Terms & Conditions
INTRODUCTION
For those who have visited my website, absentjustice.com and absentjustice.com.au, I hope those who have, and then went on to avail themselves by learning why, after almost thirty years at sea, after having viewed my story, Around the World in 80 Dishes...and a few disasters, and twelve years or so in industrial catering ashore in some of Australia's most well-known restaurants, which allowed me to gain a full understanding of food, will find my next part of my life as a school. Social Club 100 - 120 bed holiday camp a sad story not fully understanding that had the telephone lines at my new venture after leaving the merchant navy the last thirteen years on the Melbourne Tugs as a cook. It was more than a sad life because moving to the Cape Bridgewater holiday camp had a dual purpose. I was trying to save my twenty-year stale marriage to my lovely wife and mother of my two choldren Sharele and Brenton. Had the phone service been working and people and friends of my wife Faye were able to talk to er on the phone and the phone was operating as most phone should before the invention of mobile phones, emails and the computer, I might have been able to save my marriage. viewing my have learned
The Silence on the Line
Chapter Two
The Camp in Ruins
When Margaret and I returned to Cape Bridgewater from the hospital, I expected to find disorder. What I found instead was something much closer to devastation. Faye had left the previous evening after well-meaning welfare workers and concerned friends advised her that she needed to be somewhere safe. In the confusion and emotional turmoil that surrounded those final hours, the camp had effectively been abandoned. Doors stood unlocked. Meat had been removed from the deep freeze and left thawing on benches. Equipment was missing. The deep freeze itself had vanished. Every room seemed to contain another unwelcome surprise, as though the camp had absorbed the chaos of the previous few days and reflected it back at us in physical form.
There was scarcely time to absorb the shock. According to my diary, more than seventy students from Monivae Catholic College in Hamilton were due to arrive within forty-eight hours for a five-day camp. Under normal circumstances, preparing for a group of that size required organisation, planning and concentration. These were not normal circumstances. My twenty-year marriage had ended only days earlier, I had just emerged from one of the lowest points of my life, and the business itself appeared to be balanced precariously on the edge of survival.
Without Margaret's assistance, I doubt I would have coped. She arrived not as a guest or a casual helper but as someone prepared to shoulder whatever burden needed carrying. Looking back, I often wonder how I would have managed without her. At a time when my thinking was clouded by grief and exhaustion, she simply stepped forward and did what needed to be done.
The immediate priorities were obvious. The camp had to be cleaned, supplies had to be purchased and meals had to be planned. Yet even these routine tasks seemed overwhelming. My thoughts constantly drifted back to the collapse of my marriage and the uncertain future that stretched before me. A simple shopping list became an obstacle that felt almost impossible to climb. I sat for long periods staring at pieces of paper, attempting to calculate how much meat, bread, vegetables and dry goods would be needed to feed seventy students and their teachers. What would once have taken an hour seemed to consume an entire day.
By the time I finally worked out what needed ordering, Sunday evening had arrived. The students were due the following day and their first meal would be dinner. There was no room for mistakes. Somehow the food had to arrive, the kitchens had to function and the camp had to appear to the visitors as though everything was operating normally. Behind the scenes, however, it felt as though the entire enterprise was being held together by determination alone.
Then another crisis struck.
The hot water service failed.
It was almost as though the camp itself had chosen that moment to rebel. The timing could not have been worse. The students could probably have tolerated cold showers, but the teachers were considerably less enthusiastic. Yet somehow we muddled through. It was not perfect, but we survived. More importantly, Monivae College continued supporting the camp. Through the difficult years that followed, they returned once, twice and sometimes three times annually. Their loyalty during those years was invaluable. More than once, their continued patronage helped keep the business alive.
During that first week back, I became aware that Margaret was becoming increasingly concerned about my state of mind. She had witnessed the emotional wreckage left behind by the separation and she knew how close I had come to losing control completely. One evening she arranged for Brother Greg, one of the Monivae teachers whom I knew reasonably well, to visit the house.
Only later did I discover what had prompted her concern. Apparently I had spent much of the previous night talking in my sleep, rambling through confused memories and fragments of conversations that made little sense. Margaret, already carrying far more responsibility than anyone should reasonably expect, found the experience deeply unsettling.
That evening Brother Greg and I sat talking for hours. Margaret sat beside us throughout much of the conversation. Looking back, I can still picture the scene. At times she was literally holding my arms while Brother Greg held my hands as we worked through the accumulated burden of years. We spoke of my experiences in China during the Cultural Revolution. We spoke about the collapse of my marriage. We spoke about the business and the uncertainty that now haunted every aspect of my life. It was a long and difficult conversation, but one that probably prevented me from slipping further into despair.
Margaret carried an enormous load during those first six or seven days. She had not asked for any of it, yet she accepted every challenge placed before her. Even now, many years later, I remain grateful for the strength, patience and compassion she showed at a time when my own reserves had been almost completely exhausted.
The local church community also played an important role in helping me through that period. Several women from the congregation volunteered their time to assist with the running of the camp. Some helped with meals. Others helped with cleaning and daily tasks. More importantly, they provided the kind of human support that cannot be measured. They understood that I was standing dangerously close to the edge and they quietly did everything they could to prevent me from falling over it.
Yet despite their kindness, I missed Faye terribly.
Anyone who has experienced the end of a long marriage will understand the loneliness that follows. It is not simply the absence of a partner. It is the absence of countless small routines, shared experiences and simple gestures that have become woven into daily life over many years. Everywhere I looked, I was reminded of the life we had built together and the future we had expected to share.
Meanwhile, the telephone problems that had already caused so much damage showed no signs of disappearing.
In mid-November 1989, one of the church volunteers, Chris, casually mentioned that she had tried to ring me the previous day. She assumed I must have forgotten to switch on the answering machine because the phone had simply rung and rung before eventually disconnecting. By that stage I had already lodged numerous complaints with Telstra and had begun systematically recording every reported fault and customer complaint in an exercise book. The entries included dates, times, names and contact details wherever possible. I also recorded the impact these incidents were having on both the business and my personal wellbeing.
