking entirely clearly, but even so I am sure I would remember if I had answered one hundred calls, or even twenty or thirty for that matter. 

Some days later my 1800 phone account arrived and, lo and behold, something like sixty 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 which did not connect and which I certainly did not answer.  Telstra wrote to the Regulator on 8^th November 1993, noting that I had queried the accuracy of the data regarding sixty-seven calls made in a fifty-four-minute period.  The Regulator went on to say that I did not believe I had answered all the calls I was charged for.  Finally, they 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 customer coin-operated gold phone service was most unsatisfactory.  They wrote that the phone was taking money ‘under false pretences’ and not connecting long enough for the caller to properly complete their calls.  Both wrote that the line kept ‘going dead’ and they both supplied their names and addresses.

Late in 1994 I was supplied with some documents in response to one of my FOI requests.  This batch included two documents which are of particular interest in relation to the Telstra test calls of 18^th 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 believe 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 but I have not received any response to my questions.  Surely this can’t be only coincidence.

Document K03434 includes a note stating: “Test calls unsuccessful.  Did not hear STD pips on any calls to test no.  The TCTDI would not work correctly on the CWBEX (Cape Bridgewater Exchange).  I gave up tests.”

It seems obvious that this remark refers to the test calls that were to have been made to my phone on that day.

Later in this story I explain how these 1800 post-dialling, short-duration calls were never investigated or addressed in the report supplied to my arbitrator by the TIO-appointed technical unit, even though the Regulator continued to ask Telstra about these same faults throughout my arbitration in 1994.  In August of 1996 – three years later – the Regulator was still asking Telstra what they were doing about short duration faults.  Meanwhile Telstra continued to charge me for calls they knew were not getting through.

Another FOI document received in this batch, numbered A03254, was a copy of a Telstra e-mail dated 28^th September 1993.  This e-mail referred, in part, to a recognition of the “...  duress that the COT members are suffering” and goes on to say: “... perhaps I am getting too legalistic and defensive, but we can’t afford to let anything get away.  However, our best option is still to force these cases down a legal structured path.”

Also curious is FOI document C04094.  This indicates further that Telstra’s management team was trying to force the COT members into a court situation, even though they were fully aware that their highly paid lawyers would eat us alive.  The aim seemed to be to ‘hang us out to dry’ as an example to others who might complain about Telstra services in the future.

On 21^st April 1993, a document headed “COT cases latest” was forwarded from one worker to another within Telstra.  This document confirms the COT members’ growing belief that Telstra was planning to use our claims and possible court case to stop any further claims against Telstra, ever.  The author of this document stated: “…thank you for your swift and eloquent reply.  I disagree with raising the issue of the courts.  That carries an implied threat not only to COT cases but to all customers that they’ll end up as lawyer fodder.  Certainly, that can be a message to give face to face with customers and to hold in reserve if the complainants remain vexatious....”

Clearly, Telstra management intended to decide when claimants were becoming ‘vexatious’ and that this would be the time they would threaten the claimants with legal action.  And this decision comes from a corporation which is continually held up to be a benevolent organisation, acting for the good of the Australian public while, behind closed doors, Telstra management intended to turn legitimate claimants into ‘lawyer fodder’ if they persisted with their claims. 

During September or October of 1993, I had advised the Regulator’s General Manager for Consumer Affairs, that Telstra’s General Manager (Commercial) had instructed me to direct all my future phone complaints, in writing, to their outside solicitors. 

Much, much later I was told that this strategy was intended to wear me out or force me to hire my own legal practitioner to deal with Telstra’s solicitors.  Sometimes I waited up to two weeks for a response from Telstra’s solicitors and the time and effort involved in documenting all the on-going faults, while still trying to run a failing business, certainly worked in Telstra’s favour.  Somehow, I struggled to keep focussed on what the COT group were pushing for: a Senate inquiry into Telstra’s unethical treatment of our small group of legitimate claimants.

A letter of support from a worker at D Madden & Co of Warrnambool (Lawyers), dated 10^th November 1993, helped me feel less alone and confirmed my decision to fight on.  Telstra had to respond regarding their treatment of customers’ complaints: they must be stopped from continuing their bullying tactics.  This letter from Madden’s says, in part: “I am writing about the proposed Senate Committee Investigation into Telstra.

            As you are aware, I am employed as a telephonist with a large legal firm in Warrnambool.  In the course of my employment, and particularly during the months of July and August this year, numerous service faults have been brought to my attention.  These problems include:

1.        Calls being disconnected during conversation.

2.        Recorded messages informing Melbourne clients and callers that the number has been disconnected when the correct number was dialled.

3.        An engaged signal received by callers despite a number of lines being available.

4.        Complaints from callers that the line has rung out when no ringing tone has been received at the number dialled.

            Our firm duly contacted Telstra on a number of occasions in an effort to have these fault rectified.  However, Telstra technicians were constantly unable to identify the numerous problems and subsequently remedy our complaints.”

The letter goes on to confirm support for the call for a Senate Inquiry into problems within Telstra’s network and to advise that my name and address had been passed to Madden’s by my local Member of Parliament, regarding a public meeting we were then organising. 

Like previous documents relating to phone problems in the area, I passed this on to Telstra’s solicitors, together with more information showing incorrect charging on phone accounts.  I then wrote to the solicitors on 12^th November1993: “On trying to fax you the information you received this morning I had quite some difficulty in getting all the pages through at a given time.  Note the page errors which I have enclosed.”

By this stage the Regulator was becoming more than a little concerned at Telstra’s approach to our complaints, particularly their continual use of outside solicitors.  In fact, during October 1993, while the Regulator was negotiating with Telstra for a commercial settlement proposal to be put in place for the COT members, the Regulator’s chairman made it clear to Telstra’s Commercial division that the Regulator would not be happy if Telstra’s solicitors were to be used in future COT matters.  This request fell on deaf ears however and, through to 28^th January 1994, Telstra continued to insist that I register my complaints through their Solicitors.

Later, when Telstra submitted their defence of my arbitration, I learned that Telstra’s solicitors also acted as Telstra’s defence counsel.  By this time, I was able to provide the arbitrator with clear proof that Telstra had provided incorrect written statements to the Regulator and to me, regarding incidents that occurred between January and August of 1993.

On 28^th January 1994, during my arbitration, I received a letter from Telstra’s solicitors in response to a letter I had written, challenging Telstra for incorrectly charging me for non-connected short duration calls. Telstra’s solicitors wrote, in response to one part of my letter, that “…customers will be charged only for calls which are answered” and “… unanswered calls are not charged”.

In the next paragraph they refer to the malicious-call-trace equipment which Telstra placed on my service, without my knowledge, and which caused a lock-up on my line after each successful call was answered.  This lock-up occurred after I had hung up the phone and meant that no further call could come into my phone for the following ninety seconds.

At the beginning of this chapter, I relate an incident with the Daylesford Community House and explain how the line was continually dead when they rang my 1800 number four times on 17^th August 1993, and how, even so, I was charged for these four calls, all in the space of a single twenty-eight-second period.  Since the malicious-call tracing equipment was not removed from my phone line until 19^th August 1993, how could the Community House have been connected four times in such a short period of time?  It is clear from other FOI documents, and has been supported by Telstra technical consultants, that no call could have connected under these circumstances at any time between 26^th May and 19^th August 1993, while the call tracing equipment was still connected.  So, where were these calls diverted to?

Another incident, described previously, and related to test calls supposedly carried out by Telstra, raises more, similar questions.  How could sixty-seven test calls all be answered in a fifty-four-minute period when my 1800 account shows that some of these test calls connected within a single thirty-second period?  In fact, some calls came through at the rate of as many as three in a single sixty-second period.  Again, where were these calls diverted to?  If they weren’t diverted, were they the same post-dialling and short duration faults that were still being diverted at my business as late as December 1997, four years after Telstra first acknowledged that the fault existed?  Whatever the cause of these faults, I was still being charged for calls that never reached my business.

On 19 December 1995, in the dark recesses of a convoluted five-volume arbitration dossier, I confronted Mr. Kearney, the government's investigator, armed with irrefutable evidence of Dr. Hughes’s nefarious refusal to grant his arbitration technical consultant the vital time necessary to expose the extensive billing discrepancies lurking just beneath the surface. This intentional obstruction forced Mr. Kearney into a precarious position, culminating in a hastily composed report in February 1996 that, amidst a climate of unease, regrettably validated my arbitration claims.

In the dark recesses of a convoluted five-volume arbitration dossier, I confronted Mr. Kearney, the government's investigator, armed with irrefutable evidence of Dr. Hughes’s nefarious refusal to grant his arbitration technical consultant the vital time necessary to expose the extensive billing discrepancies lurking just beneath the surface. This intentional obstruction forced Mr. Kearney into a precarious position, culminating in a hastily composed report in February 1996 that, amidst a climate of unease, regrettably validated my arbitration claims.

Within this damning summary report, I unravelled twenty-three chilling examples, starkly illustrating the fabrications woven into Telstra's underhanded and covert submission to AUSTEL on 16 October 1995. This treachery unfolded just five months after my arbitration ended. At that moment, the government Communications Authority, AUSTEL, revealed a sinister truth: the arbitrator had failed to examine these glaring discrepancies, allowing Telstra to manipulate the narrative to their advantage. Their collusion exposed not only the staggering scale of the ongoing billing debacle but also illuminated the urgent need for accountability in an environment rife with unchecked misconduct.

 

CHAPTER 14

 

My local Member of Parliament, a cog in the Liberal Coalition machine, sent me a congratulatory letter on December 9, 1993, applauding my "persistence" in exposing the disastrous state of Telstra's country services. However, he could not mask his regret that my relentless fight had come at such a steep personal cost. At the same time, the then-Minister for Communications in the Labor Government sent a note, feigning concern over allegations that Telstra was neglecting telecommunications service quality. He claimed to accept that people like me had endured significant personal and financial distress, which he insisted warranted a thorough investigation—though the hollow nature of such words hung in the air like a bad smell.

As negotiations dragged on, we tirelessly lobbied for a so-called commercial assessment—a facade of a binding agreement designed to bypass legal intervention—for the Coalition of Telecom members. We were desperate for acknowledgement of the financial turmoil we faced due to faulty phone systems, and there was a flicker of hope that a Senate Inquiry would finally shed light on the murky dealings at play. 

Two particularly zealous Senators became our unlikely champions, pushing hard for an Inquiry. One was the then-Shadow Minister for Communications, who later climbed to the position of Minister himself, and the other hailed from the National Party—a party that seemed to thrive on underhanded tactics. Senate Hansard, the official record of Australian parliamentary debates, revealed that Telstra reassured these Senators that the four main COT members would inexplicably have their claims assessed through the disingenuously named Fast Track Settlement Proposal (FTSP). 

The decision to implement this FTSP seemed more like a calculated manoeuvre than a genuine effort to provide justice. The four prominent COT members—Maureen Gillen, Ann Garms, Graham Schorer, and I—had been thrown into a quagmire of consequential losses because of our drawn-out struggle against a labyrinth of governmental and corporate negligence. Yet, what should have been a straightforward path to justice felt obstructed by unseen forces conspiring behind the scenes.

With the tacit approval of the Labour Government, a Regulator orchestrated the arrival of international experts from Bell Canada International Inc. (BCI)—a move that felt more like a smokescreen than a sincere attempt to tackle our grievances. The experts arrived to conduct tests on our faulty phone services, but the timing was questionable; my phone issues were particularly egregious between November 4 and 9, 1993—a period when the Regulator was aware of the chaos surrounding my service. 

As the shadows of bureaucracy loomed large, it became increasingly evident that the path to resolution was riddled with insidious agendas, leaving us to wonder if we'd ever find the justice we sought.

 

At the conclusion of the rigorous tests conducted by BCI, a comprehensive report was produced. However, this report ultimately fell short of the Australian Regulator's expectations. The main reason for this was that the BCI technicians did not perform tests on the actual line connecting my business to the nearest point of access at the local exchange, referred to as the Customer Access Network (CAN). FOI documents numbered A00404 to A00407 reveal that Telstra's Commercial General Manager for Australia wrote a letter to the Regulator on December 15, 1993. In this correspondence, he stated, "The conclusion to be reasonably drawn from these events is that the Regulator publicly judges the BCI report as failing to live up to the expectations raised by the terms of reference. 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 in carrying out the study and representing the findings."

In this same letter, Telstra elaborated on the COT Settlement Proposal (FTSP), asserting, "Considering the above circumstances, Telstra cannot agree to attach a copy of the Regulator’s letter of December 9 to the BCI report if the latter is made available to the assessors nominated for the COT cases." 

Adding a critical note of concern, a handwritten comment at the bottom of the last page proclaimed, "There are a multitude of inaccuracies." This note was connected by an arrow to a reference to the Regulator's letter dated December 9, 1993. Not long after, I obtained a copy of this letter through an FOI request (numbered K47052 to K47054). In the summary at the end of this letter, the Regulator stated, "Having regard to the above, I am of the opinion that the BCI report should not be made available to the assessors nominated for the COT cases without a copy of this letter being attached." 

It became glaringly evident, through information I received in response to my FOI request on October 18, 1995, that Telstra did not provide a copy of the Regulator’s letter to my arbitrator. This significant oversight has yet to be scrutinized by either the Minister for Communication or the TIO, despite their clear awareness that Telstra leveraged the BCI report in defence of my claims. The arbitrator even acknowledged in his award on May 11, 1995, that he accepted the BCI report as part of my arbitration process.

A week after Telstra forwarded this letter to the Regulator, an internal email (FOI document A00354) was sent by Telstra discussing an upcoming tariff filing set to be lodged on December 20, 1993. This new tariff was designed to include performance parameters, one of which committed Telstra to achieving a 98% call completion rate at the individual customer level. Alarmingly, the email also referenced ongoing customer disputes and insights from the Bell Canada International Study, remarking, "... this is a cause for concern - Telstra will not meet this 98% figure in many exchanges throughout Australia, particularly in rural areas." This candid admission underscored Telstra’s awareness of the inadequacies in service for their rural subscribers, who were being neglected.

FOI document A09392 further amplifies the concerns regarding rural exchanges. The author of this document expressed scepticism, writing, “Parameters for Cape Bridgewater RCM have been obtained, but I don’t believe them — I am attempting to verify this information — some of the sources providing this data are from ‘old Telecom’.” This statement revealed the significant issues Telstra faced regarding the Cape Bridgewater exchange. Could the unresolved questions surrounding these parameters explain why Telstra failed to provide this crucial information in response to my FOI requests?

Describing the anguish experienced by the four COT complainants during our protracted battle with Telstra is no easy task. At that time, Telstra was a fully government-owned corporation, an entity that Australians were encouraged to trust with confidence, as evidenced by relentless radio and television advertisements promoting their services. How could we have been subjected to such treatment?

Around this same period, Telstra engaged the international auditing firm Coopers & Lybrand to conduct a thorough assessment of its fault-handling procedures, particularly pertaining to complaints like those raised by the COT members. The findings of Coopers & Lybrand's report reveal their shock at the evidence presented in the COT cases. Telstra's unethical management of our complaints over many years raised serious alarm for Coopers, suggesting a troubling disregard for subscriber concerns. The response from Telstra following their initial review of the Coopers report starkly illustrated their dismissive attitude toward their subscribers, leaving us in disbelief.

On 9^th November 1993, the Group Managing Director of Telstra wrote to another Telstra manager, saying: “I believe that 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.”

These are strong words from the most senior manager below the CEO of the largest telecommunications corporation in the country; a corporation which, at that time, had a monopoly hold on the industry in Australia.  This was not an empty threat, but it seemed not to have the desired effect because Coopers tabled their report in the Senate and released it into the public domain with, as far as I can tell, no significant changes.

The following points have been taken directly from Coopers report.

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 to substantiate claims where all telephone fault information that could reasonably determine loss should have been held by Telstra.

(2)     Fault handling procedures were deficient in terms of escalation criteria and procedures, and there is evidence that in some cases at least, this delayed resolution of these cases.

3.5    We could find no evidence that faults discovered by Telstra staff which could affect customers are communicated to the staff at business service centres who have responsibility for responding to customers’ fault reports.”

With Bell Canada International and Coopers & Lybrand busy producing their individual reports on the COT allegations we four at last felt vindicated; we were not paranoid after all.  Telstra really did have a case to answer.

As a result of their own investigation, the Regulator had concluded that there were problems in the Telstra Network and that the COT four had, for all the right reasons, been diligent in bringing these issues into the public domain.  It looked like four Australian citizens, without any financial backing (and now all close to being totally broke) had won a significant battle.  Sometimes, we thought, David wins over Goliath, even in the twentieth century.

During our dire financial struggles, a sense of betrayal loomed over our efforts. Despite numerous complaints about subpar phone services—evidence that I had meticulously gathered to showcase the inadequacy of Telstra’s dealings—the Chairman of the Regulator leaned heavily on Telstra, coaxing them into appointing a commercial loss assessor to pass judgment on our claims. This wasn't a mere process; it was a deceptive facade, cleverly masked as a Fast Track Settlement Process that promised swift access to discovery documents, only serving to keep us hopeful while we remained ensnared in their web.

Telstra feigned cooperation, pledging to fix ongoing phone faults before any assessment of payouts, an obvious tactic to undermine the very foundation of our claims. What good would a settlement be, they cunningly reasoned, if the same issues continued to plague us? Our spirits, momentarily lifted, quickly dimmed as we recognized the manipulative nature of their promises. 

In our desperate attempts to secure what was rightfully ours, we found ourselves in discussions with the Regulator’s Chairman, who made vague assurances that any preparational costs incurring on our part would be recognized as part of our losses, provided we could substantiate our claims. Yet, when pressed for a written confirmation, he recoiled, explaining that such a concession could set a dangerous precedent—exposing the treacherous ground we were treading.

The Corporate Secretary for Telstra, in a seemingly innocuous letter dated November 18, 1993, further revealed the depths of their machinations. He clearly stated that only the COT four were to undergo scrutiny by an assessor, further isolating us in this perilous game. He enclosed an amended Fast Track Proposal—crafted to appear accommodating—but with a chilling caveat: the offer would evaporate by 5 pm on November 23, only to be replaced by an arbitration process that would likely ensnare us all in an endless cycle of conflict and frustration.

Now, we found ourselves at a crossroads; COT needed to consider whether to insist that clause 2(c) encompass a broader definition of losses, including consequential losses, before we fell deeper into their treacherous trap. The clock was ticking, and every moment felt like a move in a perilous game of chess, where the stakes were our stability and livelihoods. The question lingered: could we trust the very system that was supposed to protect us?

 

CHAPTER 15

 

Graham, Ann, Maureen and I signed the FTSP the following day, 23^rd November 1993, trusting in the Regulator’s verbal assurances that consequential losses would be included.  The agreement was forwarded to Telstra’s corporate secretary.  I included a letter with the agreement, clearly putting my expectations of the process: “In signing and returning this proposal to you 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.  I was disappointed that … was unwilling to put his assurances in writing but am nevertheless prepared to accept what he said.

            I would not sign this agreement if I thought it prevented me from continuing my efforts to have a satisfactory service for my business.  It is a clear understanding that nothing in this agreement prevents me from continuing to seek a satisfactory telephone service.”

The four COT members felt some sense of achievement, although Maureen’s health was beginning to fail.  The rest of us tried to ring her as often as we could because she was not getting much support from her business partner, who often seemed a bit put out when we rang Maureen to ask how she was.

The pressure on all four of us had been immense, with TV and newspaper interviews as well as our continuing canvassing of the Senate.  The stress was telling by now, but I continued to hammer for a change in rural telephone services. 

Several other small businesses in rural Australia had begun to write to me regarding their experiences of a poor standard of service from Telstra.  Other ordinary subscribers were also writing of problems they had had with their phones, including several different billing issues.  I contacted Telstra management myself on several occasions, putting on record my requests for these matters to be resolved.  I believed then, and I still believe, that this was a responsible reaction to the letters I was receiving.  Telstra didn’t even offer a ‘thank you’ however, leaving me with only one option: to continue to canvas the media for publicity about our fight.

Other rural subscribers wrote to various TV stations and newspapers supporting my allegations that, regarding telephone services, rural small-business people, as well as the public, were not being supplied with a level playing field when compared to our city cousins.  One of these letters is particularly interesting.  It came from a company of Insurance Loss Adjusters in Ballarat, a rural city in Victoria, and was sent to the producer of “Real Life”, a TV current affairs program then being broadcast on Channel 7.  They wrote: “Re Problems with Telstra”

            I have watched with interest the shorts leading up to tonight’s program as I have similar problems to the man at Cape Bridgewater.

            Our office is located in Ballarat and due to Telstra structure, the majority of our local calls are STD-fee based. (STD calls are charged by time)

            On many occasions we have been unable to get through to numbers we have dialled, often receiving the message “This number is not connected” or similar messages which we know to be untrue.

            Clients report that they often receive the engaged signal when calling us and a review of the office reveals that at least one of our lines was free at the relevant time.

            We have just received our latest Telstra bill which in total is up about 25-30% on the last bill.  This is odd because our workload in the billing period was down by about 25% and we have one staff member less than the previous billing period.”

Another letter sent in April 1993 to the Editor of the Herald-Sun Newspaper in Victoria, read in part: “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 have 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 deadline.

            I also 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 also got the same noise when testing.”

Because of a number of reports regarding this ‘piercing noise’, a worker from Telstra’s Country Division arranged to have my service switched to another system.  Unfortunately, this did not seem to help.

Various TV stations reported that their phones had run hot whenever they aired stories about phone faults.  People rang from all over the country with complaints about Telstra’s service.  This support from the media and from the public boosted our morale and gave us a bit more energy to keep going as a group.  We continued to push to have all these matters addressed in the Senate.

FOI documents show that, at about this same time, several Labor Party Senators were becoming increasingly concerned at what COT members were uncovering.  Other FOI documents show that Telstra were not correctly reporting the true facts of the situation at the end of 1993.  It is also clear from still more FOI documents that it is highly likely that some newspaper journalists were approached by Telstra and asked to ‘kill’ a story about our problems with phone faults.

FOI document number C04054, entitled “Cot Wrap-Up”, states, in part: “I think it should be acknowledged these customers are not going to become delighted.  We are dealing with the long-term aggrieved and they will not lie down.

            Further, I propose that we consider immediately targeting key reporters in the major papers and turn them on to some sexy “Look at superbly built and maintained network” stories.

            I advise that Clinton be targeted for some decent Telstra exclusive stories to get his mind out of the gutter.”

We are left to wonder just who ‘Clinton’ was and why his mind was ‘in the gutter’!

One of the TV news programs was clearly also a target in this attempt to muzzle the media.  FOI document A04646 reports: “Good news re Channel (Australian TV station ID deleted) News.  Haven’t checked all outlets but as it didn’t run on the main bulletin last night, we can be certain that the story died the death.  I wish I could figure which phrase it was that convinced (reporter’s name deleted) not to proceed.  Might have been one of (name omitted) pearls.”

The last person referred to in this e-mail was then Telstra’s Corporate Secretary; the reporter worked for the TV station referred to at the beginning of the e-mail.  The identity of the TV station and reporter, clearly shown in the original e-mail, have deliberately been omitted from this book.

Again, we can only wonder what it was that could convince a respected journalist to drop a story.  Furthermore, if Telstra had met with the members of COT at the very beginning, listened to our complaints and then done something about them, there may never have been a need to interfere with media stories because there never would have been a Casualties of Telstra group in the first place.  After all, we were only asking that Telstra rectify our phones so we could each get on with the running of our businesses in the same way that other small businesses operated.

Many other Telstra documents have been censored before being released under FOI with some names blacked out, but other documents show that Telstra’s area general manager is clearly referred to as one of the Telstra people appointed to ‘deal with the media/politicians’ regarding COT issues.  I have previously recounted one of the stories related to this same area general manager.  As I explained then, it seems quite clear that this manager had deliberately misinformed me during a settlement process in 1992/93.  Now we discover that she was to be one of only two people who were appointed to speak to the media about the COTs.  Would she have misinformed the media the way she misinformed me, I wonder?  And, just as worrying, why was the author of this memo so worried about ‘tripping up’?

 

CHAPTER 16

 

On January 17, 1994, a chilling media release was distributed by the telecommunications industry’s supposed watchdog, the TIO. They announced that a so-called ‘assessor’ had been appointed to process the Fast Track Settlement Proposals of the COT members. Yet, lurking behind the façade of due process, Telstra was already flouting the original agreement; they were systematically withholding crucial discovery documents, using the FOI as a mere guise to delay and deny accountability.

By late January, it became increasingly clear that Telstra was not just dismissive of the COT members; they were brazenly contemptuous, all while the Senate looked on, powerless to intervene. It felt as though every individual and institution of authority in Australia had conspired to turn a blind eye to the blatant injustice being perpetrated against us. Imagine the unsettling scenario where lodging complaints to Telstra necessitated sending correspondence through their solicitors—was this an act of intimidation, a cruel attempt to crush our spirits? Reporting a phone fault in writing to a solicitor? The absurdity felt like a deliberate mockery of our plight.

The TIO disclosed that the commercial ‘assessor’ had crafted a set of rules, but then, in a diabolical manipulation orchestrated by Telstra, this assessment was twisted into an arbitration process—a legal labyrinth designed to ensnare and exhaust us. We made our outrage known to the TIO, but our protests fell on deaf ears. It was evident that the arbitration route would drag us into a lengthy and costly battle—one that we simply could not afford against Telstra’s formidable legal machine. The whole notion of arbitration was plainly contrived to serve Telstra's sinister agenda, ensuring our suffering continued unchecked.

