My name is Alan Smith. This is the story of my battle with a telecommunications giant and the Australian Government. This battle has twisted and turned, since 1992 through elected governments, government departments, regulatory bodies, the judiciary, and the Australian telecommunications giant Telstra, or Telecom, as it was known when this story started.
Absent Justice was set up to publish an accurate account of what happened during the various Australian Government-endorsed arbitrations with Telstra. We are a group of Australians who call themselves the Casualties of Telstra (CoT).
This is a true story about a group of ordinary small-business people fighting one of the largest companies in the country. The story of how for years Telstra refused to address the many phone problems that were affecting the capacity of the COT Four to run their businesses, telling them ‘No fault found,’ when documents on this website show they were found Refer to Tampering With Evidence.
Learn about horrendous crimes and unscrupulous criminals, corrupt politicians and the lawyers who control the legal profession in Australia. Shameful, foul, atrocious, monstrous, hideous and treacherous are just a few words that describe these lawbreakers.
The criminal delinquency of those involved in the COT Cases corrupted arbitrations continued to practive their evil and crooked style of justice on other citizens who, like the Casualties of Telstra have had their lives ruined.
This type of skulduggery is treachery, a Judas kiss with dirty dealing and betrayal. This is dirty pool and crookedness and dishonest. This conduct fester’s corruption. It is as bad, if not worse than double-dealing and cheating those who trust the ground you walk on. Sheer Evil.<
Corruption in government, including non-government self-regulators, undermines the credibility of that government. It erodes the trust of its citizens.
“…the very large number of persons that had been forced into an arbitration process and have been obliged to settle as a result of the sheer weight that Telstra has brought to bear on them as a consequence where they have faced financial ruin if they did not settle…”
Senator Carr
My Name is Alan Smith.
My Casualties of Telstra story started in 1987 when I decided my life at sea, where I had spent the previous 28 years, was over. I needed a new land-based occupation to see me through my retirement years and beyond.
Imagine my delight when I saw the Cape Bridgewater Holiday Camp advertised for sale in The Age newspaper. It was located in rural Victoria, near the small maritime port of Portland. Everything seemed perfect. our big mistake when we fell in love with the place was failing to look at the telephone system. In those days there was no mobile coverage and business was not done via the internet or by email. Within a week of taking over the business, I knew I had a problem. I was receiving letters instead of telephone calls wanting to book my venue. I will never know how many people failed to write.
Yes, that’s right. I had a business to run and a phone service that was, at best, unreliable and, at worst, just not there at all. Of course, we lost business as a result.
Other independent business people similarly affected by poor telecommunications have joined me on my journey. We are known as the Casualties of Telstra or the COT cases. All we wanted was for the Government-owned telecommunications carrier Telstra to admit problems and fix them. We were offered an arbitration process as an alternative. We accepted this compromise after the Government promised us all of the documents we needed to make our case would be available during that process.
Despite the first round of promises made by Telstra and the government on 23 November 1993, and up to April 1994, when the arbitrations commenced those documents have still not been provided to sixteen of the twenty-one COT Cases (see An Injustice to the remaining 16 Australian citizens If you continue reading this story, you will see which major legal firm set out before the arbitration commenced a strategy (Refer to Prologue Evidence File 1-A to 1-C) naming me and my business along with three other companies, how Telstra could conceal (hide) relevant technical documents (as legal documents) branding then Legal Professional Privilege (LPP) when they were not privileged at all.