Later that same day, Chris attempted to use the telephone in the camp kiosk and discovered that it was completely dead. My first assumption was that a wire had come loose somewhere. Together we removed the cover from the telephone connection box and examined the wiring. Everything appeared intact. Nothing seemed out of place. Yet the phone remained lifeless.
Then an idea occurred to me.
Inside the main dining room stood a coin-operated public telephone which guests used from time to time. Unlike the kiosk phone, this one appeared to be functioning normally. It had a dial tone and showed no obvious signs of trouble. I lifted the receiver, inserted my coins and dialled my office number.
Almost immediately I heard the now familiar recorded voice.
"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."
The statement would have been amusing had the situation not been so serious. According to the recording, I had not been charged for the call. The coin-operated telephone, however, disagreed completely and showed no intention whatsoever of returning my money.
Five minutes later, armed with fresh coins, I tried again.
This time the office number appeared to be engaged.
The office phone was not engaged.
Nobody was using it.
Nobody was anywhere near it.
Yet according to the network, it was busy.
The contradiction was becoming impossible to ignore.
As the months passed, I developed an entire collection of informal testing methods. Whenever a new fault occurred, I experimented with whatever telephones happened to be available. Sometimes I rang from the kiosk. Sometimes from the payphone. Sometimes from neighbouring properties or from public telephones in nearby towns. The results varied endlessly, but one thing remained constant. The faults persisted.
What troubled me most was not the faults themselves but the complete absence of any meaningful response from Telstra. By then I had lodged complaint after complaint. I had provided details. I had supplied examples. Yet the same problems continued occurring over and over again. It felt as though my reports were disappearing into a vast bureaucratic black hole from which no answers ever emerged.
When New Year's Day arrived in 1990, another group was holidaying at the camp. Among them was a woman named Yasemin Sevik, who approached me to complain that the gold phone was not working. By that stage the procedure had become almost routine. I apologised, refunded her money and entered the incident into my fault log.
At the time it seemed like just another complaint among many.
Later events would prove otherwise.
In 1993 I personally delivered eighteen pages of detailed telephone complaints to the St Kilda Road office of Senator Richard Alston, who was then the Shadow Minister for Communications. Those documents contained the dates, times and details of 183 logged faults stretching from late 1989 to May 1993. Accompanying them were fifty-three written statements from customers, tradespeople and other individuals who had experienced difficulties contacting the camp. They were people who had become frustrated enough by the persistent faults to record their experiences in writing.
Mrs Sevik's complaint was the first entry for 1990.
By the fourth of March, only weeks later, ten more complaints had already been added to the list.
The pattern was repeating itself with relentless consistency. The evidence was beginning to accumulate. And although I did not fully appreciate it at the time, those handwritten notes in a simple exercise book were slowly becoming something far more significant than a record of telephone faults.
They were becoming the first pieces of a much larger puzzle. A puzzle that, over the years ahead, would reveal a story far darker and far more troubling than I could possibly have imagined as I stood beside that silent telephone line at Cape Bridgewater.
Chapter Three
False Hope
With Faye gone, I was no longer one half of a husband-and-wife team building a business together. Overnight, I found myself carrying the full weight of the operation alone. Every task that had once been shared now fell squarely on my shoulders, and the financial consequences were immediate. What accountants call a "consequential resultant loss" became my day-to-day reality. Not only had I lost the unpaid labour that Faye had contributed to the camp for years, but I was also required to pay her a yearly return on her financial investment in the business. At the very same time, I was being forced to find additional money to employ staff to perform work that had previously cost the business nothing.
The figures simply did not add up.
As 1990 unfolded, the future appeared increasingly bleak. The telephone problems remained unresolved, and by now I had lost count of the number of potential customers who must have given up trying to contact the camp. Cape Bridgewater was an isolated destination. Unlike businesses in large towns and cities, where people could call in personally, our customers were largely dependent on the telephone. For many prospective clients, the telephone was their only point of contact with us. Every failed call represented a booking inquiry that might never be made again. Every engaged signal or disconnected message had the potential to drive another customer elsewhere.
The business struggled on, but the pressure continued to build from every direction. Before long, the legal vultures began circling overhead. Because I had been unable to comply fully with the financial arrangements arising from the separation, Faye's solicitor began demanding additional payments. The first major payment fell due at a time when I could barely meet my own legal expenses. Refinancing proved impossible. The money simply was not there. My son's school fees, amounting to some three thousand dollars, were already overdue, and there seemed to be nowhere left to turn.
By then I had reached a point where I could barely think beyond the immediate crisis confronting me each morning. The concept of long-term planning had disappeared entirely. Each day became an exercise in survival. As I looked around at the mounting debts, the legal demands, the telephone problems and the collapsing business, I convinced myself that circumstances could not possibly become worse.
I would discover, time and again throughout the years that followed, how wrong that assumption could be.
In an effort to reduce some of the growing financial burden, I was forced to sell the twenty-two-seater school bus that I had originally purchased to transport groups staying at the camp. The vehicle had once represented growth and opportunity. Selling it felt like another retreat in a battle I seemed incapable of winning. In its place I purchased a small utility vehicle, a practical decision driven purely by necessity rather than ambition.
Around this time, through mutual friends, I met Karen, a divorced woman living in Warrnambool, approximately one hundred kilometres from Cape Bridgewater. In the midst of the chaos that surrounded my life, her friendship became an unexpected source of comfort and stability. The little utility allowed me to visit her several times each week, and gradually our friendship developed into a serious relationship.
Karen entered my life at a time when everything else appeared to be collapsing. She witnessed the financial pressures, the uncertainty surrounding the business and the emotional aftermath of my marriage breakdown. More importantly, she understood the predicament I found myself in. When it became apparent that Faye's solicitor was preparing to force the sale of the camp because I could not raise sufficient funds to meet the required payments, Karen made a remarkable decision. She placed her own home up as security for a loan, enabling me to refinance and effectively buying the business another two years of life.
Without that act of faith, the story may well have ended there.