Between February 6th and 8th of that same year, Graham Schorer’s conversation with the TIO revealed the depth of this conspiracy. As Graham tried to convey the COT members’ justified rejection of the arbitration process, our concerns were coldly dismissed. The TIO revealed his true priorities, focusing instead on the expenses his office had incurred, which Telstra had refused to reimburse. The implications were stark: if we did not abandon our commercial agreement, Telstra would unleash a barrage of tactics to force us into a legal quagmire, intent on wearing us down until we had no choice but to take them to court.

Then came the most devastating blow: the TIO threatened that if we dared to pursue legal action to make Telstra Honor their original agreement, he would resign as administrator of the very process meant to protect us. This threat was a calculated move, designed to dismantle our last hope and leave us with only the option of traditional legal battles—destined to struggle alone against a giant who had already shown their willingness to fight dirty.

In this foul play, it was abundantly clear—Telstra, the TIO, and the new arbiter were all in collusion, weaving a dark web of deception, exploitation, and despair, ensuring the COT members would have no choice but to surrender to their relentless manipulation.

Simply put, it seemed that the TIO had sold us out.  The new assessor also seemed to be selling us out before he even got properly started.  We asked to see Telstra’s preferred rules of arbitration, which had already been supplied to the TIO’s office, but the TIO refused our request.  We had been reassured that these rules had been drawn up independently of Telstra, by the arbitrator and Minter Ellison, the legal counsel to the TIO’s office.  We were also told that a one of the partners in Minter Ellison had consulted with the arbitrator over these rules.  This partner was also the president of the Institute of Arbitrators Australia which, we were told, would give the arbitration extra credit.  This same man later went on to become a County Court judge.

Whenever we asked to see a copy of these rules we were told that we should trust the arbitrator.  And so, we did.  In retrospect we were fools to accept such a compromise but, after struggling through the nightmare of the years leading up to this point, we were all exhausted, stressed and clutching at straws.  Singly and as a group we were vulnerable to the trickery of Telstra’s corporate power.

Even so, we continued to implore the TIO to reconsider and let us continue with the original FTSP agreement.  On 16^th April 1994 we faxed him once again, stressing our request.  Again, this fell on deaf ears.  By the following Thursday, 21^st April 1994, we had given up and abandoned the FTSP without seeing Telstra’s preferred rules of arbitration.  Later we discovered that the copy of these rules that had been supplied to the TIO’s office was headed “Telstra’s preferred rules of arbitration.”  We simply wanted to make sure that the rules we were signing were different to Telstra’s ‘preferred rules’:  why should Telstra be allowed to dictate to us?  

On 17^th February Graham Schorer and Ann Garms met with the arbitrator and legal counsel for both Telstra and the TIO.  The TIO had previously advised me that I wasn’t needed at this meeting and so I reluctantly agreed not to attend.  Graham and Ann stressed our alarm at Telstra’s continuing delays in supplying FOI document and Telstra’s minutes clearly show that the arbitrator was adamant that he would not conclude the process or hand down his decision on ‘incomplete’ information:  he reassured Graham and Ann that, once the arbitration got underway he would be in a position to force Telstra to supply all the documents we needed because he would be backed by the official Arbitration Act.  Further ahead in this book you will find that the arbitrator never once followed up on his promise to ‘force’ Telstra to supply our documentation.

After this meeting it was agreed that a set of rules would be drawn up and provided for both sides to assess.  The COTs were still reluctant to abandon the previous settlement process, but the TIO continued to assure us that all the important clauses in the original agreement would be included in the new arbitration rules.  We explained that we were mainly concerned that one clause, 2(f), from the original agreement be included in the new rules and the TIO again told us that we didn’t have to worry, clause 2(f) would certainly remain in the new agreement:  this was what finally won us over, and we reluctantly agreed to assess the new rules.

When this document was provided to us, sure enough, the important clause 2(f) was safely included, word for word as promised.  The only change was that it was now called clause 10.2.2.  We relaxed a little and then got legal advice to make sure that the rules were truly fair.  We were assured by the arbitrator that no other changes would be made in fact the arbitrator even wrote to the arbitration project manager on 27^th February insisting that there should be no changes, particularly to clause 10.2.2.

What we didn’t know then was that, on 24^th March 1994, after our legal advisors reassured us that the rules were truly fair, and Ann, Graham and I had therefore signed to agree to the rules, (but before we signed for the actual arbitration procedure in full) the arbitrator, the TIO, people from Telstra’s Legal directorate department and Telstra’s lawyer held a secret meeting to discuss more alterations the already agreed to rules.  This meeting was held without the knowledge or consent of anyone from COT.  Telstra’s minutes of the meeting show clearly that the TIO was adamant that he would not agree to any changes to clause 10.2.2, even going so far as to say that he wouldn’t endorse the process if clause 10.2.2 was not an exact duplicate of the old clause 2(f).  Sometime later, again without the knowledge of the COT claimants, five very important words were removed, however.  These words “… each of the Claimants claims…” had been included in the first place because the COTs were each making multiple claims against Telstra, for many different types of faults, and for several illegal events that we had each experienced, once we had begun to lodge our individual complaints against the telecommunications giant.  Removal of these important words meant that the arbitrator would no longer have to prepare a written finding on each of these individual claims – he could pick and choose which claims he wanted to ignore.  And so, he chose to ignore my 1800 billing fault claims; and he chose to ignore my claims on Telstra’s illegal bugging of my phone calls.  We wonder who had the power to persuade the TIO to agree to this change that he had so strenuously fought against initially.  And, when I finally signed the arbitration agreement on 21^st April 1994, why wasn’t I alerted to this change?  As you will discover, the plot continued to thicken.

 

CHAPTER 17

 

On April 22nd, just one day after I initiated arbitration proceedings, something disturbing occurred that underscored the pervasive issues I was dealing with. The Regulator received three blank fax sheets from my office—sheets that, alarmingly, bore no identifying fax number at the top. It was almost as if they had been deliberately tampered with. Had I not quickly followed up with a phone call to the Regulator to discuss the materials they purportedly contained, they might have never traced the disconcerting situation back to my office.

To add to the intrigue, each blank page bore a small icon in the corner. I urged the Regulator to review their fax journal, and lo and behold, I was right—those three pages were indeed logged as coming from my fax number simultaneously with the arrival of those ‘blank’ pages. What’s more, tests revealed that a blank fax sheet takes roughly thirty seconds to send, yet the Regulator’s records showed that these pages took between one minute and forty seconds to two minutes and twenty-two seconds to transmit. They arrived devoid of any content, raising the alarming question: where did that information vanish during transmission? This wasn’t just a minor glitch; it was part of a greater web of confusion and obfuscation as I was thrust into the first day of arbitration.

Then, on April 26th, a glaring example of corruption unfolded. My son, trying desperately to reach me from his mother’s house, made fifteen attempts to call my 1800 line. Each time he encountered only engaged tones or dead air. Document K37932, Telstra’s own fault report, confirmed these futile attempts—but instead of rectifying the issue, Telstra blindfolded billed me for every single call! Was this part of a broader scheme where they labelled legitimate calls as post-dialling delays and short-duration faults?

When I cross-referenced my Telstra accounts with their own data, it became evident that I was unjustly charged for all those fifteen calls that failed to connect. Over the years, I had amassed an overwhelming amount of documentation proving that Telstra was aware of the myriad issues plaguing my phone line. In fact, back in August 1993, I expressed concerns about my outgoing line—also a fax line—when customers frequently reported odd behaviours, like hearing me moving around even after calls had ended. At the time, with so many overwhelming challenges, I let it slide, only to face the fallout on April 26, 1994—an astounding coincidence when my son was struggling to reach me.

On that same day, I called a senior engineer at the Regulator to address this egregious ‘hang-up’ fault. His response was astonishing: we conducted a series of tests that unmistakably indicated the fault resided within the Telstra network, not my equipment. After verifying with two identical Telstra phones, it became painfully clear that the malfunction was institutional rather than personal. Yet, instead of transparency, predictably, I was advised to contact Telstra again—for what reason? To witness them feign ignorance and lay blame on my equipment once more, ignoring the chilling evidence I had painstakingly gathered.

The layers of corruption and obfuscation were overwhelming, revealing not just incompetence but a deliberate effort to obscure the truth at every turn.

So, again, I performed the same tests for this Telstra person, who then advised that he would send a technician to collect the phone the very next day.  Documents K00940 and K00941, which I acquired later, show that he was fully aware, before the phone was even tested, that it was not a problem with the phone that was causing the fault, but heat in the Cape Bridgewater exchange.  In these email documents, Telstra personnel discuss the likelihood that it was heat that was causing the problem and relate a similar situation at an exchange in another State which was proved to have been caused by heat inside the exchange.

On April 27th, just as dawn was breaking, I received a call from Telstra around nine in the morning to arrange the pick-up of the malfunctioning phone. At that moment, I had just returned to my office, utterly exhausted after spending the previous twelve hours battling a large bushfire with our local CFA (Country Fire Authority). As recorded in our local CFA logs, I had been out on the fire truck since seven the previous evening. During the call, I explained my situation to the Telstra representative, expressing my fatigue and politely requesting that the pick-up be scheduled for some time after one o’clock that afternoon, allowing me a few hours of precious sleep. However, later, while reviewing a Freedom of Information (FOI) document, I discovered that a significant portion of our conversation was conspicuously absent from Telstra’s records. They had summarily noted that “Mr. Smith was tired and wanted to go to bed” and inaccurately stated that I requested not to be disturbed until after lunch. This omission of the context behind my fatigue is yet another troubling example of how some individuals at Telstra manipulate language to paint a skewed picture that suits their agenda.

As I reflected on my situation, I felt an urgency to compile my own claim for arbitration, drawing heavily from the regulator's ‘COT report’ released in April 1994. This report had undergone revisions instigated by the regulator's chairman, who faced pressure from Telstra, which threatened an injunction that could effectively bury the report in legal red tape for years. In a tactical move, the chairman consented to the amendments requested by Telstra, enabling the COT four to gain access to at least some essential information within the report.

While the regulator found several of my claims substantiated, I later realized that their conclusions were based solely on the information supplied by Telstra. It was only after digging deeper that I uncovered the truth: Telstra had not provided the regulator with accurate facts regarding the age of the initial exchange at Cape Bridgewater. To aid in my case, I had employed a telecommunications expert from Queensland as my technical advisor, whose assessments were based on the regulator’s report, unfortunately leading him to work with false premises. According to the regulator's findings, the first exchange at Cape Bridgewater was categorized as an ARK exchange. However, it soon became clear that it was, in fact, a much older RAX exchange. The RAX, designed in the late 1940s or early 1950s, was specifically created for low-call-rate areas, while the ARK technology emerged roughly two decades later, representing a significant advancement in telecommunications.

The initial section of my claim encompassed the first three and a half years after I assumed control of the camp at Cape Bridgewater, with the entire claim spanning over six and a half years. In my research, I discovered that this obsolete exchange had been operational for an extended period, yet both my technical advisor and I, alongside the regulator who had relied on their incomplete report, had believed that a more modern exchange had been in place during those years. As a result, my technical advisor assessed my situation without knowing the full extent of the facts, working from a profoundly misleading foundation. This lapse in accurate information greatly understates the true scope of the operational faults I experienced and the subsequent losses my business incurred. Was this misleading information, provided to the regulator by Telstra, merely another deceptive strategy aimed at obscuring the reality of my persistent phone troubles?

This was beginning to look like a repeat of the Tobacco companies and their deceptive conduct over a twenty-year period, hiding their true knowledge about the addictive effects of nicotine and then hiding their knowledge about 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, having been to Melbourne for a COT meeting, I arrived back 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.   A fight ensued and I threw him out of my office.  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).  Telstra’s FOI Unit was also interested in this situation since a copy of a newspaper article about the incident later came from Telstra’s records, included in documents supplied in response to one of my FOI requests.  What this had 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 entirely, 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 every document I sent would be poured over by highly qualified legal experts didn’t exactly help to keep my confidence up.  Finally, I sought out the TIO and his legal counsel, explaining my lack of confidence and re-iterating 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 us to present our cases.

The TIO could only console me by telling me to ‘do the best you can’.  The TIO’s legal counsel re-assured 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. This firm was headed by an agent for NZ 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 that he had acted as loss assessor back then and remembered that he had had a lot of trouble contacting me by phone and had finally resorted to writing to me 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 different companies specialising in communications.  Three didn’t even respond in writing and the fourth simply wished me luck in finding someone who would be 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, offering 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-National Crime Authority detective. 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 consequential losses that spiralled my finances 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 Communication 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 soon, 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 organization. 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 dreck like this? It was a sinister game, and the stakes felt impossibly high.

 

 

CHAPTER 18

 

Finally, I orchestrated a plan to summon a detective to the camp, driven by the pressing need to unravel the sinister web surrounding the phones. His brief stay unveiled the unsettling truth: short-duration calls, deadlines, and inexplicable failures in sending faxes to Queensland painted a picture of something deeply nefarious. With his seasoned instincts, he suspected that I was under constant surveillance, a belief later backed by documents obtained through FOI, including K01006, which revealed that Telstra was meticulously tracking my every move along with those of my staff.

The Telstra email dated Thursday, 7th April 1994, at 2:05 PM raised alarm bells—two chilling issues stood out. Firstly, this timestamp coincides with my engagement in a Regulator-designed commercial agreement with Telstra; one would assume that covert operations of this nature would be utterly reprehensible, yet here we are. Secondly, the document sinisterly hinted at my planned absence from my business, with the author noting, “Mr. Alan Smith is absent from his premises from 5/8/94 - 8/8/94.” This level of foreknowledge suggested a level of deceit and manipulation that is hard to fathom. The writer even mentioned previous absences linked to documented complaints about ‘Not Receiving Rings.’ Their chronic lack of transparency was evident when they meticulously noted the answer time of a call on 6th April 1994, which further indicated their insidious monitoring tactics.

It’s clear that this individual was aware of my movement’s months in advance. How could they possess such information if their hands were clean? Telstra has stubbornly evaded providing a substantial explanation for this intrusion. What’s more, this insidious figure had the audacity to claim knowledge of a private conversation I had with a former Australian Prime Minister, asserting that I voluntarily disclosed this information to him. This was a blatant falsehood; I never mentioned anything of the sort. Yet, Telstra’s silence on this matter is deafening—once again pointing to a dark reality of ongoing eavesdropping on my private conversations, even while I was entrenched in litigation with them and their legal team.

A chilling FOI document, unnumbered, revealed even more disturbing insight: the writer knew the usual calling location of one of my regular contacts, despite that day’s call coming from “somewhere near Adelaide.” How could they possess such intimate knowledge unless they had been listening in? The implications of this invade every corner of trust and integrity.

I raised these revelations with the then-Minister for Communications, the TIO, and the Federal Police, presenting overwhelming evidence of my blatant invasion of privacy. Their silence was a damning complicity, leaving me with a sense of abandonment that has lingered for years. 

Listening in on private calls is detestable enough, but the deeper betrayal lies in the official records. Page A133 from the Senate Hansard dated 25th February 1994 captured the then-Shadow Minister for Communications grilling the Regulator’s Chairman, demanding to know: “Why did not (the Regulator) 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?” 

An FOI document, K00701, dated 14th January 1994, and chillingly titled “Voice Monitoring of Priority, Investigation Services,” explicitly details voice monitoring conducted on three Priority Case Investigation services in Country Vic/Tas. The web of corruption, betrayal, and treachery runs deep, and the silence around these matters speaks volumes about the dark forces at play.

 

CHAPTER 19

 

Telstra have acknowledged that, during May of 1994, I continued to report what is commonly referred to in communication circles as R00 faults, i.e. the phone only rings once or twice, then stops.  Telstra officials tried to play down these faults as me not understanding the operation of my new fax machine (in other words, they continued to blame the customer’s equipment, referred to as CPE or customer premises equipment), even after Coopers & Lybrand’s report of November 1993 had advised that it was not acceptable to simply blame the customer without any proper investigation.

The Regulator also found that the R00 faults were continuing.  In their COT report, under the heading “Telstra’s fault reporting/recording & monitoring/testing system & procedures”, they said: “Network investigations had been working on the problem for an extended period of time with little success.  This involvement has been escalated in the past three months — this fault was in connection to cut-offs which had also happened in the past.”

In the same report is the comment: “It may be concluded from the above extracts from internal Telstra documents that Telstra knew for quite some time of general problems in its network which were affecting customers and was unable to identify the cause of those problems” and again: “AXE network fault — this is Portland’s main telephone exchange (AXE).

            In the period February to April 1993 Telstra staff responding to complaints lodged by Mr Smith of the Cape Bridgewater Holiday Camp recorded in their notes that there was a fault known to exist in AXE (digital) Switching equipment which could give rise to a single burst of ring, followed by a busy tone to a caller and dial tone to the called party — for example:

            “I spoke to Alan Smith .... he received one burst of ring at 1.15 pm and 5.05 pm yesterday.  When he picked up the receiver he heard dial tone.  This problem occurs intermittently through-out the network and although it is recognised as a problem there appears to be no one person or group involved in resolving it.”

And again, in Chapter 7, in a document titled “Customer Complaint Form 25^th March 1993”: “Visited Mr Smith 6/04 to do end to end test calls.  The first call in prior to me started testing gave two bursts of ring and when the phone was lifted there was only dial tone.  The receptionist said it was the 2nd call that morning with the same result.  She also stated several people had commented they receive busy tone when they rang the previous evening when she knew the phone was free.”

The statements unearthed from Telstra’s own archives are truly chilling, revealing a web of deceit woven through the very core of the organization. It is staggering to think that officials, fully aware of the truth, would go so far as to sign Statutory Declarations that contradicted the evidence they possessed. This blatant culture of corruption within Telstra's management was the reason members of the COT found themselves ensnared in a twisted arbitration process. It was a fight sprung from our audacity to challenge the misleading and duplicitous conduct of Telstra’s executives—an uphill struggle for truth and our fundamental rights as Australian citizens, demanding a telephone system that matched the standards of our competitors.

In May 1994, I was not alone in this grim ordeal. The Queensland detective who joined me for five sleepless nights was also grappling with phone issues, eerily like my own torment. His presence offered some solace amidst the chaos, his background providing a sense of security. Yet, when he departed, he took with him crucial FOI documents, leaving me even more vulnerable. 

During this time, I discovered the horrifying truth that essential camp documents had gone missing. Key exercise books, bank statements, and pay-in records from 1992/93 had vanished. Two cherished diaries, a relic of my ex-wife's handwriting from happier times, were never to be found again. Their disappearance was not only distressing but indicative of a far grimmer reality at play. I was forced to rely on my rough notes and wall planners to reconstruct my financial situation, an incredulous task made even more arduous by the absence of comprehensive records. What happened to those documents? The answer remains shrouded in mystery, a treacherous twist in my already perilous journey.

Graham Schorer faced an equally sinister fate—his office was broken into, a concrete pillar smashed to gain access, and guess what? Only documents were taken. It became abundantly clear that this was not mere coincidence; there was an orchestrated effort to erase our histories and claims.

The psychological toll was immense. The complexity of my situation, devoid of technical expertise, left me in a deep state of stress. My phone and fax lines became desperate lifelines to the detective in Queensland, while my once-stable private life deteriorated into chaos. I found solace in a bottle of Scotch, consuming three to four drinks nightly in a futile attempt to numb my anxiety. My relationships crumbled under the strain, and as I turned to another for comfort, she too became a victim of Telstra’s insidious grasp, facing complaints from her customers about incessantly engaged lines. How could this be mere chance?

I couldn't shake the paranoia that gripped me, the sight of a particular car lingering near my home sparked suspicion. Were they admiring the scenery, or was it something far more sinister? My mind wrestled with the truth, but the unease remained palpable. The involvement of local Telstra technicians only deepened the conspiracy; one FOI document revealed an internal memo where an employee nonchalantly offered to supply a list of my phone numbers. Why was such confidential information being circulated with such reckless abandon? It was as if the very institution sworn to protect our rights had turned against us, determined to snuff out our pursuit of justice through any means necessary.

Other FOI documents reveal a disturbing practice among Telstra officials who were seemingly keeping tabs on my communications, maintaining meticulous records that included not just my contacts but also the names of organizations, clients, and even my ex-wife. This insidious surveillance only deepened my anxiety and sense of violation. By May and June of 1994, as I wrestled with my arbitration claim, I was sinking into a debilitating depression, consumed by the relentless tide of this ‘spying.’

Despite my efforts to share this alarming information with the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO)—an entity that should have been a neutral arbiter in this matter—not once did I receive a response. The problems with my phone and fax were ongoing, yet I found myself in an impossible situation. Telstra was granted thirty days to respond to any FOI request, but how could I provide evidence for faults that arose only the day before? The entire process felt like it was spiralling into chaos, and when I sought assistance from both the TIO and the arbitrator, I was met with little more than empty platitudes. The TIO merely urged me to submit my claim “to the best of my ability,” as if that would magically resolve the situation.

On May 27, 1994, a Queensland detective attempted to reach me through my 1800 free call service, a fact that Telstra’s records can verify. He finally succeeded at 7.59 PM, but not before he faced a frustrating wall of automated messages twice before, both times being told my number was not connected. When he escalated the matter to Telstra’s fault centre, the operator informed him that the complaint could only be lodged by the customer. The detective’s frustration was palpable. “How,” he demanded, “can the customer complain if he doesn’t even know I’m trying to reach him?” This systemic failure seemed designed to keep me isolated and uninformed, a pawn in a malicious game.

To my shock, when my phone bill arrived, it revealed charges for both detective’s calls: seventy-six cents for the first and thirty cents for the second, fees I should never have incurred under such circumstances. After nearly six and a half years of relentless struggle, I found myself ensnared in a grotesque game of ‘catch up.’ Each new fault compelled me to file another FOI request, each process dragging on for thirty excruciating days. Just as I would relay the most recent issues to the arbitrator, new ones would manifest, restoring the cycle of frustration. Many nights, I wept helplessly, feeling invisible to a system that was either indifferent or complicit in my suffering. It became increasingly apparent that Telstra was playing a sinister cat-and-mouse game with me.

Throughout 1994, I was subjected to extensive interviews by the Australian Federal Police regarding my ongoing battle with Telstra and the arbitration process. In total, I answered over ninety-six grim questions, and it was clear that the officers were deeply troubled by the documentation I had provided. One document alarmed them, prompting repeated inquiries: how could a caller, typically identified by a specific number, be traced when he called from a different number, possibly from a location in Adelaide? 

If only the Federal Police, Telstra, or the Government had been forthcoming with answers during this rising tide of questions, I wouldn’t still be searching for the truth. The shadows cast by corruption and secrecy loomed large, leaving me to navigate a labyrinth of deceit and betrayal.

 

CHAPTER 20

 

During one of my more harrowing episodes of depression, I found myself sifting through the Regulator’s COT report and stumbled upon a sinister truth that had eluded me before. It was a revelation about the Bell Canada International (BCI) testing and Telstra NEAT testing conducted in the shadows of November 1993. The details surrounding Bell Canada’s testing procedures were deeply troubling. Page 157 of the Regulator’s report divulges that Telstra conducted its NEAT testing from eight a.m. to ten p.m. between 28th October and 8th November 1993 at the exchange test number in Cape Bridgewater. Meanwhile, the BCI test report, dated 10th November, was dated just a day after their own shadowy tests, mirroring Telstra’s timeline save for an ominous gap on 9th November, during which the BCI claimed to have conducted tests of their own.

Each NEAT test, taxing as it is, consumes up to one hundred seconds, a timeframe during which no other tests can occur. The implication is chilling: BCI’s testing could not have overlapped with Telstra’s, as disclosed in the BCI Addendum Report on Cape Bridgewater. But let's entertain a chilling notion: what if these tests did run simultaneously? The BCI tests demanded a brief 15-second interval between calls to avoid false signals, while NEAT tests lingered for a plodding one hundred seconds. A meticulous examination of the reports from Telstra and BCI reveals a glaring impossibility: there simply wasn’t enough time between eight a.m. and ten p.m. to accommodate the calls listed.

 

The BCI report reveals calls made to the very same numbers as Telstra’s tests, indicating a duplicitous total of sixteen hundred and seventy-five calls from Richmond and three hundred and twenty-eight from South Yarra—all supposedly made without conflict. This is not merely improbable; it’s a calculated impossibility.

 

Incredibly, Telstra later exploited fragments of the BCI report to support the facade that their network was functioning up to par. This fraudulent report even made its way to the media and Parliament, a troubling act of deception, as the test calls were clearly fabricated to portray a false image of operational success.

 

Come June 1994, I dared to challenge Telstra to disprove my allegations concerning the BCI report’s inaccuracies. I had unearthed a Telstra e-mail (FOI document number A05254), dispatched to various officials, revealing a disturbing conspiracy related to the BCI report scandal. The writer, a cog in the Telstra machine, hinted at the merits of suppressing the BCI information as part of a “cleansing” initiative following the debacle of Coopers.

 

My investigation deepened when I stumbled upon an undated minute from Telstra titled “Grade of Service Complaint: Mr. Alan Smith…” It ominously acknowledged ongoing congestion between Cape Bridgewater and Portland, admitting only five junctions were available while hinting at an ‘upgrade’—an unsettling indication of the deficiencies in their infrastructure.