At roughly the same time, I once again contacted Telstra's Fault Centre in Hamilton seeking some explanation as to why the telephone problems persisted. By then I had become accustomed to the endless cycle of promises, referrals and uncertainty that seemed to accompany every discussion. More often than not, inquiries produced little more than another run-around. This occasion, however, proved slightly different.
For the first time, I was informed that a new exchange was scheduled to be installed at Cape Bridgewater. According to Telstra, this long-awaited upgrade would solve the very problems that had plagued us since we arrived. The explanation seemed plausible. The existing exchange was old. The faults were continuing. The new technology, I was assured, would eliminate the difficulties once and for all.
For the first time in a long while, I had something resembling hope.
Years later, through another Freedom of Information request, I obtained a three-page handwritten file note dated 15 August 1991 dealing with these discussions. Although the dates did not perfectly align with my own records, the contents were revealing. By early 1991, I already knew a new exchange was being installed and had enthusiastically shared the news with Karen. We both believed that this improvement would finally remove the greatest obstacle facing the camp and allow us to build a stable future.
The handwritten note recorded my ongoing complaints and acknowledged what I had been saying for years.
The document stated:
"Alan Smith rang 15/8/91 re service 267 267. Incoming callers are receiving engaged signal when it's not engaged. Two calls from Collingwood PM 14/8/91. This has been a continuing problem and he is losing a lot of business."
There it was.
In black and white.
An internal Telstra document acknowledging not only that the faults continued to occur but that they were affecting my business.
The note went on to record an even more remarkable admission:
"I said it appears from the fault history that the problem may be in the exchange and that the next RCM exchange would solve these problems, but that I would check this out with the techs. I also said we would have a look at the service now to try and get it working correctly until cutover."
Reading those words years later was both vindicating and infuriating. For years I had been treated as though the faults either did not exist or were somehow being exaggerated. Yet here was documentary evidence showing that Telstra personnel themselves suspected the exchange was responsible.
Further into the same file note appeared another revealing entry:
"I rang Alan Smith 15/8/91 and explained that we believed the problems were caused by specific exchange faults due to the age, which would be solved by the cutover to Portland AXE."
For the first time, someone within Telstra appeared willing to acknowledge what had long been obvious to me.
The faults were real.
The exchange was ageing.
The problems were continuing.
And a solution was supposedly on its way.
By then, that promise became something of a lifeline. Karen and I clung to the belief that the installation of the new exchange would finally bring an end to the years of frustration and financial damage. We spoke about the future with cautious optimism. We imagined a camp free from the endless telephone failures. We imagined bookings arriving as they should have years earlier. We imagined, perhaps naively, that normality would finally return to our lives.
Yet even while waiting for the promised upgrade, the faults continued.
Between 16 March 1990 and the eventual cutover date of 18 August 1991, I logged another forty-six telephone faults and customer complaints. Each entry represented another caller unable to reach the camp, another potential booking placed at risk, and another reminder that the business remained trapped in a cycle it could not escape.
The new exchange gradually became more than a piece of telecommunications equipment. In our minds it became a symbol. It represented rescue. It represented vindication. It represented the possibility that the nightmare which had consumed so much of our lives was finally drawing to an end.
Neither Karen nor I realised that what lay ahead would prove far more complicated than either of us imagined. The new exchange would indeed arrive, but the hopes we invested in it would soon collide with a reality every bit as troubling as the one it was supposed to replace.
Chapter Four
When Hope Became Another Casualty
When Karen entered my life, she brought far more than companionship. She brought stability, belief and a willingness to shoulder burdens that were not truly hers to carry. Together we threw ourselves into the task of rescuing the Cape Bridgewater Holiday Camp from the steadily deepening hole into which it had fallen. For a time, her optimism balanced my growing doubts. She believed, as I wanted to believe, that hard work, determination and patience would eventually turn things around.
Karen ultimately sold her house, raising a little over eighty thousand dollars. Of that amount, approximately sixty-five thousand dollars disappeared almost immediately into legal fees and payments owed to Faye. Another twelve months passed before I was finally able to complete those financial obligations. By then Karen's sacrifice had become much more than a gesture of support. Her name was officially on the title of the business. She had invested financially, emotionally and personally in a future that both of us desperately hoped could still be saved.
Unfortunately, the business itself showed few signs of recovery.
New bookings continued to arrive only sporadically, and the camp was beginning to show the scars of years of financial hardship. Buildings that should have been painted remained weathered and neglected. Maintenance projects were endlessly postponed because there was never enough money available. Gardens became untidy, minor repairs accumulated, and the entire property began to take on an appearance that reflected the condition of the business itself; tired, worn and struggling.
The decline became self-perpetuating. Visitors passing through Cape Bridgewater saw a camp that clearly needed attention and often chose not to stay. Because they did not stay, there was no money available to improve the appearance of the property. Without visitors there were no recommendations, no word-of-mouth advertising and no enthusiasm being carried back to schools and organisations. It was as though the business had become trapped in a vicious circle from which there seemed no obvious escape.
Even when schools or clubs managed to contact us and made bookings, the problems did not end. Cash flow was so poor that suppliers became increasingly reluctant to extend credit. We sometimes found ourselves scrambling to secure enough food to cater for groups that had already booked and paid deposits. The irony was almost unbearable. After struggling to obtain customers, we were often left wondering whether we could afford to feed them when they arrived.
Not surprisingly, the strain began to affect my relationship with Karen in much the same way it had affected my relationship with Faye.
Arguments became more frequent.
Karen could see her investment evaporating before her eyes. The promises she had been given regarding the new exchange and the supposed resolution of the telephone problems were producing no results. Month after month passed and she could see little evidence that anything had improved.
"I've been here a year," she told me during one particularly difficult discussion. "Nothing has changed. The phone faults are still happening."
I could hardly argue with her.
I had repeated what Telstra had told me. I genuinely believed that the installation of the new exchange would resolve the problems. Yet the faults continued, and every new incident seemed to undermine not only the business but my own credibility as well.
Despite the mounting pressures, I continued one activity that remained close to my heart. Throughout those difficult years I regularly sponsored disadvantaged groups to stay at the camp. Through the generosity of various food suppliers, arrangements were often made whereby donated food covered much of the catering requirements. The groups simply used the facilities and enjoyed experiences they might otherwise never have had access to. Apart from modest utility costs, these programs cost me very little financially, yet they provided something that had become increasingly scarce in my life: a sense of purpose.
One such project emerged during 1992 when I worked with Sister Maureen Burke IBVM, Principal of Loreto College in Ballarat. I have often thought of Sister Burke as the driving force behind that particular initiative. She brought an energy and commitment to the project that inspired everyone involved.
The plan involved bringing children from Ballarat and communities throughout south-west Victoria, including Warrnambool, Hamilton and Portland, to the camp for a special holiday program.
Organising such an event required extensive communication. Food supplies had to be coordinated, transport arranged, children identified, special needs discussed and countless details resolved. Since Ballarat was more than three hours away by road, almost all of this planning relied heavily upon the telephone.
Unfortunately, the telephone system had other ideas.
Week after week, Sister Burke struggled to contact me. Calls went unanswered. Lines appeared dead. Connections disappeared. Messages failed to get through. What should have been straightforward planning became a frustrating exercise in persistence and patience.
Eventually, after spending an entire week attempting to make contact by telephone, she reached a decision.
Unable to rely on the phone, she simply got into her car and drove the three-and-a-half hours to Cape Bridgewater herself.
The timing could hardly have been worse.
Karen and I were simultaneously attempting to establish a series of holiday weekends aimed at over-forty singles groups. Advertisements had been placed and we waited hopefully for enquiries. The response was terrible. Whether the lack of interest reflected poor marketing or prospective clients being unable to contact us, we had no way of knowing.
On the very day that Sister Burke finally arrived at the camp, a telephone call came through that would trigger yet another crisis.
Karen answered.
The caller was furious.
He wanted information regarding the singles weekends and launched immediately into a tirade about our apparent refusal to answer the phone. According to him, he had been trying unsuccessfully to contact us for an extended period and his patience had completely evaporated. Karen bore the full force of his frustration.
Something inside her finally broke.
When she put down the phone she burst into tears.
Months of worry, financial pressure, uncertainty and disappointment came flooding to the surface. This wasn't simply about one abusive customer. It was about everything that had been happening since she arrived at Cape Bridgewater.
Attempting to lighten the mood, I made a joke about dealing with the public.
It was a mistake.
Karen was, and remains, a formidable woman. An accomplished horsewoman, cross-country competitor and polo player, she was never someone to underestimate. On that particular day, my ill-timed humour achieved precisely the opposite of what I intended.
The next thing I knew, my legs had given way beneath me.
So had my ego.
While Karen continued sobbing, Sister Burke walked into the office.
Recognising that discretion was the better part of survival, I quietly removed myself from the scene and left the two women together.
Some time later, after lengthy discussions with Karen, Sister Burke sought me out.
Her assessment was simple and direct.
Karen needed to leave Cape Bridgewater.
For both our sakes.
She believed Karen required counselling and support back in Warrnambool and offered to help arrange it. As I listened, a familiar thought drifted through my mind.
Here we go again.
The charity camp itself proved enormously successful. Thirty-five children spent five nights at the camp, enjoying an experience that many would remember for years. The event justified every effort that had gone into organising it.
While Sister Burke was there, I asked her to describe in detail the phone difficulties she had experienced before making the decision to drive to Cape Bridgewater.
Her response was both simple and disturbing.
For an entire week she encountered either lines that rang endlessly without answer or completely dead lines with no sound whatsoever. Calls failed repeatedly regardless of the time of day she dialled.
Years later, when I sent her an early draft of this manuscript, she responded with a comment I have never forgotten.
"Only because I personally experienced it would I find your story believable."
Her words carried enormous weight because she had lived through the frustration herself.
What makes her experience particularly significant is that it was not an isolated incident.
Twelve months later, in March 1993, another Loreto College representative, Sister Karen Donnellon, attempted to contact the camp regarding future bookings. Her experience was remarkably similar. She later documented how, over the course of a week, repeated calls to the camp were met by nothing more than a dead line. She varied the times of her calls. She tried again and again.
Nothing changed.
The silence remained.
What made these experiences particularly alarming was that they occurred after the installation of the supposedly miraculous new exchange. We had been assured that the changeover would solve the telephone problems. Instead, respected educators from one of Victoria's leading schools were encountering many of the same difficulties that had plagued the camp for years.
Back in May 1992, however, none of us yet understood how long this nightmare would continue.
Karen's health eventually suffered under the relentless pressure. The stress generated by the business, the uncertainty surrounding her investment and her growing belief that I had misled her about the telephone problems combined to create an unbearable burden. She was hospitalised as a result.
I found myself caught between conflicting emotions. Part of me understood her frustration completely. Another part felt betrayed by the very promises that Telstra had made and I had innocently passed on. The lesson was harsh but unforgettable.
I gradually learned that believing anything without independent proof was dangerous.
After leaving hospital, Karen moved into a rented house in Portland. Her departure created yet another setback. Without her assistance running the camp, I lost the freedom to travel and promote the business as extensively as I once had. School visits became rare. Marketing efforts declined dramatically.
Still, I continued lodging complaints with Telstra.
If anything, the faults seemed to be worsening. Since the installation of the new exchange, an increasing number of customers were reporting recorded voice announcements, dead lines and other unexplained problems. The old exchange had been demolished. The promised solution had arrived.
Yet the reality confronting me appeared no better than before.
As I sat alone at Cape Bridgewater, watching another important relationship crumble under the strain, I found myself questioning every major decision I had made since purchasing the camp. Why had what seemed such a promising move become such a disaster? Why had something as fundamental as a telephone system become capable of destroying relationships, businesses and financial security?
Most people never think about their telephone service. They simply assume it will work.
I had once made the same assumption.
By 1992, however, a faulty telephone system had already helped destroy my marriage, devastated Karen's finances, placed enormous strain on my children's lives and pushed the business to the very edge of collapse.
And the worst part was that there appeared to be no end in sight.