 

Armed with these incriminating documents, I revisited the Regulator’s COT report and found a poisonously contradictory statement on page 165, which noted that Telstra's latest evaluation of the Cape Bridgewater RCM fault did not align with the contemporaneous reports or the GAPS records from September 1992—indicating a shocking cover-up of higher complaint rates about service failures.

 

Confusion enveloped me as I delved deeper into this malevolent web of deception. Was that FOI document A05254 a glimpse into a calculated effort to ‘cleanse’ an international test report? The ongoing troubles with my fax line echoed the chaos in the dark corners of Telstra’s operations, compounding my already grim situation. Meanwhile, I crafted letters in desperation, sending information to my advisors and the arbitrator, hoping that my voice would pierce the veil of silence.

 

Two government documents strikingly crystallize the chaos that Telstra perpetuated. One, dated 26th February 1994, revealed, “Attached are copies of correspondence received by the Hon. … MP, from Alan Smith, outlining FURTHER (my emphasis) difficulties he is having with his telephone and facsimile service." The other, from the Regulator to Telstra’s Group Manager on 10th June 1994, cautioned, “Mr. Smith at Cape Bridgewater continues to express concern about his ability to receive and send facsimiles.” This speaks volumes about the sinister struggle of one man against a corrupt system determined to maintain its deceptive facade at any cost.

 

The Regulator's unease grew like a shadow over my reality as I tirelessly reached out to their representatives, burdened with relentless proof of the fraudulent charges on my 1800 account. Each time I scrutinized my records against Telstra's printed data, it became painfully clear: I was being wrongfully billed for calls that never connected. Compounding this sense of injustice, I was sending the Regulator evidence of countless faxes that emerged from the abyss of their system as nothing but blank sheets—yet, astonishingly, Telstra charged me as if these void pages had transmitted meaningful information.

A particularly dark instance of this chaos unfolded the day after I capitulated to their demands, abandoning the original commercial agreement to sign for arbitration. By then, I had unearthed the insidious "blank fax page" mystery, noting that each empty sheet bore an odd symbol—sometimes perched on the left, other times on the right, mocking my attempts to communicate. I decided to time the sending of a blank page: it took a mere ten to fifteen seconds to transmit correctly. Intriguingly, these "lost" faxes were being sent to my legal advisors or accountant, further complicating my professional and personal turmoil. What could these strange symbols signify? 

On April 22nd, 1994, I transmitted three faxes to the Regulator—mere attempts to unveil the truth, detailing my billing records against customer statements. I had conducted my own tests and knew that a complete document would take far longer to send—yet I found myself drowning in the depths of Telstra's manipulation. By 2003, the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s office had unceremoniously passed all my evidence to the TIO, evidence that not only reaffirmed my suspicions about the blank faxes but also pointed to a more sinister reality: my faxes bore identification numbers of long-discontinued lines. How could this happen? When I sent the same document to a correct number right after, it was received flawlessly, leaving me to wonder what depths of deceit were at play.

The Regulator's conduct turned sinister, especially when it wrote to a government minister during my arbitration, incorrectly claiming that all six telephone services met the standards—despite prior communications revealing the opposite. Why would they mislead the Minister about the existence of 120,000 COT-type customers, reducing them to a mere fifty in their report? Perhaps the Telstra liaison officer had pulled the strings to distort the findings to protect the corporate behemoth’s interests. This same officer was implicated by a whistleblower as having tampered with FOI documents, obscuring critical details about Telstra’s responsibilities, a clear indication of corruption lurking beneath the surface of the establishment.

Repeatedly, I sought answers through countless written appeals and legal pathways, but the questions surrounding the blank pages were met with a deafening silence. Not one explanation emerged for the enigmatic symbol, nor for why similar documents sent to my accountant coincidentally presented the same inflated transmission times yet arrived devoid of content. My concerns about lost faxes echoed in the void, unheard and unacknowledged by my arbitrator. On May 23rd, 1994, Telstra had the audacity to claim that my fax failed to go through due to a busy line, 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 for the whole country, and still they denied that the faults 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 and yet, as the records show, Telstra were allowed an extra seventy-two days on top of the original extra six months’ time already given to them by the arbitrator.  Did Telstra deliberately delay supply of discovery documents to gain more time to prepare their defence?  Or did they delay 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 simply send me broke before the arbitration was ever settled.

 

CHAPTER 21

 

In an unsettling twist of fate, the American movie “Class Action” was released just as I was navigating the treacherous waters of my claim against a powerful pharmaceutical company. The film portrayed a chilling scenario where a corporation, fully aware of the dangerous side effects linked to its drug, brazenly chose profit over public safety. The company had commissioned a report that unearthed a significant flaw in its drug production, yet instead of addressing the issue with integrity, the parent company decided to ‘lose’ the report—an act that reeks of corruption and deceit.

What struck me most profoundly was the way the company tortured the legal process, overwhelming a lawyer with a deluge of irrelevant documents at the last minute. This unethical tactic, dubbed ‘dumping,’ exemplified a deliberate attempt to obscure crucial information, much like the manoeuvring I experienced with Telstra in my own fight for justice.

In my case, another member of the COT unearthed a vital report among her FOI documents—one that Telstra had purposefully withheld from me during my preparation, clearly intending to sabotage my claim. Titled “Can We Fix The CAN,” the report analysed glaring issues within the Customer Access Network (CAN)—the final juncture where calls can fail, often without a trace of the fault registering at the exchange. Alarmingly, when Bell Canada International conducted their initial tests, they completely ignored the CAN, leaving me in the dark about critical failures impacting numerous rural customers.

Telstra’s actions were nothing short of nefarious; within days of filing their defence, they dumped an astonishing twenty-two thousand documents onto my lap, a smokescreen designed to drown me in complexity and confusion. This strategic bombardment came with just over two weeks for me to sift through an ocean of papers to uncover the ‘missing link’ that would validate my claims—an anchor of truth that Telstra desperately tried to bury. As Christmas Eve approached—the busiest time for my business—I was left grappling with this cesspool of corruption, unsure of where to even begin in the search for justice. This was not just a procedural misstep; it was a calculated, underhanded tactic to derail my pursuit of accountability and evidence, mirroring the very themes of betrayal and ethical collapse dramatized in “Class Action.”

The “Can we fix the CAN?” report is so important that I am including here it in its entirety.

“A selected group of staff in New South Wales South and West Region (Consumer and Country Division) have recently conducted an intensive examination and testing process of cables feeding out of eight rural exchanges.  The initial aim was to gather information about the real level of transmission related faults; however, the findings create great concern over the degree of DC faults.

            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 which is even remotely close to 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 enough 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 101043) - Clearly Telstra was fully aware of the many problems encountered by their rural customers!

Over Christmas, twelve months after I had originally asked for documents from Telstra, I ploughed through what I could of this latest batch of papers, uncovering (too late) several documents which would have been most useful to my technical advisor, and to me, when we were preparing my interim claim.  Again, I asked myself, did Telstra deliberately withhold this information?  The arbitrator had a charter, as the ‘judge’ in this matter, to facilitate provision of requested documents, but even though I continually asked him to do this for me, none of my requests were fulfilled.  I believe he never passed on any of my requests but, at the same time, he directed me to provide some forty extra documents and numerous pages of attachments and further particulars which Telstra had requested through him.  These requests to me were made under the same discovery process I had used to request documents from Telstra.  I complied on every single occasion, incurring costs that ran into thousands of dollars but, in return, I received nothing from the arbitrator or Telstra.  At the same time, I began to feel increasingly concerned that something was very wrong with this whole process.  Were Telstra and their highly paid lawyers deliberately setting out to destroy me financially before I had even finished my submission?

An oral hearing had been convened for 11^th October 1994, under the rules of the arbitration.  These rules allowed me to have legal representation if Telstra had legal representation, but where would I find the money to pay a lawyer, particularly a lawyer who wouldn’t buckle under the power of a corporation as huge as Telstra?  By this stage I had discovered that at least forty-three of Australia’s largest legal firms were, at that time, on the payroll of Telstra in one way or another.  This meant that all forty-three of those companies were not available to me or to any of the COT members because they would be caught in a conflict-of-interest situation if they took up our cases.  In the August before this oral hearing, already five months into the arbitration process, I had also been informed by the TIO, who was acting as administrator to the arbitration, that the arbitrator himself was a senior partner in a legal firm which was also working for Telstra at the same time.  Although I raised the issue of conflict of interest, the TIO disagreed, saying that I should just confirm, in writing, that I had been informed of this situation.  What could I do?  By this time, I had run up bills with advisors and secretarial assistants to the tune of $150,000.  How could I then demand a new arbitrator be appointed, only to have to start the whole process over again?  Obviously, the administrator’s approach was months too late since I had already submitted my interim claim two months before he made his announcement about the arbitrator. 

At that stage, I felt I had no choice but to continue with the arbitration procedure and no choice but to participate in the oral hearing.  Now, the arbitration rules stated that there were to be no lawyers at oral hearings unless both parties had legal representation.  The arbitrator advised me that Telstra would not have a lawyer with them, so I went to the meeting believing that this would be a meeting of equals.  I could not know in advance how wrong I was — obviously the rules can be flaunted if you have enough power.

The drive from Cape Bridgewater to Melbourne took five hours and, since the meeting was set to start at ten in the morning, I set out at four a.m. to allow for unforeseen delays along the way, so, by the time the meeting started, I was already exhausted.  What I was not ready for was the sight of two of Telstra’s top executives on Telstra’s side of the table, both men with legal training.  And not only did Telstra have these two legal minds on their side, but they also had two representatives from Ferrier Hodgson Corporate Advisory, the independent financial advisors to the arbitration.  Again, I was in the position of a David up against the Goliath of Telstra, with no-one at all to support me.

During this hearing I produced four exercise books of records and asked to have them accepted into the procedure.  These exercise books contained the names and contact information of clients who had not been able to reach my business by phone.  This was important information, proving as it did that, I had not been able to set up the over-forties singles club I had advertised, because of the phone problems.  I had not submitted these books before, as part of my claim, because, as I explained to the arbitrator, the information had been given to me in confidence.  I hoped that, by submitting them directly into the care of the arbitrator, the sensitive information contained in them would be secure.

On the day, however, Telstra insisted that the information was not relevant and should therefore not be accepted into evidence.  The arbitrator went with Telstra’s suggestion and I was not allowed to submit the four books, even though the information they contained proved conclusively that not only had I lost business calls as a direct result of a faulty phone service, but I had also missed out on the opportunity to set up a singles club which would have been another business to augment my income and keep the camp going.  It was at this point that I finally admitted to myself that the arbitrator was not acting impartially.

By the time Telstra lodged their defence of my claim on December 12, 1994, I had been engaged in a relentless battle for justice for six and a half years. It was a fight stacked against me—not due to any faults of my own, but simply because I dared to establish my business in a rural hamlet that Telstra’s senior executives deemed unworthy of investment or improvement. During those years, I lost my wife of twenty years, who had trusted me to succeed at Cape Bridgewater, and my next partner ended up hospitalized after placing her faith in my judgment. 

The oral hearing starkly revealed that I was completely alone; even the arbitrator, who was supposed to be impartial, displayed clear bias that did not bode well for my case. I tried to warn the other COT members about what I had discovered at the hearing, but it was evident that they couldn’t grasp the full extent of the conspiracy surrounding us. My instincts were spot on: we had all been duped by the TIO’s office, which had also manipulated the Senate, assuring them that the entire process would be free of legalistic entanglements. 

From October 11, 1994, the day of the oral hearing, to December 12, 1994, when Telstra filed their defence, I ransacked the claim material I had, clinging to the hope of uncovering the elusive documents that could turn the tide. All the while, I became increasingly aware of the devastation this ordeal was wreaking on my life and business. I suffered from debilitating dizzy spells, stress-related pains, and a perpetual feeling of pressure in my chest.

Telstra's initial claim that nothing was wrong with my phone lines had morphed into an unimaginable gaslighting experience. Despite my growing conviction that I was right, I began to question my sanity as my health deteriorated along with the well-being of my small circle of supporters. 

Just when I was at my lowest, a letter arrived from a local farmer and businessman, clearly stating that the phone system was a complete disaster. He referenced issues that stretched back six years, coinciding with my very first days in the area. His validation was a lifeline, confirming that I was not alone in my struggle against Telstra's blatant negligence. 

A neighbour, who had moved in next door, further fuelled my resolve to continue the fight. He described his own harrowing experiences with the phone system and how his repeated reports of faults went ignored by Telstra. He even shared a harrowing incident where shearers had to be sent away because he couldn’t communicate if the sheep were dry; the sheer absurdity of running a business under such unreliable conditions was maddening.

Time and again, I confronted Telstra over their questionable billing practices. My bills fluctuated wildly, resembling a game of financial roulette, while my only recourse—refusing to pay for an account riddled with discrepancies—resulted in them cutting off my service. Their tactics extended beyond financial exploitation; they were a calculated assault on my livelihood and dignity, perpetuated by an unethical corporation that thrived on the suffering of those it was meant to serve.

This is not just a 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 and unaccountable, as they continually trample over the lives of honest people like me.

 

CHAPTER 22

These letters from various residents, along with many similar submissions, were all presented for arbitration concerning my complaints with Telstra. However, the report generated by the so-called ‘independent’ technical unit conspicuously stated, “...a comprehensive log of Mr. Smith’s complaints does not appear to exist.” This was particularly frustrating given that I had compiled a detailed list of one hundred and eighty-three distinct faults that occurred between late 1989 and early 1994. Each entry on this list included the names and addresses of the individuals who had reported these issues to me, providing a clear illustration of the widespread nature of the problems. Additionally, I provided copies of another forty-two faults, which had been logged by Telstra’s own three fault centres during an eight-month period covering January to August 1993. To further substantiate my claims, I included over seventy letters from residents and customers recounting their difficulties in reaching me by phone. Intriguingly, some of these letters came from Telstra’s own employees who felt compelled to speak up about the troubling issues I was facing with the telecommunications provider. Despite the weight of this evidence, the arbitration’s technical resource unit later indicated that these crucial documents had not been shared with them by the arbitrator for assessment. This omission only deepened my frustration and highlighted the incompetence or potential bias within the arbitration process.

The letters from Telstra employees compelled me to reach out to union officials, where I clarified that my grievance was not directed at individual, day-to-day technicians, but rather at the higher echelons of corporate management. It became increasingly evident that senior personnel within the organization were responsible for perpetuating the issues by neglecting to address the ongoing complaints from the Cape Bridgewater area. Their apparent belief was that by ignoring these complaints, they could reduce costs. Alarmingly, the complaints were not limited to the rural Cape Bridgewater area; numerous reports were also coming from metropolitan exchange areas, indicating a systemic issue affecting a much larger customer base. It was glaringly obvious that until Telstra’s management undertook meaningful efforts to reform the damaging corporate culture within their organization, the mounting list of complaints would only continue to expand.

During his tenure as Minister for Communications, a Labor Party Senator voiced serious concerns about the activities of Telstra’s Protective Services Unit, which was reportedly surveillant their own technicians and other employees, meticulously documenting their movements while they were on sick leave. It was thus unsurprising that members of the COT (Customer Ombudsman Taskforce) expressed beliefs that they, too, were being spied on in this manner. The Protective Services Unit has still not provided any satisfactory explanation for the seemingly preposterous information they had managed to acquire: the unit has never clarified how they were aware of my schedule in advance or how they knew the precise moments when my staff departed from my office.

A particularly troubling example of Telstra’s intrusive capabilities relates to a bus company for which I was preparing a tender. I had reached out to Telstra in hopes of securing a guarantee that their phone network would function reliably, allowing me to assure the bus company that they could reach me easily for bookings. Notably, within my correspondence, I did not mention the name of the bus company, yet in 1994, in response to one of my Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, I uncovered a copy of my own letter with the tendering company’s name scrawled across the top. This revelation raised serious questions: Were Telstra intercepting my mail? Were they listening in on my phone conversations? Or, alarmingly, were they utilizing both tactics? Regardless of the method employed to obtain this sensitive information, the reality is that this constituted spying—occurring as early as 1992, well before the arbitration process was initiated in April 1994. This example is merely one of many instances of surveillance that will become evident as my narrative unfolds. The pervasive issue of corporate spying on customers was a significant factor in my decision to publish this account. There is a pressing need to expose Telstra’s manipulative practices and to alert the Australian public to how the company has exploited the legal system to its advantage. The matters surrounding individual privacy rights and a corporation's ability to manipulate systemic processes are central to the principles of Australian democracy.

Documents that were later accessed through FOI and provided to the Australian Federal Police reveal a disturbing pattern: Telstra officers routinely documented private, and business calls I received. This detailed account not only included the names of those who called me—such as my wife, my son, regulatory bodies, and the TIO’s office—but also illustrated an alarming level of invasive oversight. Throughout this entire ordeal, I was left to wonder: Was any aspect of my life genuinely private? The implications of such surveillance extend beyond my personal experiences; they raise profound questions about trust, privacy, and the rights of Australian citizens in dealing with powerful corporations.

One instance of Telstra’s apparent ability to read ‘between the lines’ relates to a bus company I was planning to tender to.  I had written to Telstra asking for a guarantee that the phone network would work correctly, so I could assure the bus company that they would be able to reach me to place bookings.  I wrote this letter to Telstra without ever mentioning the name of the bus company I was tendering to but, in 1994, among documents sent in response to one of my FOI requests, I found a copy of my own letter with the company name scrawled across the top of it.  Were Telstra intercepting my mail?  Or were they listening to my phone conversations?  Or both?  Whatever devious method they used to acquire this information, the issue is that this was spying, way back in 1992, long before the arbitration process began in April 1994.  And this is only one example of the spying that took place, others will unfold as my story continues, but the issue of spying on customers was a major factor in my decision to publish this story.  Someone must expose Telstra’s power and alert the Australian public to the way Telstra manipulated the legal system.  These issues, concerning an individual’s right to privacy and a corporation’s manipulation of the system, go to the very core of Australian democracy. 

Documents later acquired under FOI, and then provided to the Australian Federal Police, show that Telstra officers also made a habit of documenting private and business calls I received.  This documentation included the names of the people who called me: my wife, my son, the Regulator and the TIO’s office.  Was nothing ever private during this saga?

 

CHAPTER 23

 

Earlier, I recounted the unsettling tale of how one of the Regulator’s engineers helped me test two different model T200 phones on the same line, desperately attempting to unravel the mystery behind the ‘lock-up’ issue that plagued me. This ‘lock-up’ fault was nothing short of disturbing; it allowed individuals on the other end of the line to hear the insipid happenings in my office even after I had hung up. After our testing, the engineer was adamant that we had conclusively proven the fault lay within the line itself, as the problem persisted with both phones. 

However, I later came across documents revealing that Telstra had long known about this fault, especially in moisture-prone areas like Cape Bridgewater, and they were acutely aware of the local exchange's ‘heat problems.’ So, when I received Telstra's defence of my claims, I was taken aback to find a twenty-nine-page report entitled “T200.” This report claimed that my phone's ‘lock-up’ issue was the result of beer found inside the casing. 

My phone had been removed on 27th April 1994, yet it languished for twelve days before reaching Telstra’s laboratories on 10th May. Photographs accompanying the report revealed that the phone arrived in a shocking, filthy state. Upon examination, technicians reported the inside was wet and sticky, confirming that the ‘wet and sticky’ substance was beer. The conclusion reached was nothing short of grotesque—my supposed drinking habits had caused all my phone troubles. The technicians were blissfully unaware that I had tested two distinct phones on that line, both exhibiting the same disconcerting fault.

Questions loomed ominously over this report. When my phone left my office, it was pristine—why did it arrive at the laboratories in such a repugnant condition? How on earth did ‘beer’ infiltrate the internal mechanisms of my phone? Who would harbor the malevolent intent to introduce beer into my phone, and why would anyone want to frame me in this way? If the beer’s presence were not a deliberate act, how did it mysteriously find its way inside? It was certainly not due to any clumsiness on my part; I rarely touch beer due to a medical condition that renders such gassy beverages agonizing. 

Upon reading this unsettling ‘beer-in-the-phone’ report, I immediately requested access to all the laboratory technician’s handwritten notes from the arbitrator, hoping to dissect their dubious conclusions. I had even appointed a forensic document researcher to scrutinize the evidence, providing his credentials and signing a confidentiality agreement. Yet, despite my urgent plea, all I received in return was a mere reiteration of the original report, leaving me to ponder the sinister implications and unanswered questions lingering in the shadows.

This pervasive lack of assistance from the arbitrator is utterly shocking, especially given that just weeks prior, he permitted Telstra’s forensic document researcher unfettered access to my personal diaries. It’s glaringly clear that there existed one rule for Telstra and an entirely different set of rules for the COT claimants. My gut feeling after the oral hearing in October 1994 was gradually morphing into an undeniable truth: the arbitrator was decidedly in Telstra’s corner. They were granted access to any information they wanted, while I was systematically denied the same privilege.

The simmering anger within me is indescribable. I longed to unveil the depths of Telstra’s deception regarding the ‘beer-in-the-phone’ scandal. I recognized that they had fabricated evidence, but proving it seemed like an insurmountable challenge. What other underhanded tactics would they resort to defend their crumbling phone network? No one seemed to care about the truth; whether I contacted Senators, the arbitrator himself, or even the arbitrator’s secretary, the indifference was glaring. It appeared as if Telstra’s management was willing to go to any lengths to keep the façade intact and prove that my business had absolutely nothing wrong with its phone lines.

As I detailed in Chapter 20, during the troubling times when I faced persistent faxing issues, I alerted the arbitrator about my struggles. The arbitrator’s secretary later acknowledged that several faxes from me simply did not reach their intended destination during my arbitration. Yet, Telstra continued to bill me for every fax that left my office, irrespective of whether they made it to the arbitrator or vanished into thin air. Telstra’s own records confirmed that some of those faxes had indeed gone awry. Where did they disappear to? My frustration escalated when I uncovered that these presumed fax faults were attributed to ‘beer,’ a notion I knew couldn’t possibly hold any water—after all, how could beer have even entered the phone before it was unearthed from my office?

Determined, I pored over Telstra’s technical analysis data correlating to the times when the fax problems peaked. The documents revealed that the ‘lock-up’ problem had plagued their network well before my claim—dating back to at least August 1993. I confronted the arbitrator, demanding to know how ‘beer’ could remain wet and sticky within my phone, not just for the absurd twelve days it took for the technician to open it after taking it from me, but even from August 1993 to May 1994.

Shockingly, Telstra provided a new phone to replace the allegedly ‘drunken’ one they had confiscated, yet the same ten to fifteen-second lock-up issue persisted right up until June 1994—five weeks after they exchanged the phone. One could almost wonder if the very phone lines were also ‘under the influence.’ What a dismal spectacle for a corporation that prides itself on its standing in the community. Their desperation must have pushed them to employ such deceitful tactics to defend their interests against one struggling cook and camp operator.

To add further salt to the wound, Telstra claimed in their defence that the phone returned to their laboratories was in a “very dirty condition.” This was a blatant lie. Before the technician took it for testing, we had both scratched our names into the pristine cradle where the receiver sits. Later, I discovered a photo in Telstra’s report, supposedly of my phone upon arrival at their lab, showing a grimy layer of dirt obscuring our clear signatures. It leads me to ponder the extreme lengths to which Telstra would go to discredit me.

Neither Telstra nor the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) ever addressed the enigma of how dirt and grease could cover our signatures instead of being indented into the muck, had the phone truly been as filthy as depicted. Surely, both the technician and I would have instinctively wiped it clean before engraving our names?

These remain but a few of the numerous unanswered questions I have posed to the Government over the years. How can they persist in shielding Telstra when they possess substantial evidence of such unlawful actions? The Government is undeniably aware that tampering with evidence in a legal proceeding is a criminal offense. First, we have dirt splattered over a clean phone, followed by beer allegedly poured into the device—how pathetic has this entire saga become?

Six months after my arbitration, I received Telstra's Freedom of Information documents. These documents reveal testing conducted on my phone on May 26, 1994, and not the 10th and 12th as claimed in their report. Handwritten notes from someone within Telstra documented that beer residue dried overnight on May 26 during lab testing. This only deepened my conviction that the deceit ran far deeper than anyone could imagine. What an insidious web they’ve woven.

 

CHAPTER 24

 

There were many, many other misleading statements made under oath by Telstra’s defence unit and their technicians which are too numerous to bother with here, but most disturbing were the signed Statutory Declarations made by some of the local technicians.  Even though they knew at the time that Telstra’s network system into the local exchange was not up to standard, they signed these legal documents, blatantly ignoring the problems and insisting that everything had been all right during the period covered by my claim, except for some minor, every-day type faults.

Some of these signed statements would almost have been laughable, if the situation hadn’t been so serious.  One local technician even went so far as to say he knew of no other business in the Cape Bridgewater area who had experienced the type and number of phone problems that I had reported.  This statement included the comment that the technician had a friend, a stock farm agent, who lived at Cape Bridgewater, and he had never had phone problems when he lived in Cape Bridgewater.  When I checked Telstra’s own fault data, however, lo and behold, this very friend had, in fact, complained seven times in a matter of weeks during early 1994, including complaints about his fax line.

Further, between 1988 and 1993, I was the only tourist operator in Cape Bridgewater: the other residents were fisherman and farmers who did not generate any tourist activity in the area and so were not so reliant on the telephone as I was, particularly for calls outside the local area.