Chapter Five
The Gathering Storm
As the Freedom of Information documents continued to arrive throughout 1994, I found myself spending long evenings sitting alone at the camp table, surrounded by piles of papers that seemed to grow larger with each passing month. At first, many of the documents appeared incomprehensible, filled with engineering terminology, acronyms and technical references that meant little to an ordinary businessman trying to understand why his telephone service had failed him for so many years.
The deeper I dug, however, the more unsettling the picture became.
One particular document related to the Portland-Cape Bridgewater network and referred to testing that had been carried out years earlier. As I worked slowly through the material, trying to understand what the technicians had uncovered, I realised the figures being discussed were extraordinary. According to Telstra's own records, testing had revealed approximately 11,000 errors per hour in one direction of the system and 216 errors per hour in the opposite direction. The acceptable industry standard was only 72 errors per hour.
I remember putting the document down and staring out the window for a long time.
For years I had been reporting call failures, unexplained disconnections, engaged signals and customers who simply could not reach me. For years I had been assured there was little wrong with the service. Yet here, buried within Telstra's own archives, was evidence suggesting the system had been experiencing error rates far beyond acceptable limits.
The document raised an even more troubling question.
If Telstra's technicians had discovered these faults, exactly when did management become aware of them?
Another Freedom of Information document, identified as A40558, began providing some answers. According to that file, personnel within Melbourne were aware of the problem as early as February 1990, when measurements documenting the fault conditions were placed on file. Yet despite this apparent awareness, the same document suggested that little information was circulated until much later, after work specifications had finally been completed.
As I continued reading, the timeline became increasingly difficult to reconcile with my own experiences.
The records noted that the Cape Bridgewater Loop MUX was eventually upgraded between July and December 1991. They further acknowledged that documented customer complaints regarding call drop-outs continued from December 1989 through until December 1992, some seven months after the supposedly faulty equipment had already been replaced.
I found myself reading those paragraphs repeatedly.
The question almost leapt from the page.
If these problems were known, why had it taken so long for meaningful action to occur?
By then my business had already suffered years of damage. My marriage had collapsed. Karen had invested her savings and endured enormous stress. Countless customers had encountered difficulties contacting the camp. Yet these documents suggested that investigations into the underlying equipment had been occurring while I was still being reassured that there was no significant problem.
The feeling was not simply frustration.
It was something far darker.
I was beginning to suspect that I had been living inside two separate realities. There was the reality I was being told about, where everything supposedly complied with standards and any problems were minor or isolated. Then there was the reality emerging from the archived documents, where serious technical faults were being identified, discussed and measured.
The gap between those two realities seemed to widen with every document I uncovered.
Another file proved equally disturbing. Titled Portland-Cape Bridgewater-RCM System, it referred to the complaints of what was described as a "vocal customer at Cape Bridgewater". The customer, of course, was me.
For a brief moment I actually laughed.
After years of complaints, letters, fault reports, meetings and frustration, I had been immortalised in Telstra's records as a "vocal customer."
Perhaps there was some truth in the description. By then I had certainly become vocal. Anyone watching their business slowly bleed to death while being told everything was normal would probably become vocal too.
The document, however, contained something far more interesting than the description itself. It noted that the customer had been transferred from one system to two alternative systems during February 1993 and had subsequently experienced no further problems.
That statement left me with yet another question.
If moving my service to different systems resolved the faults, why had this not been done years earlier?
By the time those changes were finally made, Telstra had already recorded years of complaints. Internal records showed awareness of serious fault conditions. Yet nothing substantial appeared to have occurred until much later.
Again, the documents seemed to be telling a very different story from the one I had been hearing.
Then came another letter.
Dated 12 July 1993, it referred to testing conducted on 2 March 1993, almost nineteen months after extremely high fault rates had already been identified. The figures recorded in the report were astonishing. Tens of thousands of errors had accumulated across sections of the Portland-Cape Bridgewater system. Some counters had reached their maximum readable values.
Even more striking was the admission that attempts to test certain components of the network had failed because the required records could not be located.
I sat staring at that sentence for some time.
Not because I was surprised anymore, but because it seemed to confirm a pattern I was seeing repeatedly. Whenever a question was asked, another missing record appeared. Whenever a fault required explanation, another delay emerged. Whenever a problem seemed close to resolution, fresh complications surfaced.
By now the telephone faults themselves were almost becoming secondary.
What truly concerned me was the growing body of evidence suggesting that people inside Telstra had known far more than they had ever been willing to admit publicly.
The more documents I obtained, the more one conclusion forced itself upon me.
The network was still failing.
The faults were still occurring.
The complaints were still arriving.
Yet the official explanations remained largely unchanged.
Sitting alone at Cape Bridgewater late one evening, surrounded by Freedom of Information files and engineering reports, I began to realise something that frightened me more than any telephone fault ever had.
The evidence was no longer pointing towards incompetence.
It was beginning to point somewhere else.
And if that emerging picture proved true, then everything I thought I knew about the Cape Bridgewater saga was about to be turned upside down.
The next batch of documents would leave no room for doubt.
The real problem might have been what people already knew about it.
In other words, back in July of 1991, Telstra were uncovering 11,000 errors per hour in one direction and 216 per hour in the other direction when the acceptable level in the telecommunications industry is 72 errors per hour. Furthermore, document A40558 states, in part:
“i) LTS Melbourne were aware of the problem in early 1990 as optocouple measurements were documented on file dated 13/02/90 (ref P 34)
iii) Tong advises me that to his knowledge LTS Melbourne did not circulate any information on the problem until the work specification was finalised in October 1990.
iv) The Cape Bridgewater loop MUX was up graded between July and December 1991 after it was removed from the Cape Bridgewater link.
v) The Cape Bridgewater customer had documented complaints of call dropouts from 12/1989 to 12/1992 the later date some 7 months xx after xx the A735 loop MUX had been replaced by the RCM.
The question remains - why did it take one year for the Cape Bridgewater Loop Mux to be upgraded from the issue of the Work Spec. Tong says the OIC of Portland believes that the equipment was not touched prior to the upgrade.”
Obviously the technicians were uncovering faults and problems with the Cape Bridgewater phone system as far back as at least 1990, probably as a result of my continual badgering of them, but I was being told one thing while Telstra knew another. Here I was, with a business ‘bleeding to death’ and without any treatment available to stop the ‘bleeding’. If the business wasn’t bleeding, it certainly felt as if I was.
The third of these four interesting documents was titled “Portland — Cape Bridgewater — RCM System” and it stated, in part:
“Initial reports were of a vocal customer at Cape Bridgewater complaining of VF - cutoffs in one direction. The customer had been transferred off system 1 onto system 2 and 3 on the 24th February ‘93 and had experienced no further problems.”
I must admit that my sense of humour did manage to fight to the surface for a moment when I read this — ‘vocal customer’ indeed! Maybe this is why my voice has lost its customary strength. The interesting point is, of course, the reference to switching the ‘vocal customer’ from system 1 to systems 2 and 3. Since Telstra were aware of this problem when I complained, first in 1988 and again in 1990/91, of 11,000 errors per hour in one direction and 216 per hour in the other direction, why didn’t this changeover take place then?
As if this all wasn’t disturbing enough, in a letter dated 12th July 1993, the following information refers to 2 March 1993, 19 months after Telstra discovered the massive fault rates recorded above.
|
“Initial error counter readings Portland to Cape Bridgewater direction:- |
|||
|
|
System 1 |
System 2 |
System 3 |
|
SES |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
DM |
45993 |
3342 |
2 |
|
ES |
65535 |
65535 |
87 |
|
At this stage we had no idea over what period of time these errors had accumulated. Attempts to test the inground repeaters using the “TRIOS” system where unsuccessful as the strapping records could not be located.” |
|||
Chapter Six
The Guarantees That Raised More Questions Than Answers
By the time the Freedom of Information documents began arriving in significant numbers, I had already spent years trying to understand what had gone wrong at Cape Bridgewater. Every new file seemed to answer one question while creating half a dozen more. Many evenings were spent at the kitchen table after everyone had gone home, surrounded by piles of correspondence, engineering reports, technical notes and handwritten records. The camp itself would be silent apart from the sound of the wind coming in from the Southern Ocean, yet the documents spread before me seemed to tell a story that grew louder and more disturbing with every page I read.
Among the documents released to me were several internal Telstra records relating directly to the so-called guarantees I had received in September 1992. At the time those guarantees had appeared important because they represented official assurances from Telstra that my service was operating to network standards. Those assurances had been provided after years of complaints and after repeated requests on my part for some written confirmation that prospective business partners could rely upon the service. Looking back now, with access to Telstra's internal records, those guarantees seem almost impossible to reconcile with what was actually known within the organisation.
One document, numbered C04006, contained a reference to what Telstra described as an "RVA on congestion". By this stage I knew precisely what that meant. The RVA, or Recorded Voice Announcement, was the same infuriating message callers received advising them that the number they were attempting to call had been disconnected or changed. To any ordinary member of the public, that announcement carried a clear meaning. It suggested that the business no longer existed and that further attempts to contact it would be pointless. For years I had suspected this message was driving customers away. Now I was finding evidence within Telstra's own documentation that this issue was being discussed internally.
What made the matter even worse was information later confirmed by Austel. During 1993, Austel advised that Telstra's congestion tone closely resembled a normal engaged signal. Unless a caller happened to be technically trained, they would almost certainly assume the line was engaged rather than congested. In practical terms there was little difference. A prospective customer hearing an engaged signal again and again would eventually give up trying. As far as they were concerned, the business either could not be contacted or simply did not wish to answer the telephone.
The implications for Cape Bridgewater were enormous. The local exchange was operating with antiquated equipment and only a limited number of available lines. Congestion was not an occasional event. It was a chronic condition. Looking back, it seems entirely possible that the exchange operated in a state of near-constant congestion during busy periods. If that was the case, then many potential customers were probably encountering either congestion tones, engaged signals or disconnection messages without ever realising the business itself was still operating and desperately trying to attract bookings.
As I continued reading through the documents, another passage immediately caught my attention. On page C04007 was a statement acknowledging that my telephone service problems were network-related and had continued over a period of three to four years. I remember reading those words more than once because they seemed so extraordinary. For years I had been told, either directly or indirectly, that the faults were difficult to isolate, difficult to verify or perhaps not as serious as I believed them to be. Yet here, within Telstra's own files, was a clear acknowledgement that the problems were network-related and had persisted for several years.
The following page was even more revealing. Document C04008 stated that my service had suffered from a "poor grade of network performance over a period of several years", and further referred to difficulties detecting exchange problems during the previous eight months. Those words were not my words. They were not conclusions I had reached after years of frustration. They were statements contained within Telstra's own internal records.
The significance of that admission was difficult to ignore.
By this stage, years of my life had been consumed by these problems. My business had suffered considerable financial damage. My marriage to Faye had collapsed under the strain. Karen had invested her savings and watched them disappear into a business struggling to survive. Customer complaints had accumulated by the hundreds. Yet buried inside Telstra's files was an acknowledgement that the service had suffered poor network performance over several years.
At the bottom of document C04008 was a handwritten notation from a senior manager with whom I had previously dealt. The note suggested these were preparation records relating to settlement discussions and included the observation that Alan Smith had not provided adequate substantiation of his claims. I found myself staring at those words for some time.
What more substantiation could reasonably have been expected?
I had maintained fault logs.
Customers had provided written statements.
Schools, business operators, suppliers and tradespeople had documented their experiences trying to contact the camp.
Telstra's own engineering personnel had investigated faults and documented network problems.
Most remarkably of all, Telstra's own internal records were now describing years of poor network performance.
The contradiction was staggering.
Only three months before these observations appeared in internal documents, I had received written guarantees assuring me that my service was performing to network standards. How could these two positions possibly coexist? How could a service be suffering poor network performance for several years while simultaneously being guaranteed as suitable for normal business operations?
The more I studied the documents, the more difficult it became to avoid one uncomfortable conclusion. The guarantees and the internal records could not both present the full truth. One version of events was being communicated externally, while another was being recorded internally.