Another set of incorrect statements was lodged by three local technicians who oversaw my service complaints.  These men stated under oath that the original (old) exchange at Cape Bridgewater, back in 1988 when I moved to the area, had five incoming and five outgoing lines when, it was later proved, this old exchange only had four incoming and four outgoing lines.  One of these technicians went so far as to state that any congestion caused by this ‘five in and five out’ situation would not have affected my service much during business hours.  All my calls pass through the Portland exchange before travelling on to their destination and, as we now know from Telstra’s own archival documents, Telstra secretly knew that congestion was prevalent between the Cape Bridgewater and Portland exchanges.

The shadows lurking behind the statements of those three technicians revealed a grave oversight — a blatant disregard for their responsibilities. If they genuinely believed that the old exchange was equipped with five lines in and five out, how could they have missed the glaring truth? Only eight lines existed, not ten, and in the realm of telecommunications, a difference like that meant staggering consequences: ten lines could carry a terrifying 41% more traffic than eight. 

Amidst this web of deception, the Federal Police began to take heed of my numerous concerns regarding the Regulator. They returned to question me once again. My friend, Cathy, took on the daunting task of manning the phones during this extensive interview, which stretched on for five long hours. During that time, something insidious unfolded. Cathy began to experience a series of incoming phone faults marked by an unsettling pattern — the alarm bell rang out ominously, only to fall silent, leaving a chilling deadline in its wake. The Federal Police were mere witnesses to this disconcerting display, an alarming sight that underlined the gravity of the situation.

Cathy, recognizing the weight of our findings, decided to document her thoughts in a Statutory Declaration. She recounted an unsettling survey I had distributed some moons ago, through the Ballarat Courier Newspaper, hoping to shed light on the deluge of complaints pouring in from the Ballarat region about phone faults. This survey was intended to motivate people to share their harrowing experiences with the failing phone lines that plagued our community. Cathy, living in the area, had graciously agreed to collect the responses for me. 

Yet, as we delved deeper into the dark underbelly of this mystery, a chilling pattern emerged. On two separate occasions, Cathy reached out to the newspaper and was reassured that a trove of mail was waiting for her. But when she ventured into the office to collect it, the mail had vanished into thin air. A haunting question lingered in the air: who had taken our precious correspondence, and why were these survey results so important to someone else? What sinister intentions lay beneath the surface, masked by ambiguity and deceit? The stakes had escalated, and the answers sought were cloaked in treachery.

 

CHAPTER 25

 

When I originally signed for arbitration, the TIO had confirmed that all the rules and regulations included in the original commercial agreement would remain in place.  These rules had included a confidentiality agreement stating that none of the claimants could ever disclose the value of their award, if an award was made.  Remember, the COT four signed for arbitration under severe duress, believing that we had no other alternative and because we were all running out of money to finance our fight for justice.

Once I had read Telstra’s defence documents, I realised Telstra had not addressed the billing faults I had included in my written claim and raised at the oral hearing.  At the oral hearing, the arbitrator had said that, if I left the phone interception (bugging) in my claim it would be addressed and yet Telstra hadn’t defended the phone bugging issue either.  What was going on?

I had already provided the TIO and the arbitrator with evidence of the way Telstra had altered FOI documents and re-arranged information on faxes in an attempt to minimise their liability but, unbeknown to me at the time, a Telstra whistle-blower had written to the Government on 13^th October 1994, alerting them to the altering of COT FOI documents he had witnessed.  He accused Telstra management of taking an “… unprofessional adversarial approach towards customers …” and deceiving and lying to other customers.  He listed what he called “… three main areas where senior executive has sought to influence and manipulate…” These were removing or changing clear information on the position of Telstra’s liability; diminishing the level of compensation payable to COT customers; and being dismissive of breaches of customers’ privacy.

Under the rules of the arbitration, the COT claimants should have been given a copy of this letter.  Why was this rule ignored?  Once the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s office had written to Telstra’s CEO about documents that Telstra had provided with so much information blacked out that they were practically useless (with a copy of the letter sent to the arbitrator and the TIO) why wasn’t my arbitration halted immediately?

Because of the unlawful conduct of the arbitrator and Telstra, and the conspiracy between them, I have now broken my silence because I believe strongly in the legal rights of all Australians.  I also believe strongly that we should all respect the law but, after everything I have suffered over these past years, I no longer believe that our Australian legal system will necessarily ensure justice for all.  The COT arbitrations have been a farce and therefore the rules, drawn up ostensibly to ensure justice, are also a farce. 

Christmas 1994 slid past in a blur, and I found myself into the new year of 1995 with only two weeks left in which to submit my reply to Telstra’s defence, and thousands and thousands of discovery documents to sort through.  Once again, the stress was getting to me, and my health was deteriorating fast.  Not only was this affecting the preparation of my response, but it was also seriously damaging the running of my business.  The festive season is always the busiest for bookings of course, but I was then averaging debilitating giddiness attacks about twice a week.  Fortunately, Cathy had, by this time, moved into the camp house.  Without her assistance I would never have survived through this time.

The Queensland detective came back to Cape Bridgewater for a brief stopover and together we worked through New Year’s Eve while Cathy went with her sister and brother-in-law to see in the New Year in Portland.  Sometime after 1.30 on the morning of the first of January, while the detective and I were still labouring over my reply, the troops arrived back from their celebrations, armed with a bottle of Scotch and a bottle of Port.  After all the hard work and long hours, we had put in over the past two days, a couple of drinks saw the detective and me out like lights.  The following day he flew back home.

February saw the camp heavily booked, thank goodness.  The year seven co-ordinator for Hamilton High School (now Bainbridge College) brought his group along, as he had every year from 1990 until 2003.  Even with major problems contacting me on many occasions, he is still a regular customer.  His support, and that of many other regular customers, has played a big part in keeping me going through the worst times.

After being here in the February, and because he had experienced problems reaching me by phone from his very first contact, back in 1990, when he returned to school the co-ordinator wrote, describing his continuing concerns about not being able to contact the camp by phone.  In part of this letter he states: “I wish to acknowledge in writing the repeated difficulty I have had contacting Alan Smith at the Cape Bridgewater convention centre by telephone.  In the week March 1st to 5th, I made 5 or 6 attempted phone calls to Alan, but I was unable to get through, indeed the line was ‘dead’.  This was extremely frustrating and had I not been aware of Alan’s phone problems, I would have used another camp site.”

This group had stayed for a full five days, following closely on the heels of a group from the Birchip Community Centre, who have come regularly since 1988.  My records from this month show that members of the Birchip group continually complained that my coin-operated gold phone, installed for the campers use, was ‘always on the blink’.

The group left on a Friday and Lake Bolac Secondary College were due the following Monday and now I was even closer to running out of time to send in any further supporting claim material.  I felt like everything was conspiring against me.  In 2002 I received a document from the TIO which confirms that the arbitration project manager wrote to the TIO on 18^th April 1995, noting that: “It is unfortunate that there have been forces at work collectively beyond our reasonable control that have delayed us in undertaking our work.”  This letter was copied on to the arbitrator and the TIO’s Legal Counsel.  Again, we must ask, why wasn’t the arbitration stopped immediately?  Why did no-one ask who the ‘forces’ were who were stopping the project manager from properly doing his work?  Did this have something to do with the allegations made by the Telstra whistleblower regarding Telstra officials altering documents to minimise Telstra’s liability?

Of course, the main part of the problem, and the part that the TIO’s office never seemed to grasp, was that I wasn’t just ‘running’ my business; I was also working in my business, supported only by part-time staff.  How could I successfully prepare such a complicated claim and response during the busiest period of the year for my business (November to May)?

If I had only had a reliable phone service from the very beginning I would, by now, have been able to hire at least three full-time staff, supported by daily, part-time waitresses.  But since I was not in this position, I had very little time available to even think about my claim against Telstra.  I certainly had very little time available to prepare the claim and the consequential losses continued to mount all because Telstra would not admit that the phone service was totally outdated and not coping with the volume of calls.  I could not believe the position the COTs now found themselves in, through no fault of their own: a handful of small-business people pitting their wits against the legal minds of some of the largest corporations in the country.

Again, I was faced with the same tactics.  Every request I made of the arbitrator continued to bring a roar of silence — certainly no documentation appeared.  Worn out and frustrated, my irritation with the arbitrator grew more intense each day.

On 23^rd January 1995, in response to an earlier letter which I had sent on 13^th January 1995 to the arbitrator, asking for information about the Bell Canada report and how they arrived at their findings, I finally received a response in which the arbitrator noted that “Telstra does not consider it has any further information of relevance in its possession.”  The arbitrator goes on to ask me to respond to this comment within twenty-four hours to “be certain that there is no confusion between the parties as to the documentation which is being sought.”  As requested, I responded the following day.  My fax account shows that this two-page response left my office and took two minutes and nineteen seconds to travel to the arbitrator’s fax.  This length of time indicates that there were indeed two pages as most faxes take about a minute per page to transmit successfully.

According to the rules of the arbitration, all documents sent to the arbitrator must be copied on to the other party by the arbitrator (in this case, of course, that other party is Telstra).

Twelve months after the arbitrary conclusion of my so-called arbitration procedure, I was finally granted access to information through the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s Office and FOI that reveals the unsettling truth: Telstra never received my critical response from 24th January 1995, which I had diligently faxed to the arbitrator. Even more alarming, there were an additional forty-two claim documents sent via fax that, according to Telstra’s records, vanished without a trace, despite my fax account confirming they reached the arbitrator’s office. This blatant disregard for the truth raises serious questions about Telstra’s ethical standards.

Turning to the infamous Bell Canada report and the dubious tests purportedly conducted at Cape Bridgewater, another FOI document—N00040—underscores the desperation behind my persistent requests for the raw data that should prove the legitimacy of the tests claimed in their report. Dated 20th June 1994, this document exposes glaring inconsistencies in the tests between Richmond and the Cape Bridgewater exchange, directly contradicting the narrative presented in the original BCI report. Regrettably, I didn’t receive this crucial evidence until three years post-arbitration, courtesy of another whistleblower among the COT members.

Three weeks after the arbitration was deceptively concluded, and the window for my appeal had closed, I was bombarded with three more FOI documents (N00005, N00006, and N00037). Document N00005, dated 6th September 1994 and sent from Telstra to Bell Canada, explicitly states: “Specifically, the start and finish times for the test run from Richmond digital exchange (RCMX) to Portland exchange, Cape Bridgewater RCM (CBWR), are impracticable. The number of calls made during the test run could not have been completed within the time span shown.” This is a damning admission that undermines the integrity of their entire testing process. Document N00037, an internal Telstra email titled “Smith’s Query on BCI Tests,” further corroborates this unsettling revelation, acknowledging that “Mr. Smith is correct in the suggestion… that the test results… are impracticable.”

Much later, I stumbled upon further incriminating information: a report from Hansard revealed that during a Senate discussion on 26th September 1997, Telstra blatantly misled the Senate concerning the BCI report. This raised profound concerns for me, especially since my phone line issues persisted relentlessly even after my so-called settlement in December 1992. Fearing a repeat of this underhanded treatment, I escalated the matter to the Regulator. After I decisively challenged the fabricated results of the Bell Canada tests, Telstra begrudgingly dispatched their representatives to conduct what they branded as ‘verification testing’—but only to placate the arbitrator and the Regulator while continuing to twist the truth for their own benefit. The entire operation reeks of corruption, a deliberate manipulation of facts meant to evade accountability at all costs.

On the day that Telstra began their testing process both Cathy and I sent Statutory Declarations to the arbitrator because we believed the tests had not been conducted correctly.  In early October 1994, also wrote to Telstra’s arbitration defence counsel (twice) regarding these concerns.  The arbitrator did not reply but Telstra stated in their later defence that all the tests they conducted at my business that day not only met the Regulator’s specifications – they exceeded them.  This Telstra report (B004) was covered by a Statutory Declaration signed by one of the officers who had previously been advised by the Regulator that the tests carried out at my business were deficient.  This worker who conducted the tests had also been advised of the deficiencies by the Regulator but was apparently still happy to sign a Witness Statement, under oath and in front of a Solicitor, stating that the tests HAD met the required standards.

An even more serious result of this cover-up plot became obvious when the TIO-appointed technical resource unit advised the arbitrator, in their technical report of 20^th April 1995, that they stopped their investigation of my claim documents at the end of August 1994 – I believe because they believed the two signed and sworn statements provided by Telstra which claimed that my phone service was fault free.

In February 1995, two arbitration project advisors visited my business, along with a representative from Telstra, to assess my financial losses resulting from the phone difficulties I had been suffering.  Under the rules of the arbitration, neither the resource unit, the technical advisory unit or FHCA were allowed to be alone with either Telstra or with me but there was not much we could do about the two-hour delay between the time FHCA arrived and the time Telstra arrived, except for FHCA’s solitary inspection of the general area.  When the Telstra representative finally arrived, we first visited several locations around Cape Bridgewater, and it was then that I began to recognise FHCA’s true colours: everything I said was ignored or negated.  FHCA, it seems, already had fixed ideas about this case.

Perhaps it was my early years at sea as a fifteen-year-old, perhaps I was just being ‘streetwise’, but whatever you like to call it, I was not going to ignore my feelings again.  FHCA’s attitude, and the way they played down my business in front of the Telstra representative, was a clear indication of what was to come.

Bearing in mind that FHCA and Telstra were not supposed to spend time together without including me, and being aware that I couldn’t leave the camp site because a group were in residence and besides, this being the holiday period, there was always the chance that passing tourists might want a bed for the night, I had arranged lunch at the camp.  Cathy had brought fresh bread rolls in town, and I provided fresh pasta and salad with three different cold meats.  My offer of lunch was, however, declined and the others all adjourned to the Kiosk by the beach, totally in opposition to the rules of the arbitration.  And what I could I do?

They all returned later but then stayed only another fifteen minutes before leaving for Melbourne.  I tried to introduce evidence which supported my position but what I was not aware of was an arbitration procedure rule which means that late information, if not considered relevant, will usually not be accepted into evidence by the arbitrator.  In my case, much of the information I was receiving from Telstra under the discovery process (in the form of FOI documents) was arriving months after my original requests were lodged.  Part of the information I attempted to introduce this stage included copies of brochures and other information obtained from businesses like the business I had hoped to build here; businesses which provided a guest-house set-up for weekend getaways.  A number of professionals in the tourist industry are convinced that my situation, right by the sea, would be ideal for this kind of business but, after all the energy I had spent just fighting for a decent phone system, I didn’t have the energy and enthusiasm I once had, nor did I have the will to struggle any more, particularly when I looked back at the ruined lives scattered along the road behind me.

Anyway, although the brochures and other documents that I gave to FHCA on this day were not accepted into the arbitration process, I have never set eyes on this information again, not even when some of my claim material was finally returned to me after the arbitrator had handed down his findings. 

It wasn’t until 2002 that I discovered that FHCA had written to the arbitrator eighteen months after the so-called ‘completion’ of my arbitration, admitting that they had withheld from the Regulator several letters from Telstra to the arbitrator regarding the 1800 faults.  These letters show that Telstra intended to address the 1800 short duration calls as part of their defence of my claims.  FHCA knowingly disadvantaged my claim by withholding these documents from the arbitrator and me – I had no opportunity to ask why Telstra didn’t address the faults after all.  By avoiding these faults, Telstra could continue to wrongly charge me for another two years.

 

CHAPTER 26

 

During the hectic holiday season, my days were completely consumed by the relentless demands of camp duties. The combination of various responsibilities, from managing schedules to overseeing activities, left me with only the eerily quiet evenings to confront the overwhelming task of organizing my final claim materials. Just as I began to make headway on the staggering pile of twenty thousand documents that flooded in after Telstra lodged their defence, a new wave of paperwork crashed over me, plunging me back into confusion. 

The sheer volume of these documents was suffocating; they filled my workspace to the brim, making it nearly impossible to carve out even a small area to sort through them. Each sheet felt vital to my case, yet I was left feeling adrift in a vast sea of paperwork, navigating a labyrinth of information without any means of support. The experience was not just frustrating; it was isolating. 

Adding to my frustration was the stark reality that while the Australian public was footing the exorbitant bill for Telstra’s extensive legal defence—complete with their army of lawyers and resources—I was left utterly alone, without the means to hire a law student or assistant who could help share the workload. All I, along with my fellow members of the COT group, sought was fundamental justice for our personal grievances. We were trying to shed light on the complex web of deceit that Telstra was spinning, a web that seemed to ensnare us at every turn. It felt as though Telstra was employing every possible underhanded tactic to undermine our efforts and complicate our pursuit of the truth.

As the year 1995 dragged on, I found myself increasingly overwhelmed by the chaos of the Freedom of Information (FOI) documents that continued to inundate me. Each new batch seemed to carry its own complications, contributing to a growing pile that only augmented my anxiety. Doubts about my legal acumen gnawed at me like a persistent infection; I worried that my lack of experience would hinder my ability to articulate my arguments effectively. This concern intensified as I sensed that the arbitrator was becoming increasingly reluctant to entertain any further evidence that could bolster my claim. 

Despite the unambiguous evidence laid bare in Telstra’s technical data sheets—clearly demonstrating that I was being charged for calls that had never connected—I hesitated to present these documents as additional proof. Instead, I opted to reach out to the arbitrator directly, requesting another oral hearing in the hopes of explaining my case more persuasively. I also sought guidance from the technical resource unit, desperate for help in structuring my evidence logically and convincingly. I worried that my limited understanding of technical concepts might lead to catastrophic misinterpretations that could jeopardize my claim. Every step I took felt laden with the weight of the situation, as I navigated a path fraught with uncertainty and anxiety.

During that tense phone call, I fully laid bare my desperate situation to the arbitrator, detailing my spiralling debt of $25,000 owed to my technical advisor and my inability to incur any further expenses. The arbitrator, while well-meaning, offered only hollow reassurances, urging me to persist in my efforts. He mentioned that the technical resource unit was scheduled to visit Cape Bridgewater soon, and their presence could help bolster my case.

However, just before their eagerly anticipated visit, a shocking twist unfolded. The technical resource unit—a reputable Australian firm celebrated for its telecom expertise—suddenly recoiled from the process. They cited a blatant conflict of interest after Telstra dangled lucrative contracts before them, an all-too-familiar scenario in this tangled web of corporate manoeuvring. This unexpected betrayal raised two crucial and unsettling questions: Was this conflict of interest a calculated strategy devised by Telstra to undermine our cause? And how could a once-esteemed company retract so swiftly from a signed contract, seemingly bowing to the will of a corporate giant? The air was thick with an unsettling sense of deceit, and it was painfully clear that the game was rigged against us.

To make matters worse, a troubling new technical unit emerged, led by a former Telstra employee entrenched with the company for over twenty years. This new unit was established under the supervision of the TIO’s office, and it was hard not to see the hands of Telstra pulling the strings. After eleven long months of navigating this convoluted process, we were confronted with the grim reality that a completely new resource unit had been assigned to evaluate our claims. Adding further insult, we learned that an ex-Telstra operative would play a pivotal role, amplifying our sense of betrayal. Despite our vehement objections lodged with the TIO, our concerns were casually dismissed, prompting the TIO to enlist a Canadian telecommunications company—an obvious attempt to placate our mounting frustrations.

The truth, however, was starkly different from what we were led to believe. In writing, the TIO assured us that the Australian team, directed by the ex-Telstra employee, would merely assist the Canadians. Yet, in a blatant betrayal of that agreement, it soon became apparent that the Australians were conducting the bulk of the assessments, leaving me feeling duped and betrayed. This misrepresentation by the TIO stung particularly hard, especially considering that the arbitrator was affiliated with a law firm engaged in contract work for Telstra. I couldn’t shake the eerie feeling that a concerted effort was underway to undermine our case; it felt as though the entire system was colluding against the COT Four, prioritizing Telstra's interests over the truth of our grievances.

As April 1995 approached, the underhanded tactics intensified. On April 6, a Telstra official arrived unexpectedly at our campsite, throwing the already precarious situation into further chaos. We arranged for a representative from the newly formed technical unit to be fetched from the airport, and together we evaluated the exchanges at Cape Bridgewater and Portland. During this critical examination, we consulted a local technician—ironically, one who had previously denied any issues until I uncovered the agent’s complaint records that painted a starkly different picture.

By this point, I had unearthed several critical documents, each revealing glaring congestion issues plaguing the local exchanges. One particularly damning Freedom of Information (FOI) document, dated April 7, 1994, contained a shocking 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.” The implications of this revelation were infuriating.

Another memorandum, cryptically titled “Cape Bridgewater COT” and dated April 6, 1994, indicated an ambitious plan to double the exchange capacity from 30 to 60 circuits—a move that would drastically reduce congestion, sharply contradicting the earlier claim of a mere 30% increase. Credit should be given to the new technical unit; upon their visit to the Portland exchange, they quickly uncovered that Telstra had grossly underestimated the solution by a staggering 70%. The discomfort was palpable among the Telstra staff at the exchange, likely exacerbated by the fact that I had recently received an unexpected personal call from Telstra’s CEO the preceding month. This move raises serious questions about accountability and transparency in an already murky situation. Why would the head of such a corporate giant reach out to a small holiday camp if my claims were deemed irrelevant? He assured me he would investigate the problems I had raised, further heightening my suspicions about the rampant systemic corruption and deceit pervasive within both Telstra and the TIO.

FOI documents unveil a chilling reality: he was anything but a man of honour. The investigation, rather than shedding light on the truth, served only to perpetuate the deceit that had long been swirling in the shadows. A Telstra internal memo from 30th March 1994 (FOI document K01007) grimly confirms the extent of the congestion issue: “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.” This memo raises grave concerns about the very nature of Telstra's operations. 

Could everyday callers even discern the ominous ‘busy tone’ from the equally deceptive ‘congested tone’? Two sounds designed to confuse and obscure the truth. What’s more, the memo starkly illustrates the technician's admission of the alarming congestion at the Portland exchange. For my business, this was just the beginning of a descent into chaos, as calls struggled against the convoluted gridlock in Portland, only to be thwarted further by the local exchange at Cape Bridgewater, which was ensnared in a web of dysfunction and decay. It's no wonder that a relentless tide of customer complaints surged as my arbitration dragged on—every call forced to navigate a labyrinth of barriers before a connection could even be made!

On 6th April, as the new technical team stumbled around Cape Bridgewater, I made a desperate attempt to confront the insidious billing practices that were bleeding me dry. Clinging to the remnants of my sanity, I learned that the arbitrator had instructed the technical unit to ignore any new claims. My frustration erupted. How is this possible? The arbitrator had reassured me I could present any new evidence from the newly accessed FOI documents, and yet here I was, having spent countless sleepless nights preparing my case, only to be met with an impenetrable wall of deceit!

Driven by indignation, I forced the arbitrator to at least glance at a critical document while Telstra's representative was still present—a damning excerpt of my 1800 call account. I demanded to know how I could be charged for a 9.49-minute call on 13th January 1995 at 11:50 am, and again for a 42-second call just moments later at 11:57 am. It was absurd—two calls on the same line overlapping? Physically impossible! 

The eyes of the technical staff widened as I laid bare even more examples of ludicrous charges on this same account from 10th and 11th January. Despite both calls from my home number to the camp number generating an engaged signal, they were nevertheless billed as connected. And again, on 13th January, charges defied all logic. This rampant incorrect billing wasn’t an oversight; it felt like systemic fraud, with my account serving as a haunting testament to the chaos festering within their ranks. Though the document was included in my claim, neither the Telstra officials nor the technical team dared to comment on this blatant evidence—only offering hollow reassurances that it would be "addressed" during arbitration.

Then, in a betrayal that left me stunned, the Telstra and technical representatives exited together, leaving me behind—a flagrant violation of arbitration protocols. What sinister conversations unfolded in their conspiracy while I was left in the dark? The truth of this treachery likely lies solely with them and perhaps the arbitrator, the very person charged with ensuring justice.

As both resource units prepared their reports, my instincts screamed of treachery—the COT members had been deceived beyond comprehension. I felt as though I was being methodically dismantled by the very individual supposed to administer justice. The arbitrator appeared to have glossed over my critical inquiries about the ongoing issues with my fax and phones. At this juncture, I was convinced the entire arbitration was nothing but a charade, orchestrated solely to silence me with a meagre payout.

Had this new technical unit been privy to the flawed verification testing and Telstra’s manipulation of dubious BCI test results to prop up their crumbling network into Cape Bridgewater, they might have demanded answers regarding the full extent of the network's faults. Had the arbitrator comprehended the depths of Telstra's reliance on these sham results, he would have been legally bound to force Telstra to come clean. This dark saga continues to unfold, revealing layers of corruption and betrayal at every turn, a twisted web of deceit cunningly constructed to ensnare the unsuspecting.

 

CHAPTER 27

 

Cathy had become a partner in the business, but by early 1994, my ability to pay her even the bare minimum was a grim reality. Once the technicians and the Telstra representatives departed, a tense standoff ensued over my next steps. I was convinced I had stumbled upon a critical opportunity; Cathy, however, was sceptical. 

The Commonwealth Ombudsman’s Office, which had been oddly supportive of my claims against Telstra regarding their botched handling of the discovery documents under the FOI Act, offered an unsettling glimmer of hope. Their consistent impartiality felt like a breath of clean air in a suffocating atmosphere of bureaucracy. It was terrifyingly evident that this was one government department operating under the rigid principles of natural justice, seemingly untouched by the murky politics surrounding my case.

My suspicions grew as I learned they were preparing a report on Telstra's failure to deliver those crucial documents. I had an inkling they were meticulously cataloguing every fax I had sent them, and all the communication they had directed my way. This felt like a dangerous game of chess, and I believed I had found a critical position. I requested the Ombudsman's Office use my 1800 free call number for all further communication; fully aware they would document these interactions. It was a calculated risk, as I was convinced their call records would expose a shocking discrepancy against what Telstra reported.