Even more troubling was the reference to exchange difficulties extending back at least eight months prior to the preparation of these notes. That pushed awareness of the problems well back into 1992, a period when I was still enduring constant reports of failed calls, disappearing bookings and customer frustration. If exchange-related problems were already known to exist, how had those guarantees ever been allowed to leave the office of a responsible senior manager?
That question would stay with me for years.
It was no longer simply a question about faulty telecommunications equipment. It was becoming a question about knowledge, responsibility and accountability. Someone had investigated these matters. Someone had documented them. Someone had prepared reports discussing poor network performance. Yet at the same time, reassuring letters continued finding their way to the people suffering the consequences.
Night after night I found myself returning to the same documents, searching for explanations that never seemed to come. The more information I uncovered, the less confidence I had in the official story. It was beginning to feel as though there were two separate histories of the Cape Bridgewater telephone saga. There was the version presented publicly, and there was the version hidden away inside filing cabinets and archived reports.
The deeper I dug, the wider the gap between those two histories appeared to become.
Then another thought began to trouble me.
If these were merely the documents Telstra had released after repeated Freedom of Information applications, what remained hidden in the files I had not yet seen?
By now I was no longer searching for an explanation for the phone faults.
I was searching for the truth.
And the truth, judging by the documents already uncovered, appeared to be buried far deeper than a faulty rural telephone exchange.
The next release of internal records would leave little doubt that someone, somewhere within the organisation, knew considerably more than they had ever admitted.
And for the first time, I began to suspect that uncovering those hidden facts might prove far more dangerous than the faults themselves.
Chapter Seven
The Machines That Caught the Truth
The information contained within these newly uncovered documents became even more disturbing when viewed alongside the two written guarantees I had received from Telstra in September 1992. By this stage, I knew that Telstra had already acknowledged internally that at least some faults had existed for many months. Yet despite those internal concerns, I had been assured in writing that my service was performing to network standards and that there was no reason why the quality of the service should adversely affect my business.
Unfortunately, life at Cape Bridgewater continued to tell a very different story.
Although I now possessed Telstra's guarantees, the phone faults showed no sign of disappearing. Call drop-outs remained one of the most frustrating problems. Conversations would begin normally and then, without warning, the line would simply die. At other times the phone would ring once or twice and stop. If I hurried to answer it, there was nobody there. Just silence. Each incident felt like another booking slipping away or another customer deciding to take their business elsewhere.
By October 1992 the complaints had become so persistent that Telstra finally arranged the installation of two sophisticated testing devices known as Elmi machines. One was installed at the unmanned Cape Bridgewater exchange and the other at my office. The two units were designed to work together, monitoring the service and recording exactly what occurred on the line. At the time, I felt a sense of cautious optimism. For years I had been told that technicians could find nothing wrong. Surely now, with monitoring equipment installed at both ends of the service, the truth would finally emerge.
On 13 October 1992 I experienced yet another series of faults. Four separate calls dropped out during the afternoon, occurring at approximately 1.20 pm, 1.40 pm, 2.00 pm and 3.00 pm. In addition, there was an occasion when I answered the telephone only to be met by a dead line. As I had done countless times before, I immediately reported the incidents.
Once again, the response was depressingly familiar.
Telstra technicians advised that they could find no evidence of any fault.
By now I was becoming exhausted from the endless repetition. Faults occurred. I reported them. Investigations followed. No faults could be found. Yet the problems continued. It felt like being trapped inside a revolving door from which there was no escape. While all this was happening, I was still trying to run a business, attract bookings and somehow keep the camp financially afloat.
Then, two years later, everything changed.
In 1994 another bundle of Freedom of Information documents arrived. Hidden among the pages were records relating specifically to the incidents of 13 October 1992. As I worked my way through the material, I came upon a handwritten file note referring directly to the faults I had reported.
According to the note, Telstra personnel claimed that the Elmi unit had been disconnected from the exchange while being installed at my premises and that monitoring systems had revealed no evidence supporting my complaint.
At first glance, the note appeared straightforward.
Then I kept reading.
The more documents I examined, the less sense the explanation made.
Further within the material were the actual Elmi print-outs generated by the monitoring equipment. These records appeared to show that calls corresponding closely to the times of my reported problems had in fact been recorded by the system. The incidents I had reported as dropped calls and dead lines were appearing on Telstra's monitoring equipment as answered calls occurring at approximately 1.30 pm and 3.00 pm.
I remember staring at those pages for a very long time.
For two years I had been told there was no evidence.
Now I was looking at documents suggesting the events had, in fact, been captured by the very equipment installed to monitor the service.
What disturbed me even more was the obvious contradiction. A technician had recorded that the Elmi machine was disconnected from the exchange and in the process of being installed at my premises, implying it could not have been monitoring the service. Yet the accompanying print-outs appeared to show that the equipment was operational at both locations.
The question that immediately presented itself was simple.
How could both statements be true?
Either the equipment was disconnected as claimed, or it was functioning and recording data. The documents seemed to suggest both explanations simultaneously.
That discovery shook my confidence in Telstra's fault reporting processes more than any previous fault ever had.
Up until that point, I had assumed that many of the failures to identify faults stemmed from technical difficulties, poor diagnostics or simple mistakes. Now I found myself confronting a more troubling possibility. If records relating to monitored faults could contain such obvious inconsistencies, how many other complaints had been mishandled? How many customers had been told no fault existed when evidence suggested otherwise? How many reports had quietly disappeared into the system without proper investigation?
By then, the battle was taking an enormous toll. My health was deteriorating. I had lost two important relationships. The business continued struggling under relentless financial pressure. Yet nobody seemed genuinely interested in examining the evidence that was accumulating. The members of COT had gathered substantial information over many months. We were not relying upon rumours or suspicions. We had documents, fault logs, customer complaints and now internal records that appeared to raise serious questions about Telstra's own processes.
Still, very few people appeared willing to listen.