Two years later, on February 28, 1997, the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s Office forwarded a document to Telstra, detailing the communications between their office and mine. The report unveiled a disturbing reality: they had received three hundred and fifteen faxes from me, laden with thirteen hundred and sixty-nine attachments. They had sent only twenty-one faxes back, with a mere two hundred and nine attachments. Alarmingly, it reported one hundred and sixty-three calls from my office to theirs, contrasted with forty-three calls from them to my 1800 account. 

And yet, the sinister shadow of Telstra’s billing practices loomed large. They had charged me for ninety-two calls from the Ombudsman on my 1800 account during this same timeframe. I had lost a few pages of my 1800 accounts that would have illuminated this discrepancy, yet the chilling absence of explanation from Telstra left me paralysed. How could they justify the staggering contrast between forty-three documented calls and the ninety-two charges? By December 1998, Telstra had not only failed to refund these wrongly charged calls, but they had also left me in the dark regarding the alarming inconsistencies. To make matters worse, the TIO’s office had utterly ignored this critical matter, leaving me to wonder just how deep this rabbit hole went.

The situation surrounding my dealings with the TIO’s office and the Minister for Communications raises serious concerns about the integrity of the arbitration process. It is alarming that both my 1800 line and fax line were subject to incorrect charges for at least two years following the arbitrator's 'award.' This glaring oversight directly contradicts the notion of fairness in arbitration, especially since neither Telstra nor the arbitrator deemed it necessary to address this critical issue during the proceedings.

Despite the Commonwealth Ombudsman providing evidence that Telstra’s billing system continued to malfunction for as long as twenty months after the 'award,' it seems the arbitrator disregarded the ongoing nature of the problem, which was a key reason for the arbitration in the first place. How can one legitimate ‘award’ be presented when the very issue that necessitated the arbitration persisted unabated? The failure to include this matter in the final decision casts a long shadow over the validity of the entire process.

I have taken the prudent step of communicating with both the TIO’s office and Telstra on numerous occasions regarding this unresolved matter. Yet, the lack of any response or explanation is not just frustrating—it’s downright suspicious. It suggests a wilful ignorance of the ongoing incorrect charges related to the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s calls, as if there is a deliberate attempt to sweep these issues under the rug.

May 11th, 1995, marked a pivotal moment—the day the arbitrator was meant to deliver an 'award.' Prior to this, I received a technical report purportedly assessing the losses my business endured due to phone faults. This report, however, was a mere facade, addressing only twenty-six of the many points I raised, effectively ignoring significant portions of my claim. Calculations have shown that less than half of my submitted claim documents were considered. This negligence disproportionately benefitted Telstra, allowing them to sidestep crucial points that could have clarified the extent of their wrongdoing.

It is incredulous that none of my critical concerns regarding incorrect charges or the lost claim documents made their way into the arbitrator's considerations. The continuing phone faults were completely overlooked. The level of frustration is palpable as I find myself without the means to engage my technical advisor again. It becomes evident that this process was less about justice and more about wiping the slate clean for Telstra. The arbitrator seemed content to issue a minimal payment without addressing the broader scope of the consequential costs incurred during my fight for resolution.

While the technical report acknowledged that some of my claims were valid and even ruled against Telstra on a few issues, the extent of the problems illustrated in my claim documents remains vastly understated. The entire scenario suggests a systemic failure, if not outright collusion, that demands accountability and transparency.

 

CHAPTER 28

 

The following fault assessments are taken from the technical report, specifically from a section covering the local telephone exchange, referred to as RCM 1, which my coin-operated gold phone was connected to for most of the time.  The technical report was compiled from Telstra’s own data and records.

“2.2    There were consistent problems with the RCM system.  Mr Smith’s services were carried on RCM No 1 until February 1994.  This system had a track record of problems, and the RCM system components were the subject of several design corrections (Work Specifications).  These issues were likely to cause a range of problems (as reported) over the period August 1991 to February 1993 (a period of 18 months) when Mr Smith’s services were transferred off RCM 1 and service improved.  Specific problems caused are covered in later paragraphs (ref: 2.8, 2.9, 2.21).

                                   ASSESSMENT - Service was less than reasonable.

  2.8    RCM1 failure due to lightning damage.  Lightning damage to communications equipment would be expected from time to time in this area.  Reasonable service relates to the time taken to return the service to normal.  A reasonable expectation would be repair within less than the 4 days actually taken.

                                   ASSESSMENT - Service was less than reasonable.

  2.9    Evidence of problems with services on RCM 1 had been sufficient to cause Telstra to move the CBHC services away from RCM 1 to RCM 2 and 3.  Later when the RCM equipment was examined by Melbourne staff, evidence of severe error levels had accumulated on the counters in the transmission equipment (particularly RCM1).  After corrective action these severe error levels were no longer accumulating.

ASSESSMENT - Service was less than reasonable.

This report then goes on to summarise the situation regarding the gold phone: “Intermittent effects on the gold phone resulted in it being removed from RCM 1 11 days after potential cause (lightning strike damage to RCM 1).  At the time of removal, the actual equipment fault had not been found, although testing was continuing.  This seems to have been a reasonable action and timescale under the circumstances.

ASSESSMENT: A reasonable level of service was provided.”

So, in their report, the technical unit stated that four days was a “less than reasonable” timeframe for repairing a fault, but in the summary of this section of the report, they state that eleven days was a reasonable timeframe for repairing a fault.

In their summation, the technical unit conveniently gave the gold phone a clean bill of health, despite its long-standing connection to RCM 1—a system notorious for its “track record of problems.” How could they possibly claim the phone was functioning well when it had been tethered to such a faulty exchange for most of its existence? It feels deeply troubling that this report was produced a full seven years after my initial complaint to Telstra and made no mention of the multitude of diary notes and letters from customers that I submitted during arbitration. Many of these documented the ongoing issues with the gold phone. How could they draft a covert document for the arbitrator—who was never meant to see it—giving the system a clean slate while my complaints piled up like a mountain?

Furthermore, the technical unit brazenly admitted that they did not assess all my claim documents when evaluating the phone faults at Cape Bridgewater. This raises grave concerns regarding the motivations behind such selective oversight. Who in Australia wielded the power to instruct an independent technical unit to bury critical issues laid out in documents pertaining to a legal procedure? Clearly, if one possesses enough influence and resources to manipulate the arbitrator, they can subvert justice at will.

The reference to a “lightning strike” in the technical report only deepens the mystery and casts a shadow on the integrity of the investigation. According to FOI documents included in my claim, the exchange suffered damage from a lightning strike in November 1992, affecting a ‘bearer’ component. These same documents indicate that the fault was supposedly resolved by late January 1993. Yet, even under the assumption that the strike occurred at the end of November, we’re still talking about two months of downtime—far from the mere eleven days articulated by the technical unit. A phone being out of service for two months is utterly unacceptable and demonstrates a troubling disregard for customer service.

Even more alarmingly, during the investigation for the COT report, it was revealed that Telstra technicians neglectfully failed to connect a fault alarm at the un-manned Cape Bridgewater exchange. This alarm was the lifeline for technicians at Portland, their only means of detecting issues at the exchange. For eighteen months—from August 1991 to March 1993—this alarm was left disconnected. Why didn’t the technical unit bring this monumental oversight to light in their report? It’s clear that numerous phone faults my business endured during that time went unnoticed, creating a perfect storm of negligence and indifference.

I diligently challenged the technical unit’s assessment of my gold phone, providing irrefutable evidence to both Telstra and the TIO’s office, including Telstra’s own documentation, that confirmed the persistent issues over the years. Supported by countless letters from irate customers, I reached a breaking point in December 1995, refusing to pay the gold phone bill until Telstra acknowledged the faults. Their response? They cut off the phone. It remained disconnected until I finally sold the business in 2001, with the TIO’s office repeatedly assuring me they were “looking into the matter,” a hollow reassurance that did little to alleviate my frustrations.

As if combating the technical report wasn’t excruciating enough, the financial report prepared by FHCA was an even greater ordeal. On May 9, 1995, my forensic accountant authored a damning thirty-nine-page critique for the arbitrator, outlining the myriad failings in the financial report. His observations raised serious flags, hinting at a system rigged against me and a deliberate effort to obfuscate the truth.

“1.      The FHCA report does not include any detailed workings, so we have endeavoured to recalculate the FHCA figures given their assumptions and the base figures which were included in our report dated 21 June 1994.

                                   Our recalculated figures are still higher than the FHCA figures and we are unable to determine the reason for this.

2.         We believe that the FHCA report contains many inaccuracies and in the main area of loss quantification is simply wrong.  THE MAIN CALCULATION OF LOSS HAS BEEN CONSIDERABLY UNDERSTATED BY AN ERROR OF LOGIC.

                                   The error of logic appears to arise from the fact that FHCA reduce the total bed capacity by the night utilisation of 48% (to give available bed capacity) and FHCA then apply the bed occupancy rates to the available bed capacity.  It is incorrect to reduce the total bed capacity by both of these factors.”

My accountant has yet to receive a response from the arbitrator.  Two days after this letter was sent, on 11^th May 1995, the arbitrator handed down his award.  Compared to my accountant’s calculations of the losses my business had suffered because of the phone problems; this award gave only ten cents in the dollar.  After I had considered all the expenses, I accumulated just to bring the phone problems to the attention of the Regulator and the Senate, and all the expenses associated with submitting my claim to the arbitrator, I was left with only four cents in the dollar.  By this stage I had been fighting for justice for seven years and I was left to ask — what about my failing health?

I was not aware of my accountant’s disgust at the handling of the arbitration procedure and, unbeknownst to me, he contacted the project manager of my claim and asked him how he had arrived at his findings.  The project manager advised my accountant that, under instructions from the arbitrator, he had been forced to exclude a large section of information from his final report, meaning that the final report was incomplete.  My accountant was so incensed that he promptly wrote to the Minister for Communications and the new TIO, clearly expressing his disappointment with FHCA.  He considered that their conduct was detrimental to my claim because, since their report was incomplete, he had no firm base on which to formulate his response or, indeed, to challenge the report.

Finally, the project manager phoned me direct.  He had rung, he said, to let me know that he was aware that things hadn’t turned out quite as I had hoped but he believed I now had to put it all behind me, get on with my life and show them what I could do.  I am still wondering who ‘them’ was.

As if it isn’t bad enough that the so-called independent arbitrator forced the so-called independent financial assessors to ‘doctor’ their report, it is even more disappointing that the project manager for the financial assessors would wait until after my appeal time had elapsed before speaking out.  And why did he ring then anyway?  I had only ever spoken to him once through this whole process and that was back on 11^th October 1994, during the oral hearing.  This phone call seemed totally out of character; or had he heard about my collapse and had an attack of conscience?

Even stranger, during this conversation, the project manager informed me that the Canadian executive manager of my case was also going to ring me; and so, he did. 

The Canadian manager said something like: ‘This has been the worst process I have ever been a party to.  This sort of situation would never have happened in North America.’ 

It was not until 2001/2002 that I received a copy of a letter dated 13^th February 1996, from the project manager to the new TIO regarding the removal of part of the project manager’s findings, and notifying the TIO that he had told my accountant that: 

“… the final report did not cover all material and working papers”.

 

CHAPTER 29

 

And, unbelievably, the plot continued to thicken in a web of deceit and deception ....

On the 23rd of May 1995, another seven hundred or so FOI discovery documents arrived, shrouded in the thick fog of Telstra’s sinister machinations. I couldn’t fathom what twisted game they were playing. Why now? Why not a year prior, when the material could have bolstered my claim? Why not even ten days earlier—because two of the documents slipped into this latest batch proved to be pivotal. Had I received them just ten days prior, they would have armed me with the ammunition to contest the arbitrator’s unjust award. Even more insidious, if I had had this material a month prior, I could have amended the very foundation of my claim. But by the time I possessed these elusive documents, my only recourse was the Supreme Court, an avenue that Telstra cunningly knew was well beyond my financial reach.

The two documents in question were damning letters exchanged between Telstra and Bell Canada International in August and September of 1994. These letters were chillingly blunt, acknowledging that the BCI tests, as outlined in their dubious Cape Bridgewater report of 10th November 1993, were impracticable. How darkly ironic that Telstra, while engaging in a charade, would manipulate the situation to maintain their facade of competence.

Then, three years later, a glimmer of truth flickered through the fog with another document (N00040) from a fellow COT member, which ultimately exposed the deception. Document N00040, dated 20th June 1994, bore the ominous title “Smith Query — BCI tests to Cape Bridgewater” and 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 internal Telstra email didn’t just ask for clarification; it underscored a desperate attempt to conceal their rampant deceit.

Clearly, Telstra was acutely aware that their BCI report, delivered to the Senate in 1993, was a grand illusion meant to bolster their claims of a network standard rivalling that of the world. We have since learned that Telstra has been brazenly misleading the Senate for years, all while the true state of their network is left to rot in the shadows.

On the 6th of September 1994, in a letter dripping with insincerity to Bell Canada (the FOI document numbered N00005 and 6), Telstra explicitly mentioned the start and finish times for tests run from the Richmond exchange to the Portland exchange test line. These tests, recorded in the BCI report, were deemed impracticable, but the sinister truth lay in their silence about their concurrent Neat testing at Cape Bridgewater, on the very same day. 

This deceptive letter to BCI was just the tip of the iceberg; a sinister trove of inter-departmental documents within Telstra echoed the same narrative of impracticability, revealing the lengths they would go to shroud the truth and maintain their empire of lies.

FOI document L68979 reveals a shocking letter from Telstra to my arbitrator dated 13th September 1994. In this correspondence, Telstra brazenly admits that the arbitrator has not issued any directives concerning the raw data from the BCI tests, data I specifically requested to expose the farce of their claims. I sought this raw test data to demonstrate how horrendously poor my telephone service was at the time, rendering the BCI report utterly implausible. To this day, I have seen nothing—no documentation related to this testing, no raw data in sight from the arbitrator, the discovery process, or anyone else involved. Not a shred of evidence showing how BCI concocted their misleading figures has ever reached my hands.

Despite this glaring flaw, Telstra shamelessly wielded the BCI report in their defence, falsely asserting that the network functioned perfectly. They knew the report was a fabrication designed to mislead, yet they proceeded, ensuring that a version found its way to their defence unit. A clinical psychologist, commissioned by Telstra to evaluate my mental state, confessed to having reviewed the BCI report before our meeting—an act that reeked of collusion.

Anyone reading the BCI report might naively assume that Telstra’s phone system was running flawlessly. After all, BCI is an internationally reputed communications firm, claiming that thousands of test calls had been made with a staggering 99.5% success rate. The immediate conclusion is that my claims must be unfounded and, in turn, that my sanity was in question. Yet the truth remains—Telstra knowingly submitted a flawed document to fortify their defence. This isn't just unethical; it's a criminal act, a blatant instance of perjury in a legal setting. Why, then, has the Government turned a blind eye to Telstra's flagrant misconduct?

For years, I have reached out to the Communications Minister and the TIO, desperately trying to have the BCI report retracted from Telstra's defence. Yet my pleas have fallen into a dark void, ignored completely. Telstra’s own FOI documents lay bare a disturbing truth: for six long months before filing their defence, they were aware of the report's impracticability. The TIO and various Government Ministers, alerted to the calamity carried within this report, have failed spectacularly in their duty to protect the public. They should have acted swiftly to remove this dangerous document from the Public Domain upon first hearing the alarm bells of its unreliability. Here I stand, powerless and financially drained, unable to take my fight to the Supreme Court.

Adding insult to injury, a letter to the Commonwealth Ombudsman reveals Telstra's dismal attempts to cover their tracks. They wrote about “lost or destroyed” documents, acknowledging conversations I had with them regarding this. Yet, the specifics remain shrouded in secrecy, as Telstra’s representative feigns ignorance while arranging for staff to feign concern under the guise of investigation.

Furthermore, a Commercial General Manager for Victoria and Tasmania scrawled a hand-written note on another document, pondering whether to charge me, even if they couldn’t fulfill any of my requests. This contemptuous thought process demonstrates a clear lack of integrity. How could they even consider extracting money from me when they knew they had nothing of value to offer? Their actions speak volumes: a corporation entwined in deception, corruption, and a complete disregard for justice.

CHAPTER 30

 

At this stage the daily running of the camp was almost beyond me, and my partner, Cathy, was handling the work almost entirely on her own.  My self-esteem continued to sink lower and all the marketing and promotional expertise I had built up over the years was of no help:  I had no reserves of energy to call on, I couldn’t even think straight anymore, let alone compose advertisements or talk to people about the camp.

Again, I found myself stewing on my situation.  How could this happen in Australia in the 1990’s?  Wasn’t this supposed to be a democracy?  How could the Government continue to ignore me?  How could the lawyers get away with hiding the truth to prop Telstra up?  I couldn’t work out which way to turn next.

Finally, I decided to ask for all my claim documents to be returned to me (this was covered in the rules of the arbitration).  I waited patiently for weeks before deciding to drive to Melbourne and collect them myself.  I thought I had been as angry as it was possible to be but no, by the time Cathy and I arrived in Melbourne I was ready to explode.  I controlled my anger though, as I walked into the arbitrator’s reception area and spoke to the arbitrator’s secretary.  Looking back now I wonder why I expected to have my request met this time: certainly, none of my previous requests had been met but I suppose we can always hope.  It was not to be, however.  My documents were not ready, the arbitrator’s secretary informed me, and the arbitrator was not available.

My emotions, already on a short fuse, finally took over and I shouted at her, demanding that she get my documents at once and reminding her that I had put in my request three months before and had now driven for five hours to collect them.  “I am not leaving this office without those documents.”  I told her, “Call the police if you want to, I don’t care.  You have my property, and I want it back now.”  At last, a young lad appeared from the lifts wheeling a trolley loaded with boxes of documents.  He asked me to sort out which were my claim documents; I simply took the lot.

It took Cathy some time to find a parking spot near this busy city office but finally I loaded them into the car, and we headed off, unaware that, among my own documents, there were some that I had never seen before.  These proved to be documents that should have been forwarded to me under the rules of arbitration.  And they were very, very interesting, to say the least.

Of course, in any dispute which is settled by an umpire (like an arbitration) it is almost mandatory that any information supplied by one party must be automatically circulated to the other party and this was certainly so according to the rules of my arbitration.  In fact, in my case, the information had to also be supplied to the TIO’s legal counsel.  Among the documents I took with me from the arbitrator’s office this day, however, I found a brown envelope full of documents and loose papers, none of which had ever been forwarded to me.  This envelope contained copies of several letters from Telstra to the arbitrator, including one letter dated 16^th December 1994, which indicated that it had been sent with three attachments:

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

In the first paragraph of this 16^th December letter, Telstra stated:

“You will note from the correspondence that the Regulator has requested Telstra to provide information relating to charging discrepancies reported by Mr Smith for short duration calls on his 008 service.  These issues form part of the subject matter of Mr Smith’s claim under the Fast Track Arbitration Procedure.”

Clearly, at that time anyway, the Regulator was most concerned regarding this incorrect charging, and, on page two, Telstra go on to state:

“The simplest way forward may be for Mr Smith and Telstra and yourself to all confirm in writing that this information can be provided to the Regulator if this meets with your approval.”

Now, if this was the way to go, why didn’t I receive some indication of this from the arbitrator?  Certainly, I did not receive any correspondence from him referring to this arrangement, but the Regulator apparently later wrote to the arbitrator acknowledging receipt of Telstra’s letter of 11^th November 1994 and noting that Telstra had agreed to answer, in their defence of my claims, each of the questions put by the Regulator on 4^th October 1994. 

In their earlier letter of 1^st December, the Regulator had indicated that a number of other Telstra customers in the Portland area had also complained about incorrect charging on their 1800 services and so it is not surprising to find them indicating their concern about this in their letter of 8^th December:  “A major consideration in the Regulator’s pursuit of the issue raised by Mr Smith was the likelihood that these problems, if proved to exist, would almost certainly affect a number of other Telstra customers.”

In direct breach of the rules of the arbitration, the arbitrator did not forward these letters on to me during the arbitration.

Even more amazing, the arbitrator made no written finding in his award regarding the massive incorrect charging as shown in my claim documents.  In fact, even though Telstra had notified both the arbitrator and the Regulator (in their letter of 11^th November 1994) that they would address these incorrect charging issues in their defence, they failed to do so, and even though the arbitrator obviously knew of this promise, the arbitrator still allowed Telstra to ignore the issue completely.  I believe that this constitutes a conspiracy between the arbitrator and Telstra in my arbitration, but I was to uncover even more when I turned to the loose documents I had come by inadvertently.  These would surely convince the devil himself that there was a conspiracy afoot.  These documents relate back to the day the COT four signed for arbitration, on 21^st April 1994.

As I have already explained, one of the main reasons for signing for arbitration, as opposed to the existing commercial agreement, was that Telstra’s billing system would be brought under scrutiny.  The members of COT believed this was a major issue that needed to be brought to the attention of all Telstra’s customers, in the public interest.

I had been directed, you will recall, to lodge written details of any phone complaints with Telstra’s solicitors.  In one of my letters to the solicitors I had shown them that I was being charged incorrectly for short duration calls on my 1800 account.

On 18^th June 1993, the Regulator wrote to Telstra regarding these billing issues.  Their letter, one of many written by the Regulator to Telstra regarding this issue, refers to the many instances in my accounts where the time between calls is less than one minute according to the start time of the calls and asks for an explanation of the apparent discrepancies in my account.

On the same issue, in an internal Telstra letter dated 25^th November 1993, to the Corporate Billing Directorate in Brisbane, regarding my short duration call problems, the writer states: “Telstra does have clearly defined policies and principles for call charging and billing.

• Customers will be charged only for calls which are answered
• Unanswered calls are not charged

Unanswered calls include calls encountering engaged numbers (busy), various Telstra tones and recorded voice announcements as well as calls which ‘ring out’ or are terminated before or during ringing.”

When speaking with the General Manager for Consumer Affairs at Telstra, I referred to this document, telling him that this was certainly not the case on my phone line.

Over the years leading up to my arbitration, I continually proved to the Regulator that Telstra were incorrectly charging RVA calls.  In one instance I used my claim advisor as just one example and provided my 1800 account and Telstra’s matching data records to prove my point.  Finally, because these issues were not addressed in my arbitration, the Regulator visited Cape Bridgewater late in 1995 to look at a further six bound volumes of new evidence I had accumulated to support my case.  Three of these volumes, which had been submitted into arbitration, had resulted in Telstra writing to the Regulator on 11^th November 1994 to say they would address these issues in their defence.

The Regulator’s people looked over the six volumes I had and commented that they had never seen so much evidence, presented in such detail.  They appeared to be quite stunned.  Finally, they left, taking the volumes of evidence with them.  Although all this evidence was returned to me some weeks later, I have never had any formal recognition of my effort from the Regulator.

In a letter dated 6^th December 1995, the Regulator wrote to me: “I refer to my recent correspondence advising you that the Regulator had again written to Telstra regarding the issues relating to charging discrepancies concerning its 008/1800 service originally raised by you in 1994.  I write to request additional information from you to assist the Regulator in its investigation of charging discrepancies associated with Telstra’s 008/1800 service.

       Your assistance in this matter would be appreciated.”

Among the ‘loose documents’ inadvertently provided to me by the arbitrator’s secretary I found three technical reports which had been compiled from my claim documents.  One, dated 7^th April 1995, was headed “Draft for Discussion Purposes Only” and written by the Australian component of the technical resource unit; the other two documents were duplicate copies of a report compiled by both the Canadian and Australian companies and dated 30 April 1995.  Or were they duplicates?  They certainly looked the same; they certainly both had identical covers; they certainly both had the same date and neither of them was signed, but ...?

Back in May of 1995, when I received my copy of this technical report, and needed to respond to it in writing according to the rules of the FTAP, I had asked why it had not been signed off as a complete document.  The arbitrator did not respond to my question.  When I found these ‘duplicates’ of the report, I dug out my copy and compared all three.  Lo and behold, several differences showed up, all in Telstra’s favour.  

Some of these differences were not apparent at first glance but one was quite clear from the start:  the page numbering on one of the forty-page documents which I had not seen before, sailed along sensibly up to page twenty-seven but after that, with the exception of a page numbered thirty-one, all the rest of the pages were also numbered twenty-seven.  What on earth did this indicate? I had no idea.  And there were other differences, the most alarming relating to a part of the report headed “Scope of Report” in the early draft version, dated 7^th April 1995.  Part of this section states: “The report covers incidents and events potentially affecting the telephone service provided to the Cape Bridgewater Holiday Camp during the period February 1988 to August 1994” and goes on to provide a list of documents which provided the information in the report.

When I compared my version of the technical report with an apparently ‘secret’ version of the same report which I had collected with my documents from the arbitrator, I first noticed that they were both dated 30^th April 1995 so one would assume they would turn out to be identical.  Not so!  A comparison of the documents listed show that only 20% of my claim documents had been provided to the technical unit for their assessment.

Among the many documents I later received from the TIO, in 2001/2002, I found that the arbitrator had prepared a draft of his award before the technical unit had even been provided with my claim documents, so the technical findings included in the arbitrator’s final award were not based solely on the report prepared by the official technical unit.  Who, I wonder, provided the arbitrator with the technical information he needed to prepare his draft?

Not only was the arbitrator clearly preparing to deceive me into believing that he based his technical findings on the technical unit’s report, but I also discovered that the project manager was prepared to deceive me as well.  The project manager wrote to the TIO on 18^th April 1995, advising the TIO that the director of the Canadian company “… arrived in Australia on 13th April 1995 and worked over the Easter Holiday period, particularly on the Smith claim.”  He went on to say that “Any technical report prepared in draft by (the Australian company) will be signed off and will appear on the letterhead of (the Canadian company)”.  Since the Australian company prepared their draft on 7^th April, and there were only cosmetic differences between this report and the final one dated 30^th April, but the Canadian expert didn’t even arrive in the country until the 13^th, it is obvious that the Australian company, with its ex-Telstra owner, carried out all the investigations and prepared the final report which was then put on the Canadian letterhead to make it appear that the Canadian company had handled the investigation.  And the Canadian expert never even visited Cape Bridgewater.

The difference in numbers of documents assessed before August 1994 proves that not all my claim documents were passed to the technical unit for evaluation.  How could they possibly have correctly assessed all the faults prior to August 1994 if they only saw half my claim?  Was this a conspiracy, this apparent attempt to cover up on behalf of Telstra and defraud me of a proper assessment?

Another problem with these two conflicting versions of the technical report appears on the page numbered as one in my version and titled “Resource Unit Technical Evaluation Report.  Mr Alan Smith.   CBHC.  30 April 1995.”  The second paragraph on this page consists of only one short sentence “It is complete and final as it is.”  The second paragraph on the equivalent page of the arbitrator’s report (numbered as page two), however, goes on to say, “There is, however, an addendum which we may find it necessary to add during the next few weeks on billing, i.e. possible discrepancies in Smith’s Telstra bills.”

Once more there is more information in the arbitrator’s version than there is in mine.  And, again, this refers to billing problems. 

Again, in the arbitrator’s copy (on the page numbered as three), the fourth and fifth paragraphs state: “One issue in the Cape Bridgewater case remains open, and we shall attempt to resolve it in the next few weeks, namely Mr Smith’s complaints about billing problems” and “Otherwise, the Technical Report on Cape Bridgewater is complete.”

This information is simply missing from my version of the report (page numbered as two).  Did the arbitrator and the technical unit all think that I would forget about the billing issues if they didn’t remind me?

It was serious enough to discover that Telstra had not addressed the billing issues, even though they said they would; it is even more serious to discover that letters discussing this matter had been sent by Telstra to the arbitrator and the Regulator without being copied on to me.  If, as it seemed to me, the arbitrator had favoured Telstra so this billing issue would never be addressed in my arbitration, then we must ask if the arbitrator was as impartial as he was supposed to be.  All this greatly disadvantaged me, as a claimant in this matter.  And then, to finally find that the technical resource team intended to address the billing issues but mysteriously omitted this from the final version of their report just proves my allegations that there was a conspiracy between various high-ranking people involved in this arbitration.

I returned to the documents on pages 175 and 176, under the heading “Cape Bridgewater Documentation”, and found, in the second line on both pages, reference to more than four thousand pages of documents that had been presented by both parties and “examined by us”.  In the arbitrator’s ‘award’, however, he states that he viewed more than six thousand documents.  What happened to the other two thousand?

Let’s assume, generously, that there were, say, four hundred pages of documents (out of the arbitrator’s six thousand) which were only related to the financial side of the dispute, and which would therefore not need to be assessed by the technical team.  This still leaves sixteen hundred not accounted for.  Interestingly, this is approximately the number of claim documents referred to by the technical unit (in their two source information documents) as not being assessed.  Could this mean that the technical unit didn’t see all my claim documents?

On the last two lines of this same paragraph, I found the following amazing statement: “A comprehensive log of Mr Smith’s complaints does not appear to exist.

This is further proof that the technical team were not provided with my list of one hundred and eighty-three logged faults from late 1989 to early 1994.  Apparently, they were not provided with a copy of the further forty-three logged faults which I submitted or the seventy or so letters of complaint which I also provided to support these two lists, totalling two hundred and twenty-six logged fault calls in all.

Looking back now it seems obvious that there was some sort of conspiracy going on here, a conspiracy to cover up at least some of the issues I had raised in my claim.  I have evidence which supports my claims that Telstra ‘bugged’ my phone both before and during my arbitration: when this information is put together with what I now believe was happening with all the incorrectly charged short duration calls on my 1800 account, a conspiracy seems the only answer.  Diversion of phone calls and faxes has been discussed in more detail earlier in this book.

Back in early 1993, as I have previously related, I was continuing to lodge complaints with the Regulator about the short duration and non-connected calls.  An FOI document dated 23^rd September 1993, from someone inside Telstra to Telstra’s Corporate Secretary, discusses ‘long held’ and ‘incoming unanswered’ calls of ‘4 - 8 seconds.  According to this document there was some suspicion that these were ‘diverted’ calls.  The writer commented that further investigation was to take place.

The following three incidents all relate to other situations where call diversion was highly likely to be the cause of the problem:

• A hairdresser in the outer suburbs of Adelaide, South Australia, who is known to the COT group, suspected that some of her incoming business calls were being diverted elsewhere.  Her problem was investigated by both the Regulator and the police, and the conclusion was that it seemed the calls were actually going to another hairdresser.  The matter was settled by Telstra out of court.
• A massage parlour operator in Melbourne, who also contacted COT, suspected some of her incoming business calls were being diverted to her opposition.  Her suspicions were later confirmed, after police intervention.  Her calls were apparently being diverted to another massage parlour elsewhere in Melbourne.
• In my own case, on 3^rd June 1994, during my arbitration procedure, I called Telstra’s fault service to lodge a complaint in response to problems experienced earlier that day by some of my customers who had difficulty getting through to my business on the phone.  At the time I had a bus charter operator in my office, and he witnessed the following events.

I used my fax phone to phone Telstra.  This equipment was on a separate line to my 1800 free call service, which was the line I was complaining about.   I asked the Telstra 1100 fault operator if she would phone my free call number and see if she had problems getting through.  Moments later, while I was still holding on the fax line, there was a faint, one ring burst on my free call line.  Both the charter operator and I heard this short ring but when I picked up the receiver, the line was dead and so I didn’t bother to speak but simply hung up the phone.  The bus charter operator has since confirmed this in a letter which was presented to the arbitrator. 

A few moments after I had hung up the free call phone, the Telstra operator came back to my fax phone and quite innocently announced that she had heard some-one say something about a holiday camp on the free call line.  I certainly didn’t say anything about a holiday camp, so who answered the call?  The operator’s version of events certainly doesn’t match my version, nor does it match the description given by the witness, so where was her call answered?  Later I had professional video made of my own version of the events and this five-minute video clip was accepted into arbitration, along with other documentation supporting my claims of illegal call diversion by persons with access to Telstra’s network.  FOI documentation shows that all this information was passed on to Telstra by the arbitrator but, like so many of the issues I raised in my claim, the issue of illegal call diversion was never addressed by the arbitrator.

Further information relating to this illegal phone interception and to phone bugging, lost faxes and intrusion into the private lives of COT members, is detailed at the end of this book.  You will be astonished at what the Telstra Corporation has resorted to in their efforts to conceal the truth. 

 

CHAPTER 31

 

I found myself reflecting on the unexpected twists hidden within the documents I had received from the arbitrator’s secretary. It was strange how the actions of the FHCA project manager, who had removed a significant part of his financial report, lingered in my thoughts. As I delved into a document titled "Ferrier Hodgson Corporate Advisory Working Notes," I couldn't shake the feeling that I was up against something much larger than myself.

Interestingly, the FHCA draft report seemed to acknowledge my side of the story for once. It detailed the number of tourists visiting the Portland region from 1991 to 1994: starting with 1,396,000 in 1991/92, rising to 1,490,000 in 1992/93, and climbing again to 1,565,000 in 1993/94. These figures matched what I had presented in my claim, backed by statistics from the Department of Conservation and the Environment—now known as Parks Victoria—and the Victorian Tourism Domestic Monitor. Yet in his award document, the arbitrator mentioned he had to consider a decline in tourism as a potential factor for lost business at the camp. I couldn't understand how he came to that conclusion when all the data pointed to a steady increase.

Now, armed with this new information, I decided to reach out to the president of the Institute of Arbitrators to voice my concerns. Living in Western Australia meant additional expenses for me due to long-distance calls and faxes, but I felt it was necessary. The president’s responses indicated he was genuinely concerned about the evidence I had shared, highlighting the unusual conduct of the arbitrator. Yet, despite my mounting frustrations and sleepless nights, I couldn’t fathom how a legal figure could overlook so much evidence or why Telstra seemed indifferent to the issues at hand. 

Amid this confusion, one person was willing to lend support—my local Federal Member of Parliament, David Hawker. Even back in 1992, he had reached out to Telstra on my behalf, addressing the ongoing problems I faced with phone services and the impact on my business. In response, the General Manager of Telstra’s Australian Commercial division acknowledged my ongoing service difficulties, citing that I had been using outdated technology from an older exchange. It was a small comfort to know that, at least, someone was listening.

My issues with the phone service were just the tip of the iceberg when it came to the dark underbelly of Telstra’s operations. I approached Mr. Hawker not just with my grievances, but with alarming reports from other customers in our area, all of whom were entangled in the web of Telstra’s deceitful practices. Their troubles mirrored my own—repeated instances of compromised service and unsettling interference.

In late 1995, growing increasingly alarmed by these murky dealings, Mr. Hawker orchestrated a meeting with the then-Shadow Minister for Communications in his Canberra office. The Senator’s concern about the dubious way my arbitration had been managed was palpable. He pressed me for additional documentation, keenly pursuing the unethical behaviour exhibited by various parties entangled in my arbitration—an arbitration that was supposed to be straightforward. It became clear that, like the rest of us, the Senator had been misled into believing that the arbitration process would be simple and devoid of legal complications.

In the aftermath of my arbitration 'award,' a chilling realization dawned on the Shadow Minister. The Freedom of Information documents revealed that Telstra had not just fabricated test results; they had brazenly allowed the discredited 10th November 1993 BCI Addendum Report on Cape Bridgewater to linger in the Public Domain. This flawed report was a weapon for Telstra, wielded in public forums to bolster their false narratives about the quality of their telephone network—one such instance being on the Channel Nine program "A Current Affair."

Following the Senator’s request for further details, I bombarded his office with additional proof—evidence that Telstra technicians had been surreptitiously eavesdropping on my private conversations throughout the arbitration. The gravity of the situation intensified when it was revealed that Telstra continued this unauthorized surveillance for months, despite having assured the Australian Federal Police and the Chairman of the Board that the practice had ceased. As a former lawyer, the Senator understood the insidious implications of Telstra’s actions; he could see the immense advantage they were gaining by sneaking insights from the very calls meant to strategize and support my claims. This was not merely a breach of trust; it was an orchestrated scheme of manipulation and deception, a glaring affront to justice.

How easy it is for someone with the right contacts to uncover inside information.  My movements were monitored by the very corporation I was doing legal battle with and some of my important claim documents simply vanished while being faxed.  How useful it must have been for Telstra to know where I was and when.  And how useful it could have been if they were also able to check what information I was lodging with the arbitrator and make the most damaging simply disappear before it got to him.

In December 1994 I received FOI documents R11612 to R13587, which included questions for the Senate Estimates Committee, put on notice by the Shadow Minister for Communications, to be answered by Telstra.  Document R13587 states: “According to an ex-Telstra employee who had responsibility for security and file management in the period from 1987 until 1992, Telstra installed some computer links between its billing computers — a database system containing customer details, and computers in other organisations, i.e. Australia Post.”

This document then asks the following questions (among others):

1.         Could you name each and every organisation which is linked to Telstra’s billing computer?

2.         Does (the then-Intelligence Service) have access to personal files kept by Telstra?

3.         Can each and every one of these organisations access Telstra’s files containing billing details?

5.         Could you guarantee that no Parliamentarians, who have had dealings with “COT” members, have had their phone conversations bugged or taped by Telstra?

9.         Who authorised this taping of “COT” members phone conversations and how many and which Telstra employees were involved in either the voice recordings, transcribing the recordings or analysing the tapes?

10.       On what basis is Telstra denying copies of tapes to those customers which it has admitted to taping?

11. (A) How many customers has Telstra recorded as having had their phone conversations taped without knowledge or consent since 1990?

            (B) Of these, how may were customers who had compensation claims, including ex-Telstra employees, against Telstra?

25.An internal Telstra minute in relation to Alan Smith of Cape Bridgewater states: “Our local technicians believe that Mr Smith is correct in raising complaints about incoming callers to his number receiving a recorded voice announcement saying the number is disconnected.  They believe that it is a problem that is occurring in increasing numbers as more and more customers are connected to the AXE.

This document, and questions asked of Telstra in the Senate by the Shadow Minister, make it quite clear that the Senator was then, and still is, aware that Telstra taped and listened in to private phone calls made by COT members who still, in 2004, fear that their calls are being listened to.  Anyone who had access to the many, many documents I have read over the years I have been battling for justice would have the same fears.

It's astonishing how effortlessly those with the right connections can dig up damning inside information. The very corporation I was fighting in court was actively surveillant my every move, turning my struggle for justice into a twisted game. Key documents related to my case mysteriously disappeared while being sent, suggesting a calculated effort by Telstra to obstruct my claims. Imagine the advantage they held, knowing my whereabouts and the specifics of my submissions to the arbitrator—what a sinister opportunity it created for them to erase the most damaging evidence before it reached him.

In December 1994, I received FOI documents, including stark revelations that raised more questions than answers. One document, attributed to a former Telstra employee who managed security and files from 1987 to 1992, alluded to a network of computer links enabling access to sensitive customer information. This connection with external organizations, including Australia Post, implies a web of collusion that runs deep. 

Questions posed to Telstra were alarming, probing into their shadowy practices: Who else was linked to their billing system? Did intelligence agencies have uncensored access to personal data? And startlingly, could Telstra guarantee that members of parliament intertwined with COT members were safe from invasive surveillance? It’s chilling that they were recording phone conversations, with the identities of those involved in this **unlawful** operation shrouded in secrecy. 

As the years went on, I uncovered internal Telstra communications acknowledging problems with their system, yet their reluctance to accept responsibility was glaring. Those who stood against them, like Alan Smith, were silenced, their voices silenced by a corporation hell-bent on deception. The lingering fear among COT members in 2004—fearing their calls might still be monitored—speaks volumes of the treachery at play.

When the Coalition Government took power in 1996, the tables turned. The Shadow Minister became the Minister for Communications and the Arts, yet nothing substantial was achieved regarding Telstra’s wrongdoing. My exhaustive report, a mere chronological listing that spanned eighty-two pages, was sent to him, detailing the extensive misconduct I had documented over the years. Despite the overwhelming evidence presented, all I received was a cold acknowledgement, a mere formality that revealed a disconcerting lack of action. Even when I raised serious concerns about the TIO’s deceptive practices, their primary interest seemed to lie in furthering their agenda, rather than pursuing justice.

The level of corruption, the betrayal of trust, and the sinister undercurrents at play illustrate a system that protects its own while crushing those who dare to speak the truth.

 

CHAPTER 32

 

In Chapter 23, I recounted the troubling ‘beer in the phone’ saga, a tale that took a darker turn on 28th November 1995. This was not just about a flimsy argument—this was six months after the arbitrator issued his award, nearly a year since I first requested that Telstra’s defence unit provide access to the T200 phone they had seized from my office for testing. This was the very phone they had the audacity to claim was tainted by ‘beer in the phone’, a supposed ‘lock-up fault’ that conveniently absolved their network of any wrongdoing.

I’ve always maintained that someone had to introduce that beer into the phone after it left my premises, yet the arbitrator blocked my forensic document researcher from examining the draft of the T200 technical report. Why? Had the arbitrator been compromised? If my researcher had seen that document, we might have uncovered the twisted web of deceit woven by Telstra’s technical unit.

Fast forward to the evening of 28th November, and I stumbled across a shocking bundle of late-discovered documents from Telstra. Imagine my disbelief when I found laboratory reports detailing tests that assessed how long beer could remain moist inside the phone casing. The findings were terrifying: left overnight, the beer either evaporated nearly completely or dried up entirely by the next day. Telstra’s own lab staff seemed to conclude that beer couldn’t possibly linger for the twelve days between when the phone left my office and when it arrived at their lab. 

Could a corporate behemoth like Telstra really descend to fraudulent measures, fabricating a ‘beer in the phone’ narrative merely to defend their faltering network? The thought was chilling, but it felt increasingly plausible by the day.

The revelation hit me hard that night, igniting a fire of righteous indignation. In a moment of impulse and anxiety, I dialled the arbitrator’s home number, just as the clock struck eight. His wife picked up, and panic hit me. I didn't want her thinking I was making trouble, so I quickly masked my identity, opting to use the name of a well-known project manager—the first name that sprang to mind, hoping it would assuage any suspicion.

According to my phone records, that call lasted a mere twenty-eight seconds—a brief, frantic moment that felt like eternity.

Once I regained my composure, I reached out to the TIO, bubbling with revelations about the documents that could turn the tide. This was no small matter; we had unearthed evidence that not only was the BCI report flawed, but it was evident that Telstra also conjured up a fabricated T200 report to shield themselves from accountability. This was a grave misconduct—tampering with evidence in a legal arbitration carries serious repercussions. Would those in power at Telstra attempt to conceal this corruption, or would justice finally be served?

I disclosed to the TIO my desperate attempts to reach the arbitrator, revealing that I had finally uncovered laboratory documents that substantiated serious and unlawful behaviour. The alarming discovery suggested that someone had deliberately tampered with my phone by introducing the 'beer' into it after it was removed from my office. This act of tampering with critical defence material was not just serious; it was an urgent matter that required immediate scrutiny. However, the TIO's response was chillingly dismissive—he flatly declared that my arbitration had reached its conclusion and expressed no intention of delving deeper into the investigation. As if the obstacle of financial resources would magically disappear if he suggested I go to the Supreme Court!

As if that wasn't troubling enough, I later received a letter from the President of the Institute of Arbitrators (Aust). It contained a copy of a letter from the TIO that raised even more red flags. Following my conversation with the TIO about my effort to contact the arbitrator, he had the audacity to recount a completely fabricated version of events to the Institute President. He claimed I had called the arbitrator's home at two in the morning, and noted the use of a false name, which I acknowledge—but his insinuation was clear. Why would anyone call at such a ridiculous hour unless they were trying to intimidate? The TIO, aware of my mistreatment by the justice system, chose to twist an innocent attempt to reach out into something sinister, demonstrating a clear intent to tarnish my reputation.

What authority did the TIO have to distort the truth in his correspondence? Supposedly an unbiased figure, he crafted a letter that essentially smeared my character, casting doubt on my integrity. If he was willing to tarnish my name during my arbitration, what kind of bias permeated his dealings with other members of the COT group? Was he really supporting the interests of the public or the telecommunications giants who seem to pull the strings?

The alarm grows upon realizing that the TIO also forwarded his misleading letter to the arbitrator. Surely, the arbitrator would verify my version of events with his wife. If he had, I believe she would confirm that I called at a reasonable hour—not in the dead of night—and that I had been completely courteous. Why hasn’t the arbitrator stood up to dispel this grotesque distortion of reality?

At least the Institute President allowed me to defend myself, and I seized that opportunity, confident that the arbitrator would corroborate my account of politeness and the correct time of my call. If we revisit Chapter 23, it's evident that I have irrefutable evidence proving the tampering of my Exicom T200 touchphone after it left my office for examination by Telstra. The TIO should have factored this alarming detail into his letter to the Institute President. What’s even more disconcerting is the knowledge that Telstra was willing to sign a Statutory Declaration, falsely affirming the integrity of their report regarding the 'beer' in my phone, fully aware that the report was a blatant fabrication. One of their technicians even had the gall to sign a deceptive Statutory Declaration claiming ‘customer operator error’ for persistent faults with my fax machine, when he knew full well those issues were rooted in network malfunctions.

The FOI Document D01026 uncovers the truth behind the Exicom T200 touchphone debacle. It reveals that Telstra was not only aware of moisture issues linked to this phone brand but also recognized that these moisture issues resulted in incorrect charging errors on customer accounts. Yet both my arbitrator and Telstra conveniently ignored these critical short duration/incorrect charging faults during the arbitration process, despite Telstra's previous assurances to the Regulator that they would address these very matters in their defence against my claims. The deception runs deep, and it seems not even the most sensitive issues can pierce the veil of corruption that shrouds this entire affair.

The situation is nothing short of outrageous, as evidenced by document D01026. It appears that Telstra consciously re-deployed faulty phones, oblivious to the harm they were inflicting on unsuspecting customers—an alarming total of four hundred and fifty thousand. Did Telstra employ someone with such questionable meteorological expertise that they made decisions on where to send these moisture-sensitive devices? Take Cape Bridgewater, notorious for its high moisture levels; only after my relentless complaints was the local exchange sealed off from moisture damage. 

If there truly is a so-called “meteorological wizard” in their ranks, did he ever stop to think about the humidity levels in places like fish and chip shops, bakeries, industrial kitchens, and heated swimming pools? The air in those environments would undoubtedly be thicker with moisture than in other locations. It makes one wonder how many of those defective T200 phones are still in use, and how many innocent Telstra customers continue to pay for calls they never received, just as I did for far too long.

Then there's the legality—or rather, the glaring lack of it—surrounding Telstra's distribution of knowingly faulty products. No matter how the Australian Trade Practices Act interprets these actions, point 1 of FOI document D01026 shows Telstra dismissively stating that faulty phones would "still have to be deployed in areas of lower moisture risk." This raises a red flag about the apparent immunity Telstra enjoys, evading the Trade Practices laws that govern other businesses in Australia and seemingly bypassing multiple Acts of Parliament.

Adding to the sinister nature of this situation is the suggestion that Telstra and its employees operate with an air of invulnerability, as if they are above the law. They’ve certainly shown no regard for protecting Australian business executives or ordinary citizens from their rampant misconduct. 

Given that these four hundred and fifty thousand TF200 phones may have continued to operate for years despite Telstra's knowledge of their flaws, you can’t help but question the astronomical revenue they accrued from incorrect billing due to locked-up calls—revenue they knew was earned under deceptive circumstances. It's abundantly clear that Telstra benefitted massively from this overcharging scandal, with my case being a prime example. 

A document from 2001 confirms that Telstra acknowledged their wrongful billing on my 1800 line during arbitration. The TIO was aware of the ongoing issues, having reached out to Telstra on 3rd October 1995, demanding answers for their failure to investigate the faults I had reported. This has all the hallmarks of a deeply corrupt system, where profit is prioritized over ethical responsibility.

 

CHAPTER 33

 

When the TIO and his legal counsel first began to pressure the COT four into abandoning the commercial process, the FTSP, and signing for arbitration, the FTPA, no-one bothered to tell us that the appointed arbitrator was not qualified (graded) by the Institute of Arbitrators.  This meant that, technically, he was not fully qualified to handle any arbitration, let alone one that was so complex and far-reaching as ours.  This was just another part of the comedy of errors that we had become caught up in.

In 1996 the President of the Institute wrote to me, confirming our belief that the appointment of a non-graded arbitrator was ‘always a risk’.  To add insult to the injury of this situation, I was later informed that the arbitrator, while involved with the COT cases, sat, and failed, his grading examination which, if he had passed, would have seen him admitted into the Institute’s register as a graded arbitrator.

This information was all passed to the Minister for Communications, and the TIO, as it came to light and yet, still, no-one has been able to explain why such an un-graded was chosen to oversee such a vast process.

So, the arbitrator was not fully qualified, but at least, we thought, we always had the TIO to fall back on and the TIO was an unbiased observer in this process.  Well, once again, we discovered (too late to help me) that we were wrong.  The TIO’s office is supervised by a board and the members of the board are drawn from the leading communications companies in the country, including Telstra.  In fact, the very person in charge of authorising the supply of discovery documents to the members of COT under FOI, was also the Telstra representative on the council of the TIO’s office.   

This was a highly legalistic arbitration, which has so far cost Telstra more than eighteen million dollars to defend.  What chance did the COT’s have when we had to rely on Telstra documents to support our claims and the person in charge of distribution of those documents also sat on the council of the TIO?  This gave Telstra private access to the TIO himself, without the need to include COT members.  No wonder we felt so hopeless.

I discovered later that, in January and February of 1996, after I had complained to the Institute of Arbitrators, the President wrote to the arbitrator and asked for an explanation.  On 23^rd January 1996, the arbitrator wrote to the TIO, expressing his concerns regarding the way he should reply to the President of the Institute, particularly if he was to: “… make a full and frank disclosure of the facts to (the President)”.  What was he so concerned about?  Not long after I found this document, I found a TIO fax cover sheet dated 26^th June 1995, just six weeks after my arbitration, which indicated that the TIO’s office was then concerned about letters I had sent to the arbitrator.  This fax asks what: “… the approach should be re parties seeking to revisit issues past arbitration” and noted that: “… this position is not to open the ‘can of worms’.”  What can of worms, we must ask?  This was supposed to be an independent ombudsman, administering a legal arbitration!  There should not be any area that would cause such concerns.

Then we have a letter the arbitrator wrote to the TIO on 12^th May 1995, the day after he had deliberated on my award, in which he notes that the arbitration had not been a ‘credible process’.  If the TIO had passed this letter on to me at the time I could have successfully challenged the arbitrator’s findings.  After all, how could an appeal judge in the supreme court rule against the arbitrator’s own advice to the administrator that the process was not credible because the rules had not allowed sufficient time for delays associated with the production of documents, obtaining further particulars and the preparation of technical reports, particularly since the project manager had complained of ‘not enough time’ also?

In this letter of 12^th May, the arbitrator went on to say: “In summary, it is my view that, if the process is to remain credible, it is necessary to contemplate a time frame for completion which is longer than presently contained in the arbitration agreement.”  So, did anything change in the rules?  No, both the arbitrator and the TIO’s office continued to arbitrate on the other members of COT, under a set of rules they both knew were not credible.

On the very day that the arbitrator was writing his letter to explain to the TIO that there were serious problems with the arbitration process, the TIO was busy sending out a media release announcing the successful conclusion of the “… first COT Case arbitration”.  According to this official release, the TIO noted that: “… the findings of the Resource Unit, the specialist technical advisers to the Arbitrator, indicated that the claimant had suffered considerable technical difficulties during the period in question.  It was found that faults did exist which caused the service to fall below a reasonable level, and that apart from some customer premises equipment…, most of the problems were in the Inter Exchange Network.”  And was there ever an announcement to the public regarding the arbitrator’s assessment that the process that arrived at this conclusion was faulty?  No, of course not.  And did I ever get the opportunity to let the public know that the comment about ‘customer premises equipment’ – probably the infamous TF200 beer-in-the-phone report – had been based on a manufactured and totally incorrect report?  No, of course not.  And did this announcement make any mention of the fact that, regardless of the findings, the faults continued to plague my business?  No, of course not!

When the project manager wrote to the TIO about not having enough time, he also noted that he had suffered some damage to his private property in Brighton and that the local police planned to interview me in relation to this damage.  This letter was later passed on to the President of the Institute of Arbitrators by the arbitrator in a clear attempt to damage my reputation.  Once he had received this letter, the President refused to investigate my matters any further.  As soon as I uncovered the project manager’s lies, I phoned the Brighton CIB and asked them to check their records.  The informed me they had never heard of me and had never intended to interview me on any matter.  And why, when the arbitrator wrote to the President of the Institute (who lived in Western Australia and probably was therefore not familiar with suburbs and country towns in Victoria) did the arbitrator fail to mention that I lived almost five hundred kilometres from the project manager?

In his letter to the President of the Institute, the arbitrator also asserted that he had ‘viewed’ all twenty-four thousand of my claim documents and that they were all also ‘viewed’ by the project manager and the technical unit but, of course, we now know this to be a lie.

As more documents arrived, I found it harder to just shut the door on the saga and walk away.  I became increasingly convinced that I had been the victim of a deliberate act of sabotage, particularly in relation to the ‘beer in the phone’ episode but also in relation to other incidents.  Why, I wondered, did the arbitrator not make any finding regarding lost faxes, both before and during the arbitration process?  These lost faxes included valuable evidence, but they had somehow been lost in Telstra’s network, en route to the arbitrator’s office for assessment by the resource unit and by Telstra’s defence unit.  These two episodes became the focus for me and the driving force behind my persistence in trying to uncover the truth: I still couldn’t understand why the arbitrator had apparently not seen through Telstra’s attempt to make me out to be a drunk by saying that my fax problems were caused by alcohol in the fax/phone.  Wasn’t it obvious to the arbitrator that Telstra wanted the faulty line to be hidden from the resource unit in case they stumbled on the truth – that Telstra’s lines were causing the problems? 

The only way any of the members of COT could prove their cases was by using documents buried in Telstra’s archives; how likely were we to get our hands on them?

During question time at a Senate meeting on the environment, recreation, communications and the arts, on the 24^{th of} June 1997, Telstra were asked several questions regarding their involvement in the supply of discovery documents to the COTs, under the FOI Act.  By this time the Commonwealth Ombudsman had completed her findings relating to Telstra’s defective administration of the supply of discovery documents to Ann Garms, Graham Schorer and me.  Obviously, the repercussions of this defective supply of documentation had severely disadvantaged me when I was preparing my claim.  Months after the arbitrator had handed down his decision in my arbitration, I was still receiving hundreds, even thousands, of discovery documents.  Among all these documents I often found items that would have been most useful in supporting the information in my claim.  By then, of course, they were of no use anymore.

The public record of Parliamentary proceedings, ‘Hansard’, shows that, at a meeting on 27^th June 1997, a Telstra whistle-blower made several alarming statements to the Senate, including a report relating to the group he worked with while assessing the COT FOI documents.  According to the whistleblower, this group was originally housed in the same building as Telstra’s solicitors.  He said that, in the early days of his involvement, there were four technical specialists and about six people from Telstra’s accountants helping the Telstra team.  The documents that were finally forwarded on to the COT members all travelled through this process first, he told the Senate.

According to the Hansard report of this question time, the following exchange then took place:  The National Party Senator asked the whistleblower — “So Telstra had masses of documents relating to each of these cases.  Your job in this team was to interpret those documents and explain to — what lawyers — what those documents meant?”

            The whistleblower replied — “They were committed to an Excel file.  My job was to determine what the documents were, who they were from, who they were to, what value they were.  They were put on an ‘Excel’ file and that was put on the Telstra mainframe system.  The legal people used them; (the accountants) took what they wanted out of it, I would imagine.  What happened to them after I had deciphered them, I do not know.”

            The Senator then asked — “Are you aware of any of those listings, those explanations of the FOI documents, ever being made available to the complainants?”  To which (the whistleblower) responded — “It was not part of my responsibilities.”

Certainly, in the time leading up to my arbitration, or during the arbitration itself, I never received any copies of any Excel file lists associated with my FOI claim documents.  These documents were not forwarded to me until TWO AND A HALF YEARS AFTER the arbitrator had brought down his findings.

Still the TIO and the Minister continued to cover up the unethical way in which the COT arbitrations were handled.

But, back to the Senate debate on 24^th June 1997.  The then-Shadow Minister for Communications raised the question of the eighteen million dollars that Telstra had paid out in legal fees during the COT arbitrations.  In relation to the $1.74 million that the COT claimants had collectively received so far, he asked Telstra’s Group Director - Regulator of External Affairs: “The thing that really is annoying is that the lawyers got millions, you paid them millions to go through all of this process and the claimants got $1.7 million — we know who won this case.”

            The Shadow Minister for Communications later added: “Yes, but you went through a process of hanging people out to dry for a long time.”

After this statement from the Shadow Minister, a Labor Senator commented to the whistleblower: “Is it not the case in regard to the particular matters I raised regarding Alan Smith, that your own advice in documents that I have seen — they purport to be from the (technical resource unit), dated 30 April, I think it is their document, I am not altogether certain so please do not let me misrepresent the matter.  But I have a document here, headed up “TELSTRA SECRET”, which suggests that some time ago you were being advised that Mr Smith was likely to secure a substantial payment through a legal arbitration process.  Is it not the case that probably it would have been in your commercial interest to have settled long before you did?”

This question was answered by the Telstra COT co-ordinator who had overseen the COT arbitrations and who, as mentioned previously, was also a member of the counsel to the TIO’s office.  He replied: “There were negotiations held with Mr Smith before the matter went into arbitration.  We could not reach a final settlement with Mr Smith before the matter went to arbitration.  It was then taken over by the Regulator in its investigation into what became the COT Report.”

The Telstra COT co-ordinator, however, was one of the people who, back on 1^st October 1993, had received a high priority e-mail, later to become FOI document A04483, from another Telstra worker.  This e-mail related to an article which was due to be printed in the Melbourne Age Newspaper on the following day.  The e-mail noted, in part, that a journalist: “… is to publish a story concerning Alan Smith who’s called for a public jury to hear his complaint.  If we win — he shuts up!  If he wins, the WFB … resign.  (The journalist) is aware that this is just a media stunt given the extensive initiatives currently under way to resolve the COT matters.

            Am currently discussing matter with (name deleted) prior to responding to (the journalist), who rang me with the news.

            This will blow away or certainly diminish Mr Smith’s call for a public jury to solve his complaints.”

The Telstra COT co-ordinator also received a copy of another e-mail from the same person (FOI A05254) on 17^th November 1993, referring to a question being raised by Canberra Liaison Group regarding the “… merits/demerits of holding back the Bell Canada tests — information for a ‘cleansing’ programme after the mess of the Coopers and Lybrand Report.”

Later, at a Legislation Committee meeting in the Senate on 27^th February 1998, the same Telstra worker admitted to a Senator that he was aware that Telstra had falsified defence documents during another COT arbitration. 

In my opinion, other similar documents show that Telstra’s COT co-ordinator and supplier of our FOI discovery documents was aware of many of the different aspects and different issues surrounding our case, but this does not seem to be the impression he gave to the Senators.

Back about the middle of 1993, with phone faults continuing to plague my business, I had asked that an independent person be appointed, perhaps by the Regulator or the Government, to take over my office for a week.  I said at the time that, if that person could survive just one week with the phones in my office without going ‘nuts’ I would be amazed but I would walk away from the whole dispute.  On the other hand, I suggested, if this independent person found that my complaints to Telstra were valid then the Chairman of the Board of Telstra should take over responsibility for seeing my case through to the end.  My suggestion was not taken up.

Later we discovered that there had been a variety of problems at the Cape Bridgewater exchange which no-one was aware of, at the time.  The first was that Telstra technicians had not insulated the exchange, and moisture was causing some of the problems I was experiencing.  The second problem was caused because the same technicians who had installed the exchange in August 1991, had also forgotten to connect the fault alarm (as discussed previously).  Because the Cape Bridgewater exchange was unmanned, the technicians at Portland relied on this alarm to let them know if there were any problems.  Obviously, if the alarm wasn’t connected, the technicians at Portland didn’t know of any of the faults that were occurring.  Finally, heat in the unmanned exchange was creating even more problems.  Much later a local technician discovered that at least one of the exchange systems failed when the ambient temperature reached 74ºF or 23ºC.  Once this problem was discovered, a cooling fan was installed.

Telstra’s COT co-ordinator’s statement that Telstra had been unable to reach a final settlement with me before going to arbitration infers that I was stubbornly refusing to negotiate and that my stubbornness created the need for arbitration.  In fact, the Regulator’s General Manager for Consumer Affairs understood I was pushing for a commercial assessment, and I had been pushing for this from the very beginning.  The last thing the COT members ever wanted was a legal process.  It is clear from many of the FOI documents I now have however, that from the start Telstra were only interested in forcing the COT members into a legal process, fully aware that, even if we won our cases, the cost to each of us would deliver a blow which, in the end, would mean that our group would be beaten by the enormous costs involved in mounting a legal case, while Telstra just continued to dip into the public purse.

There are still many questions waiting to be answered by Telstra.  The Commonwealth Ombudsman’s office has also been attempting to extract replies from Telstra on my behalf.  In one instance I asked the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s office to supply a copy of a letter from Telstra to my arbitrator on 25^th January 1994 and copies of subsequent fax documents sent by the arbitrator to Telstra on 11^th February 1994.  In response to a request from the Commonwealth Ombudsman, Telstra wrote that they had finally located the documents in question in a file belonging to a past senior Telstra executive.  They then forwarded the required letters on to the Ombudsman.  This was a small win, but it was far outweighed by the other documents which were never supplied.  For instance — early in the arbitration process I had asked, under FOI, to see documents explaining just how the rules of the arbitration had been arrived at, particularly the first draft of these rules.  When the Commonwealth Ombudsman passed this request on to Telstra she received the following reply:  “Telstra has been unable to locate Mr (name deleted)’s further general files which include copies of the correspondence received from (the arbitrator’s firm) in relation to the development of the Fast Track Arbitration Process and I am told that these files, along with other documents, were disposed of by his personal assistant sometime after he left Telstra’s employ.”

So, it seems that everyday letters can be located but important evidence, relating to a legal process such as my arbitration, were lost forever.  This missing evidence could well have proved that the so-called ‘independent’ rules that the members of COT had signed were not so independent after all.

Many documents mysteriously disappeared, and many organisations disassociated themselves from my arbitration over the years.  When I raised issues with the Institute of Arbitrators in a letter dated 18^th January 1995, I was advised by the then President of the Institute that: “The Institute of Arbitrators Australia has absolutely no connection with the arbitration between Telstra and yourself.”

To this day I believe that he was probably told that, but I have evidence from the TIO’s office that, in fact, at the time of the FTAP, the TIO and my arbitrator stated in writing that the President of the Institute helped draft some of the rules of the arbitration.  This man is now a County Court Judge.

This ‘non-legalistic’ arbitration was cursed with confusion and complications from the very beginning and even now no-one seems willing to explain why so many of my claim documents disappeared during the process.  When I discovered that the technical resource unit only assessed my phone and fax faults from February 1988 to August 1994 I became even more convinced of a conspiracy of immense proportions; a conspiracy not only involving the arbitrator, Telstra and those who administered the procedure, but also involving people higher up within Telstra, people who had the power to hide evidence.  Either my faxes were being intercepted en route to the arbitrator’s office, or the arbitrator’s office was not passing them to Telstra’s defence unit so they could be addressed as part of the arbitration procedure.

It has been stated by Telstra, their lawyers and several independent technical experts that, between 26^th May and 19^th August 1993, because the malicious-call-tracing equipment locked my 1800 line up for ninety seconds after the completion of each successful call, no incoming call could have been answered during these ninety seconds.  This proves, of course, that at least some of my calls were answered somewhere other than at my business.  According to Telstra’s own data, at least forty separate incoming calls were diverted during this period, without including Telstra’s test calls.  So, were my faxes, originally intended for the arbitrator’s eyes only, also ending up at this unknown location?

How many Australian businesses have lost out to aggressive and unexpected take-overs when they were in a vulnerable position?  How many of these businesses were surprised by the take-over bid because they believed no-one knew their situation?  How many were hijacked because someone had access to their telephone conversations?

How easy has it been to target my business, under the nose of the Government?  How many legal battles in Australia have been open and shut cases with clear evidence to support a win and, at the last moment, the case is lost because the opposition has unearthed sensitive information?  How much information, trusted to the Telstra network by Australian citizens and businesses, believed to be a private exchange of information between two people only, is being high jacked via the telephone network?

As an example, in my case alone, Telstra have listed the documents they received as part of my claim in arbitration, but this list is forty-three documents short of the number that I forwarded to the arbitrator, to be sent on to Telstra’s lawyers.  Even the most unscrupulous arbitrator in the country would not withhold this much claim material.  So – where are these documents?

Even more than lost faxes, my lost incoming phone calls add up to an awful lot of lost revenue.  Although some of my customers returned annually for more than ten years, I still couldn’t afford to lose forty calls in three months -- forty prospective new customers.  Perhaps these people are now regularly visiting another holiday camp somewhere -- who knows?  What we do know, however, is that so far, the Australian Government seems powerless to tackle the ‘big brother’ of Telstra’s corporate management team.

In Chapter 34, you will see how much our government cared when a small business operator highlighted the dangers of documents lost in Telstra’s network.  If I was representing the Ford Motor Company, or BHP, or one of any number of other multi-national companies in Australia, I am sure these complaints would have been investigated long ago.

 

CHAPTER 34

 

My patience, already stretched to its breaking point, finally snapped. It felt as if the crucial documents related to the mounting problems since August 1994 had simply evaporated into thin air. These issues persisted relentlessly until July 1998, with a stream of letters arriving from desperate individuals detailing fax failures—problems occurring on both ends of the line, whether they attempted to send me important communications or vice versa. 

Then came June 1998, when I received alarming letters from five different businesses, each recounting their own harrowing experiences with the fax system. Among these, one letter from a local secretarial service detailed a series of vexing problems, such as:

- Blank pages mysteriously appearing during transmissions

- Strange strips of paper surfacing

- Distorted figures and stretched letters creeping into their documents

- Entire pages filled with oppressive black lines

The service lamented, “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 words resonated with urgency, highlighting a system that seemed to be systematically failing—or worse, sabotaging—its users.

To deepen my frustration, on July 30, 1998, I received a chilling letter from the Australian Federal Police, dismissing my claims as “not important enough.” If the Federal Police couldn’t grasp the catastrophic implications of forty-three missing faxes intended for an arbitrator, then who could possibly intervene in this festering chaos? In contrast, lost documents sent via courier come with accountability; yet, Telstra’s network seemed to operate above scrutiny, leaving a trail of lost communications without any means for investigation.

Another round of rejection came my way on August 18, 1998, when the Attorney General’s office echoed a similar sentiment, stating they “cannot be of assistance… in this matter.” If the very office tasked with upholding justice turns a blind eye to the disappearance of legal documents transmitted by fax, and the Federal Police remain impotent, then what sinister forces are at play? Who else could possibly care?

I can’t shake the gnawing suspicion that the piracy of faxed documents is rampant in Australia—not just in Telstra’s dealings, but across the board, impacting businesses and individuals alike. On July 1, 1998, I reached out once more to the Deputy Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, alarmed not only by the “loss” of my faxes but also by the disturbing reality that others were arriving so mangled that they were unreadable. I enclosed evidence—documents that had originally been faxed to the arbitrator, only to return to me as fragmented pages or entirely blank. Despite this, my Telstra fax account still charged me the full price for sending these garbled documents. Yet, the TIO’s office sat quietly, refusing to act or acknowledge the severity of the situation.

Even clearer examples emerged when I faxed bank statements to the project manager's office, which inexplicably arrived devoid of vital details, despite still referencing my accounts. Some pages bore a handwritten note bizarrely proclaiming, “Smith’s Bank Statements,” written in handwriting that was not my own. I pressed the TIO to uncover the identity behind this mysterious scrawl, but once again, my queries went unanswered.

Faced with this treacherous landscape, I demanded to know how the project manager's office could possibly evaluate my financial position accurately when critical documents arrived so distorted—yet the silence persisted. It was a web of deceit, incompetence, and indifference that left me trapped and frustrated, grappling with a system designed to protect the powerful while casting aside the vulnerable.

Under point 25 of the rules, I am entitled to receive every shred of my claim material back from Telstra’s defence counsel, including the forty-three mysteriously ‘missing’ faxes that seem to vanish into thin air. Despite my repeated requests, the TIO has been conspicuously silent, failing to compel Telstra or their legal team to produce these crucial documents. 

This blatant neglect suggests that the TIO understands most of my claims never reached Telstra’s defence unit or their legal counsel. If that's true, it renders any directive to return these documents utterly pointless—after all, they never had them to begin with. One can’t help but question why the TIO, entrusted with safeguarding fairness, has abandoned his so-called ‘duty of care’ during my arbitration process.

In a desperate bid to reclaim ALL my documentation, I reached out to numerous high-ranking officials: the Minister for Communications, the Minister for Justice, the Attorney General, and the Federal Treasurer, alongside the TIO. They have all been implored to urge the involved parties to return everything—each document, not just a select few conveniently lost in the shuffle.

The TIO’s role was to act as an impartial entity, yet the COT members and I have gathered ample evidence suggesting his blatant bias throughout these proceedings. Disturbingly, I have learned from a credible source that both the TIO and the Minister for Communications enjoyed a lavish trip to Atlanta during the Olympic Games, funded by none other than Telstra. While this may not be outright illegal, it raises troubling questions about their integrity. Given the significant stakes involving Telstra, why would they risk even the appearance of impropriety? If I were in their position, my conscience would have outright forbidden me from accepting such a corrupting gift, especially considering how grievously Telstra has mistreated COT members seeking justice.

The TIO compelled the four COTs to abandon a functional commercial assessment process (the FTSP) in favour of an arbitration procedure, misleading us to believe it would be straightforward and free from legal entanglements. The administrator of this flawed process (the TIO) neglected his duty to ensure that the arbitrator appointed for such a complex matter was adequately qualified. From the very beginning, this should have screamed disaster. The TIO assured us that the rules were drawn up in consultation with the then president of the Institute of Arbitrators Australia, now a County Court Judge. Yet, we later discovered that the Institute had no connection to our arbitration, according to the then current president. And another subsequent president disclosed that the Institute was never consulted to provide a suitably graded arbitrator for the arbitration we found ourselves ensnared in. It’s chilling to consider that one of the very individuals involved in drafting the rules was, at that time, president of the Institute. Didn’t he owe it to the TIO to flag the alarming fact that the selected arbitrator lacked the necessary qualifications? It’s particularly disturbing that this arbitrator was still sitting for exams during the arbitration and even failed them!

Through the years I’ve been ensnared in this disgraceful saga, COT members have made it a point to keep the TIO, the Minister for Communications, and the Minister for Justice fully informed about our claims, providing continuous and updated documentation to support our positions. In my case, I have consistently documented proof showcasing that my arbitration was not conducted according to principles of natural justice. 

One pivotal issue raised with these high-ranking officials pertains to the complete financial report prepared by the arbitration project manager, tasked with evaluating how Telstra's shoddy service affected my financial losses. Shockingly, acting on the arbitrator’s instructions, this project manager retracted a significant portion of the final report, omitting all essential figures that illustrated how he reached his conclusions. Both he and the arbitrator knew that stripping this information would undermine my forensic accountant's ability to craft a comprehensive response. The absence of this critical data left my case hanging by a thread, further exposing the layered deception and sinister motives at play.

 

The entire ordeal surrounding my arbitration has been marred by lost documents and manipulated reports from the start, painting a disturbing picture of corruption and deceit. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) succinctly captured this sentiment in their press release dated 20th September 1998, ominously titled, “QAI says Telstra hid report.” 

In this troubling release, the ABC reported that a major Australian telecommunications corporation has levelled serious accusations against Telstra and the Federal Government for engaging in a cover-up by failing to disclose a critical report on Telstra's billing issues. QAI Australia Limited, seeking $14 million in damages, is desperately trying to unearth this report, which was commissioned by the Minister for Communications, through the Freedom of Information Act. Notably, while the Government begrudgingly agreed to release an edited version, Telstra, it seems, is desperately trying to obstruct this transparency by appealing the decision.

QAI’s Managing Director has been vocal about the necessity of releasing the report, asking, “If the report is not material, if it has little relevance or significance, why the big secret?” His statement underscores a growing suspicion that we are witnessing a significant cover-up—if there’s nothing to hide, why the resistance to disclosure?

Furthermore, a letter from the Minister for Communications, which reached my office on 17th June 1998, seems to reflect a blatant refusal to address my legitimate claims regarding incorrect charges, which I meticulously detailed in my interim and final submissions. The Minister’s correspondence stated, “The TIO is currently investigating your claims of overcharging on 1800 numbers,” but demonstrated a shocking lack of accountability by asserting that “The Government has no jurisdiction to intervene” in matters under the TIO’s scrutiny. This response feels like a convenient dodge, sheltering Telstra from the fallout while leaving consumers like me with unanswered issues.

While the Minister's office acknowledged the investigation into the disconnection of my gold-phone service—an egregious act that occurred in December 1995, which I couldn't rectify until selling my business in 2001—the regular complaints from my customers about their inability to reach me echo the grim reality of our so-called “democratic society.” 

Adding another layer of deception, a Hansard report from 30th November 1995 records that the last Senate sitting before the Liberal-National Party Coalition took office featured a motion demanding an independent inquiry into Telstra’s exploitative practices and the detrimental costs imposed on COT members during the agonizingly prolonged, overly legalistic arbitration process. Alarmingly, this motion faced no opposition from the then-Labor Government, yet once the new Communications Minister assumed power—the same individual who had the authority to act on that motion—he chose silence. My gold-phone remained disconnected and the TIO continues to deliberate, seemingly buying time instead of finding solutions. The entire situation reeks of negligence and collusion, compelling one to question the integrity of our institutions and the very fabric of our governance.

In the last paragraph of the letter which I received on 17^th June 1998, the Communications Minister’s office stated: “The Government has no jurisdiction to intervene in matters being examined by the TIO.  The Minister also wrote to Mr David Hawker MP because of representations you made to his office.  The Minister has informed Mr Hawker that it is inappropriate for the Government to intervene in this matter, particularly while it is still under investigation by the TIO” and yet this same TIO wrote to Mr Hawker at about the same time, advising Mr Hawker that I had only just raised the issues of incorrect charging on my 1800 service.  In response to this statement, I was able to supply Mr Hawker with a copy of one of the first letters I had written to the TIO regarding incorrect charging: this letter is dated 3^rd September 1995.  I also sent Mr Hawker copies of another ten letters which I wrote directly to the TIO, the last dated 31^st October 1995 (making eleven letters to the TIO between 3^rd September and 31^st October 1995 — all relating to incorrect charging).  How the TIO could possibly think I had ‘only just’ raised this issue, in 1998, is beyond understanding — I have continued to write to him regarding this matter ever since.  According to records compiled by my secretarial service, I have written over one hundred and twenty letters to the TIO in all; most of them related to incorrect charging.

The TIO himself replied to some of these letters.  One of his replies, dated 28^th November 1995, stated: “The resource unit have provided clarification of the reason for deletion of references to a potential addendum on possible discrepancies in your Telstra bills from the final technical report as follows.

            ‘At a late stage of the arbitration process, at the time of preparation of the technical evaluation report, there were discussions about billing issues which had been raised by Mr Smith.  A draft of the technical evaluation report therefore included references to the billing matters, which it was thought might require further work beyond the time of issue of the report.’”

Later in this same letter, the TIO goes on to say: “A second matter involved 008 calls.  Again, this matter was current at a late stage (April 1995) of the arbitration process.  This matter concerned possible over-lap in the records of 008 calls made to Mr Smith, and for which he was billed.”

On 17^th February 1998, by registered mail, I sent the TIO a forty-nine-page bound submission, detailing examples of incorrect charging issues.  This submission included copies of some pages taken from the transcript of the oral hearing conducted on 11^th October 1994, between Telstra, the arbitrator and me.  I reminded the TIO that a representative from his office also attended that oral hearing.  Pages 92 to 94 from the transcript clearly show that my claim documents relating to Telstra’s incorrect charging were accepted into the arbitration procedure at the oral hearing, having been previously submitted in my interim claim.  Pages 91 to 93 cover my explanation of the significance of the material I was submitting and, on page 94 the arbitrator is reported as stating “I don’t think we need any further examples.”

Taking all this into account, with the TIO clearly having mountains of evidence of incorrect charging in his possession at least from the day of the oral hearing, how can he state that the 1800 incorrect charging matter was only ‘current at a late stage (April 1995) of the arbitration process.’?

On 28^th October 1997, the TIO wrote to Telstra, in relation to the incorrect charging on my 1800 line.  This letter shows that the TIO has finally (two and a half years late) asked Telstra to advise whether they “... agree that this matter was not addressed ...”  in my arbitration. 

I have never received a copy of Telstra’s response to this October 1997 letter from the TIO. 

According to information provided on good authority, a judgement against Telstra in the matter of incorrectly charging their customers on a regular basis would set a dangerous precedent so, even though my evidence clearly shows that this has been happening for some time, it seems that Telstra will avoid facing the issue at all costs.

Other pages taken from the oral transcript have also been sent to the TIO, and to the Minister for Justice as well as the Attorney General.  Pages 37 - 38 and 40 - 41 are particularly interesting.  From the information in these pages at that time at least, the arbitrator intended to address Telstra’s unethical tapping of my phone lines, particularly in relation to their listening to my private phone calls during the arbitration procedure.  On pages 31 and 32 the arbitrator is reported as confirming that, if I included my allegations of telephone bugging in my claim, then Telstra would have a right of reply.  It is clear from my reply that I wanted these matters addressed as part of my claim.  The transcript states: “Arbitrator to Smith:      ... and again I make sure Mr Smith understands what it means — is that effectively any reference in your claim documents to date regarding unlawful phone tapping will be treated by me and the resource unit as unsubstantiated and therefore not relevant for the purpose of determining whether you’re entitled to compensation?

My reply is recorded as being: “No, I will leave it in the claim because - - - -”

            To which the arbitrator responds: “You understand if you leave it in your claim, Telstra is entitled to ask what the basis for this allegation is?”

       My reply: “Right, Okay, yes, all right.

       The arbitrator: “So you want to leave the allegation in?

       My reply: “I will leave the allegation in.”

If Telstra is allowed to get away with not addressing past eavesdropping on businesses, while they are Government owned, then what does the future hold for Australia once it is completely privatised, with no Government control at all?  Security for all Australian businesses is at risk.

In my own situation, legal documents were ‘lost’ between my fax and their intended destination, and my private and business arrangements were known by Telstra a long way in advance of the actual event, even while I was in litigation with them.  These issues, although raised again with the appropriate people, have still not been explained.  How many other businesses are having their private documents intercepted?  How many overseas investors are being ‘bugged’ without their knowledge?  How many businesses fighting a take-over bid have their private information passed around to whoever might benefit from a bit of inside knowledge?  How many faxes are copied off and passed to someone other than the intended recipient, thereby illegally giving information to someone who could well use it to the detriment of the original sender?

An article on electronic security in the Melbourne Age newspaper of 10^th October 1998 reported that, even back then, it was possible for anyone with access to the phone network to monitor faxes as they were sent and to keep copies, without the sender’s knowledge.  This article also pointed out that telephone operators could eavesdrop on calls and Telstra had the ability to access all calls, though this is supposed to be under strict controls.  The Age article went on to ask questions in relation to this apparent easy access to our personal and private information:  What could someone use this information for?  What if it is misinterpreted?  Where might this information end up?

How can the Government privatise an organisation which has run vicious and vindictive campaigns against a group of their own customers simply because those customers took up their right to challenge the service they were being provided with?  Before the Bill to sell off the rest of Telstra is passed, this question needs further investigation by the Senate as a matter of priority.

If, when I first raised the issue of my faulty phone services, everyone involved had abided by the rules of natural justice, I would have reluctantly accepted the arbitrator’s award but, because I discovered that the arbitrator himself had breached not only the rules of natural justice, but also the rules of the arbitration procedure itself, I couldn’t just walk away.  If I had not seen the documents inadvertently given to me by the arbitrator’s secretary and understood what these documents proved in relation to the unjust handling of my case, I would probably have reluctantly accepted the award the arbitrator handed down.  If Telstra officials had addressed the issue of lost faxes and eavesdropping, I would probably have reluctantly accepted the award — if the arbitrator had addressed the issue of lost faxes and eavesdropping, I would probably have reluctantly accepted the award. 

The lost faxes in particular raise several questions, not the least being — since many of the missing faxes were my claim material, and they therefore never reached the arbitrator, how could he arrive at a fair decision without the information contained in those important claim documents?

And many questions remain unanswered for the members of COT.

• Why didn’t the TIO check the credentials of the appointed arbitrator to determine that he had the qualifications necessary to run such a complex arbitration, i.e. that he was a graded arbitrator, acknowledged by the Institute of Arbitrators as the person best suited to run such a complex case?
• Why didn’t the president of the Institute of Arbitrators alert the TIO to the elected arbitrator’s lack of appropriate qualifications?
• Why didn’t the TIO’s legal counsel, who were supposed to advise the TIO on legal matters, advise the TIO that the appointed arbitrator was not sufficiently qualified?
• Why did the Institute of Arbitrators, in their letter of 19^th January 1996, deny that the Institute had any connection with the arbitration?

As it happened, neither the rules of natural justice nor the rules of the arbitration procedure were abided by and, after the arbitration had been ‘completed’ it was only inadvertently that I was allowed to see sensitive documents which were apparently hidden from me during the arbitration.  If the arbitrator had raised the issue of Telstra using falsified and impracticable documents as part of their defence, then his integrity would not need to be questioned because it would be clear that he wasn’t being influenced by Telstra.  Again, this didn’t happen and so another question is raised:

• Was the arbitrator unduly and illegally influenced and therefore no longer an independent adjudicator in my arbitration?

All Australian citizens have a duty of care to expose unlawful conduct if that conduct could be detrimental to the welfare of other Australians.  I may have once been a ‘Pommy’ but now I consider myself a ‘true blue Aussie’ and I have spent many years trying to expose the fiasco I found myself caught up in, because I believe the law should be observed at all costs.  Without a democratic society we would no longer have the freedom we currently take for granted; a freedom so many young Australians have gone to war to preserve.  The law is in place as a protection for all Australians, not just those politicians and corporate lawyers who choose to manipulate the system for their own benefit, often to the detriment of other Australians, as this story has demonstrated.

age twenty-eight of his award, under the heading ‘Faults Caused by Claimant’, the arbitrator appears to have based at least part of his award on a belief that Telstra’s defence documents were based on fact.  He says:

(c)   Telstra nevertheless maintains that most reported faults were attributable to mis-operation by the claimant or by his callers or to normal wear and tear on the equipment they were using.

(d)  In this regard I have noted for example, the Statutory Declaration by (name no. 1 deleted) *, a senior technical officer (grade 1) who concluded that specific fault allegations involving the claimant’s answering machine, cordless phone, and facsimile machine could only be attributable to operator error.  I have also noted that statement by (name no. 2 deleted) *, senior Telstra technician officer grade 2, to the effect that reported facsimile machine faults were attributable to customer error.”

* These names have been deleted by the author to protect individual Telstra employees. The author and other COT claimants believe that several Telstra employees were pressured by the Telstra Corporation into giving false statements in support of Telstra’s defence.

The following statements, taken from Telstra’s own archival material, completely contradict the Statutory Declaration made by the first technical officer mentioned in point (d) above.

1.      From an early fault report dated 5/3/93: “Rang Cape Bridgewater but Mr Smith was out, his assistant stated she had received several calls where on lift off all she heard was dial tone, this is after we shifted 267 267 and 267 230 into system 3 in the RCM.  I believe this may be tied up with the Portland AXE Network problem.”

2.      FOI document K00960, dated 31^st January 1994, in relation to my fax line, further states: “Fax tests to Cape Bridgewater needed as Telstra’s (name deleted) had problems faxing Smith Telstra information.”

3.      And again, FOI document R37914, dated 19^th March 1994, also in relation to my fax line, states: “Found fault to be in RCM at the Cape Bridgewater.  Common equipment card due to data corruption.”

Both the engineer the memo was addressed to, and the National Facsimile Support Centre, had experienced fax problems themselves, when attempting to send faxes to my business.  Further FOI documents (K03752 & 7), currently being held in a safe place, show the actual pages and half-pages received by the writer of this memo from the addressee on 28^th October 1993.

The faults experienced by these two Telstra people continued to plague my business right through my arbitration (1994/5) and up to at least July/August 1998.  As I have explained earlier, during 1994 I alerted both the Minister for Communications and the Regulator to problems I had sending faxes during my arbitration.  It seems however, from statements in his ‘award’, that the arbitrator accepted that the first Telstra technical officer (in point (d) above) had presented the arbitration with a true and factual Statutory Declaration and that my fax faults were therefore ‘attributable to operator error’.  Obviously, the technical officer has committed an unlawful act of perjury in a legal arbitration process

I wonder if the TIO has not investigated my fax problems because he believed this perjured information, even though the problems with my fax line were still being experienced long after my arbitration was completed?  It seems clear to me that he too believed there were no problems with my fax, simply because the technical officer’s Statutory Declaration suggested that I was the problem, not Telstra.

Remember also that the TIO Board is made up of representatives from several Telecommunications carriers, including Telstra.  Since the TIO’s office acted as administrator to my arbitration and should therefore have been aware of the unlawful way in which this procedure was conducted, they should have convened their own investigations into the serious matters raised by any false statements or Statutory Declarations which were provided to my arbitrator. All this information was supplied to the TIO Board and their lawyers in August/September 1999.  I am still waiting to see what might or might not happen next.

It seems to me that some of the issues around the COT arbitrations were also deliberately covered up by the Australian Government so they would not have to be correctly investigated before the partial sale of Telstra.  My evidence proved conclusively that Telstra continually incorrectly charged me on all three of my service lines over a prolonged period.  This is against the Australian Trade Practices Act.  If this incorrect charging was occurring on my phone lines, how many other lines had the same problem?  Surely then the Australian Government should have notified the share-buying Australian public that it appeared that at least some of Telstra’s profits had come from incorrect charging of their customers. 

I believe that the Minister for Communications had a duty of care to:

• launch his own investigation into the incorrect charging issue because he was aware that neither the arbitrator nor Telstra had investigated the issue properly, and
• issue a statement, in the share prospectus, explaining that some of the revenue reported in that prospectus had been accumulated from incorrect charging practices.

This story certainly indicates that my arbitrator was not totally impartial.  By not addressing the incorrect charging, the short duration calls (which probably indicate call diversion) or the phone bugging, the arbitrator favoured Telstra to my detriment.

If all this happened to me, and it certainly did, who else could it happen to?  Could it happen to you too?  And, if Telstra can do this, how many other large, powerful corporations are wielding the same sort of power over small business and individuals alike?

It should be remembered that COT members are not only fighting for justice in their own individual cases, but they are also fighting for the rights of the Australian public — we are all being ‘ripped off’ by Telstra if they are allowed to continue to send out incorrect telephone accounts.

Questions must be asked about the number of alarming connections that seem to exist between Telstra’s lawyers and some high-profile politicians.  I have alerted the President of the Liberal Party, who was also the Chairperson of the Counsel of the TIO’s office, to this alarming situation, but had no response.  Surely these people must be aware by now of the conspiracy and cover-up that has taken place here.  Certainly, most of them have been given plenty of information which should prompt them to dig deeper.

This book has not only been written to alert the public to the treatment meted out to the members of COT, but it has also been written to raise the issue of the cover-up carried out by legal vultures and large corporations and, hopefully, to stop such a situation ever arising in Australia again.

Some of the documents I have recently received from the TIO under the new Privacy Policy Act indicate that he was seriously concerned about my allegations.  Many of these are letters I wrote to the TIO which now have handwritten notes added, apparently notes made by the TIO himself.  In one instance the TIO has written: “These are quite serious allegations.  We need to respond to specific letters Smith says weren’t forwarded or received and provide answers on each.”  Even so, I have never received this information from the TIO, and the phone and fax lock-up and billing faults continued well into 1998 and on.

On 26^th February 1999, I sent three faxes to another COT member:  the first and third of these faxes arrived at his office as intended but the second never arrived.  His fax journal covering the time span during which I sent these faxes from my fax machine shows the two faxes which were received and my Telstra account for my fax line, also covering the time span during which I sent these faxes shows all three as transmitting correctly.  The fax line number for the COT member appears quite clearly on my phone bill.  Obviously, according to Telstra, I sent these faxes to the right number and so I was duly charged for the long-distance transmission of them.  Comparison of my fax account to his fax journal confirms that he received the fax I sent at approximately 10:53 and the fax I sent at approximately 1:35 but the document sent from my fax at 11:20 did not arrive.

If I hadn’t happened to phone him to discuss the document which didn’t arrive, we would probably never have discovered that it had ‘gone walkabout’ between our faxes.  Now most people would accept a single incident like this as just a ‘blip’ in the system.  Unfortunately, this has happened on many more occasions.

Back on 23^rd May 1994, I sent seven faxes to my arbitrator.  According to a signed document later supplied under FOI by a Telstra senior executive, Telstra acknowledges that these seven faxes did not reach the arbitrator’s office because, according to the arbitrator’s secretary, their fax line was engaged when I sent them.  After receiving this signed document, I asked for Telstra’s technical data print-out for this day and, lo and behold, these seven faxes appear as having arrived at the arbitrator’s office.  And, you guessed it, my Telstra account shows that I was charged for these faxes as if they arrived at their intended destination, just as I was charged for the fax I attempted to send to the other COT member, four and a half years later the 26^{th of} February 1999.

I have already related the story of forty-three faxes that ‘went missing’ over the months during which I was lodging my claim with the arbitrator.  The seven missing faxes mentioned above are included in this total of forty-three.  When I examined Telstra’s defence unit’s list of documents they received from the arbitrator, it was clear that they had not received any of these forty-three faxed claim documents and yet Telstra has charged me for all of them, some lasting for up to eight minutes (long-distance).  The length of transmission time indicates that many pages were being sent.

Two important questions must be asked, in relation to these episodes of vanishing faxes:

1.Where are these forty-three documents?

2.Are they in the same place as the recent fax which didn’t reach the other COT member?

If you are still not convinced that something strange is afoot here, either a serious fault in Telstra’s network or some under-handed skulduggery, then I have yet another story to add to this list.  Back in March of 1996 my secretarial agency in Melbourne phoned to discuss a document that had been faxed to me earlier in the day.  My fax journal for this period shows quite clearly that the fax did not arrive at my office and yet the Telstra account for the agency shows that it did arrive.  They were charged for a long-distance transmission lasting four minutes and twenty-five seconds.

We also must wonder how many other similar occurrences have not been noticed over the years and how many individual or businesspeople send faxes, never discover that they didn’t arrive at their intended destination and so happily pay their Telstra accounts.

As you are aware, having read this far, neither Telstra nor the arbitrator addressed the incorrect charging on my 1800 line and my fax line, nor did they address the problems associated with my gold phone and its later disconnection.  Now we see that at least some of these problems continue right up to the present day and yet they have still not been addressed by Telstra or the elusive Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman.

Over the years I have attempted to raise these issues with the Australian Government in a variety of different ways.  There are a number of politicians and senators who have the power to call for an investigation into the matters I have raised:  I have written to them all, including the Prime Minister, the Federal Treasurer, the Attorney General, the Minister for Communications, the Minister for Justice, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Communications, the Minister for Small Business, the Federal Member for Wannon, the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, the Deputy Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

Despite numerous pleas to each of these people, none of them have succeeded in getting Telstra to account for their incorrect charging, or for faxes that don’t arrive at their destination. In August of 1998 I forwarded on to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman’s office, copies of letters from four different professional organisations, each detailing their experiences of faults related to my fax line over the years following the ‘completion’ of my arbitration.  Some of these letters refer to incidents as far back as 1994 or as recent as August 1998 and each organisation states that, although they send and receive many faxes, mine is the only one to give them so much trouble.

On 14^th January 1998 Telstra sent two officers to meet with me. My accountant/business adviser was present at this meeting to take the minutes and observe the process. These two executives made it quite clear that they were then negotiating with the TIO’s office regarding a proposed assessment of the incorrect charging issues I had raised. During this meeting I showed the Telstra people a fax that had arrived on my machine from the Crown Casino in Melbourne. This fax was obviously not intended for me, and it was one of many I was to receive over the following months, all from within the Crown Casino complex. Finally, I complained to the TIO in July 1998 and, although the TIO’s office never responded to my complaint, these faxes from the casino then stopped coming.  I have never been able to understand how these faxes, originating from the casino, reached my fax machine. Not one of them was addressed to a fax number remotely like mine; they were not even in a similar range.  In fact, most of the numbers the faxes were intended for were four hundred and fifty kilometres away.

After the meeting with the two Telstra officers I waited for some sort of resolution of the faults, I had raised but nothing happened until October 1998.  At this stage of the proceedings, I had been paying only part of my fax account to highlight the problems that had not been addressed.  Even though the account for this fax line was still in dispute, Telstra disconnected the line. I continued to pay off the account although this meant I was paying off the rental for a service that no longer exists.  The final payment was made on 20^th March 1999, six months after the line was disconnected.  This means that, from October 1998, I was forced to move most of my office duties to my residence to connect my fax machine to a working phone line. My faxes were all sent from my residence from then on and, although some faults continued to occur, there were not nearly as many as I had suffered prior to July 1998.  On 28^th January 1999, I sent a fax to a business associate some distance away. My Telstra fax account shows charges for two fax calls to his number on this date, one at 08:23 pm, lasting for forty seconds, and a second call at 08:24 pm, lasting for three minutes and thirty-one seconds.  According to my fax journal, the first call was not answered — so why was I charged for this call?  Remember, these are all long-distance, timed calls, not a single twenty-five cent local call charge.  And then, according to my associate, the second fax never arrived — so where is it?

If you are still thinking that all these examples of missing faxes could be simply glitches in the system, and of little importance, there are even more astounding and yet unexplained events.  On 19^th March 1999, my secretarial agency in Melbourne sent a six-page fax to my office.  My fax machine doesn’t cut off each page, so a multi-paged fax comes off the machine as one long strip of paper.  As I watched this fax roll off the machine, it began to ring as if a new call was coming in, even though the line was fully engaged at the time. The fax from the secretarial agency stopped and a two-page fax from my solicitor, also in Melbourne, followed on.  While I stood gaping in surprise the phone rang again.  The fax from my solicitor ended and the final three pages from the secretarial agency rolled out of the machine — all in one continuous strip: three pages from one address, two pages from a second, totally unrelated address, another three pages from the first address.

And so, we arrive at the question: are your faxes also being lost or intercepted?  Who knows?  What we do know is that the technology exists to divert calls from one phone (or fax) to another and what we must now ask is — how is that technology being used?

Because I had complained about short-duration calls (lasting only a few seconds) many times over many years, Telstra wrote to the Regulator back on 11^th November 1994, stating that they would address these short-duration calls as part of their defence of my claims.  Of course, this didn’t happen, and the short-duration call issue remains unresolved.  Another can of worms is opened about short duration calls by a Telstra document (FOI number A03610) which states that Telstra believed that some of these calls were being diverted. Let me assure you now, I certainly did not have a call diverter on any of my lines back in 1994, not even to divert calls to Telstra’s message bank — I have my own answering machine. So, if these calls were being diverted, where were they being diverted to?  Who arranged for them to be diverted?  And why were they being diverted?  Again, I don’t have the answers.

I do know though that I am not the only Telstra customer suffering from this ‘phantom diverter’ problem.  The members of COT have provided the Victoria Police and Telstra with the name of another Telstra customer who contacted our group some time ago.  It has been proved, and Telstra has acknowledged, that some of this customer’s business calls were being diverted to her competitor.  Again, the question must be asked: how many other customers suffer from unrecognised interference with their phone calls and faxes? Why haven’t the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman or the Federal Police investigated any of these issues? How long is the Minister for Communications going to continue to ignore these issues? Telstra’s enormous profits continue to grow, and Telstra shareholders continue to reap the benefit, which is a good thing — unless, of course, these profits come from faulty billing procedures and ‘ripped off’ customers. 

Telstra later sent another disconnection notice for my office fax line, the one that was disconnected some time previously. How they planned to disconnect an already disconnected line is quite a puzzle but even more of a puzzle — the last account for this disconnected line includes a charge for $60 rental to take the account up to June 1999!

After meeting with me on 14^th January 1998, Telstra’s representatives recorded the meeting in the form of ‘file notes.  I received a copy of these notes from the TIO’s office in 2002 and, surprise, surprise, found, attached to the notes, a copy of a letter from Telstra to the TIO on 4^th February 1998, acknowledging that it seemed some of the 1800 billing faults I had raised in my claim had continued, even after my arbitration.  When he received this admission, why didn’t the TIO immediately instigate an inquiry into why the arbitration hadn’t fixed the problem?

Other documents from the TIO’s office confirm that he had written to Mr Hawker, my local MP, claiming that all the billing faults had been investigated during my arbitration, even though the project manager and the technical unit had told him the billing faults had not been investigated because of the lack of time. Why has the TIO’s office continued to mislead so many people? 

By the time 2000 was ending I was even more despairing.  Nothing much seemed to have changed.  Although the phone problems had reduced somewhat once the new optical fibre was installed in October 1998, no-one had come to my premises to investigate the wiring, even though I had complained about the poor workmanship during my arbitration and Telstra still refused to reconnect my phone lines.  Once the new flow of FOI documents began to come through from the Regulator in 2001 however, I began to find proof that the members of COT had really been right all along regarding the billing faults in Telstra’s network.  Even their own Board were now agreeing that the rural network needed repair.  So, what had my arbitration been about?  Why had Telstra spent so much time ducking and weaving and telling lies under oath when the Board was ready to admit the problems I had raised were serious and the system needed upgrading?

My life was still ‘on hold’.  I had poured what little was left from my settlement back into my business, putting in new cabins and completing urgent maintenance, but it seemed that the TIO had always known that the billing faults had not been addressed or fixed by the arbitration.  How could my telephone-dependant business be expected to survive with a failing telephone system still in place?

Yet another electrifying document arrived during 2001.  It seems that Telstra had written to the TIO on 11^th January 1994 noting that details of the arbitration would only be released “… after consultation with the TIO.”  This meant that the TIO, who had already allowed the rules of my arbitration to be changed without my knowledge or consent, then misled me into signing the arbitration agreement without telling me that every single discovery document would be vetted by the TIO and would only be released to the claimant if the TIO and Telstra agreed to that release.  How could the TIO represent his office as independent?

Between n 2004 and 2024, I prepared a list of some of the events that have occurred during this saga and forwarded it to the various members of the government and up toll this date no investigation has found in my favour,

At one point, the Senate began to investigate five of the COT claimants (from an original list of twenty-one), with the remaining sixteen to have their matters investigated later.  I have since been given copies of two Hansard reports in relation to this Senate enquiry.  Unfortunately, I am not allowed to reveal the exact contents of these reports (under threat of a jail term) but I can say that at least one Senator believed that, if the five claimants on the first list were to receive compensation, and the remaining sixteen did not receive any compensation, this would be entirely unfair.  As it happens, the five did receive large compensation payouts because of the enquiry but the other sixteen have not received a cent.

During the time that the COT arbitrations were underway, the Australian Federal Police produced a report on some aspects of their investigation into the COT member’s claims.  This report has been buried in government archives – not to be made public for thirty years.  If the Government and the Federal Police had nothing to hide, why bury the report?

And still the arbitrator’s comments about serious problems with the credibility of the arbitration process have not been addressed.  Let me remind you, on the very day that the arbitrator was writing his letter to explain to the TIO that there were serious problems with the arbitration process, the TIO was busy sending out a media release announcing the successful conclusion of the “… first COT Case arbitration”.  According to this official release, the TIO noted that: “… the findings of the Resource Unit, the specialist technical advisers to the Arbitrator, indicated that the claimant had suffered considerable technical difficulties during the period in question.  It was found that faults did exist which caused the service to fall below a reasonable level, and that apart from some customer premises equipment…, most of the problems were in the Inter Exchange Network.”  And was there ever an announcement to the public regarding the arbitrator’s assessment that the process that arrived at this conclusion was faulty?  No, of course not.  And did I ever get the opportunity to let the public know that the comment about ‘customer premises equipment’ – probably the infamous TF200 beer-in-the-phone report – had been based on a manufactured and totally incorrect report?  No, of course not.  And did this announcement make any mention of the fact that, regardless of the findings, the faults continued to plague my business?  No, of course not!

In the Portland Observer, on 8^th November 2002, a journalist reported on telephone problems being experienced by the new owners of the Cape Bridgewater Holiday Camp (who took over at the end of 2001) – the same problems I had been complaining about for so many years.  On 11^th November a technician visited the camp, removed a telephone alarm bell and checked the wiring.  He confirmed that the old wiring, together with the alarm bell, had probably been causing the faults.  Since then, the new owners report that their incoming call rate has almost doubled.

 

CHAPTER 35 or is there a Chapter 36 and 37?

 Reading my website absentjustice.com suggests there will be more Chapters to follow below