Fortunately, the members of COT continued drawing strength from one another. We spent countless hours discussing strategy, comparing documents and trying to understand what was really happening. Individually, each of us might have been dismissed as a disgruntled customer. Collectively, however, a different picture was emerging. We were small-business owners from different industries and different locations, yet remarkably similar patterns were appearing in all our cases.
Even so, there were moments when the task seemed impossible.
After all, we were five ordinary business operators confronting one of the largest corporations in Australia. The imbalance of power was obvious. Telstra possessed enormous resources, technical expertise and legal support. We possessed little more than determination, documentation and a growing belief that something was seriously wrong.
As 1992 drew to a close and 1993 approached, I began questioning whether settling with Telstra through the area general manager had achieved anything at all. The settlement had produced paperwork, promises and guarantees. What it had not produced was an improvement in the actual service. The faults continued exactly as before. Calls were dropping out. Customers were complaining. Bookings were being affected.
The new exchange had supposedly solved the problems.
Yet the problems were still there.
January 1993 brought no relief. During that month alone I lodged eight additional fault complaints. Even customers who had successfully managed to contact the camp and make bookings were encountering telephone difficulties once they arrived. The coin-operated gold phone installed in the main hall became something of a running joke among guests.
Visitors would laugh and say there was no need to travel to New South Wales to play the poker machines. They could simply use the gold phone instead. It would happily accept their money, provide little or no service in return, and leave them feeling cheated and frustrated. The comparison was humorous, but beneath the laughter lay a very real irritation. Calls continued dropping out, often moments after the caller said "hello".
The financial pressure meanwhile was becoming almost unbearable. Mortgage repayments consumed money I could scarcely afford. Refinancing through the Commonwealth Development Bank had generated yet more costs. Because there was never enough money available for maintenance, the camp buildings themselves were beginning to look neglected and abandoned.
In many ways they reflected exactly how I felt.
The buildings were weathered, worn down and struggling against the elements. So was I.
By this stage, Ann Garms and Graham Schorer had become much more than fellow complainants. They were comrades in a battle none of us had expected to fight. Together we frequently discussed how we might expose what we increasingly viewed as unethical behaviour and deliberate mishandling of complaints. Through countless conversations we tried to make sense of what was happening and to understand how so many similar problems could continue to occur without meaningful intervention.
It was during this period that a much stranger concern began emerging.
Ann had become convinced that, whenever her phones did seem to work properly, someone might be listening.
At first the suggestion sounded improbable.
Then I experienced something I still struggle to explain.
The COT group had recently appeared on Channel Nine's A Current Affair. We had hoped the program would expose both the phone faults and the larger issues surrounding billing and fault reporting. Unfortunately, our lack of media experience worked against us. We possessed mountains of technical evidence, but presenting that information in a clear and compelling television format proved far more difficult than we expected.
Disappointed with the result, I decided to contact the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and explore the possibility of presenting our case to Four Corners, a program known for detailed investigations.
A staff member transferred my call to Sydney and advised me that I was now connected to the appropriate person.
Believing I was speaking to a producer from Four Corners, I launched into a lengthy explanation of the COT cases, the phone faults, the billing disputes and our concerns about Telstra's conduct. I spoke for quite some time, delighted that somebody finally appeared interested.
Then, during the conversation, I referred to the person by name.
The reply left me stunned.
The man informed me that he was not the ABC producer I thought I was speaking to.
In fact, he was not with the ABC at all.
He was John Stanton, a senior Telstra executive based in Sydney.
I was speechless.
For several moments I could barely comprehend what I had just heard.
I explained that my call had been transferred by the ABC and that I had believed I was speaking to one of their staff.
What happened next only deepened the mystery.
After a lengthy pause, Mr Stanton confirmed that he had somehow become connected to the conversation despite the fact that I had been attempting to contact a completely different organisation.
He then calmly suggested arranging a meeting between Telstra and the members of COT.
When the call ended, I sat quietly for some time trying to understand what had just occurred.
Ann had already voiced concerns that her telephone conversations were somehow being monitored.
Now I had experienced something that seemed equally extraordinary.
For the first time, I began to wonder whether we were dealing with far more than faulty telephones, inaccurate fault records and broken promises.
And if that possibility was true, the road ahead was about to become considerably darker.
Chapter Eight
The Questions Nobody Wanted Answered
As more Freedom of Information documents found their way into my growing archive, an increasingly disturbing pattern began to emerge. Each new release seemed to raise more questions than it answered, and many of those questions centred not on the faults themselves, but on what Telstra's own staff appeared to believe was happening behind the scenes.
One particular document relating to Ann Garms and her Tivoli Theatre Restaurant immediately caught my attention. The date on the document, 19 August 1992, was significant because it coincided almost exactly with the period when the members of what would soon become the Casualties of Telstra first began finding one another. At that stage we were still attempting to determine whether the problems affecting our businesses were isolated incidents or part of something much larger.
What I found within the document was unsettling.
At point nineteen appeared a notation referring to a line fault, a "not receiving ring" condition and the handwritten comment "suspect sabotage". It was only a brief remark, buried among technical notes and fault records, but it was enough to stop me in my tracks. The word itself carried uncomfortable implications. Until then, I had largely viewed the phone problems as severe technical failures compounded by bureaucracy and indifference. Yet here was a document in which somebody inside the system had raised a possibility that seemed far more troubling.
The further I read, the more uneasy I became.
A second document, numbered B00474, raised an entirely new series of questions. Several organisations and individuals were discussed within the correspondence, yet the context was often vague and frustratingly incomplete. One particular reference appeared to concern Compass Security. I could not help wondering whether this might somehow relate to Compass Airlines, which at the time had reportedly experienced major telecommunications difficulties while operating through the same Fortitude Valley network area as Ann's business.
Compass Airlines had attempted to challenge established operators within the Australian aviation industry before eventually collapsing financially. At the time there had been considerable speculation regarding the difficulties the company encountered, including persistent telecommunications problems. Rumours circulated widely, some of them suggesting deliberate interference. Whether those rumours contained any truth I do not know, but I could not help noticing that the document in my hands did nothing to remove those suspicions.
Another aspect of the document troubled me even more.
At one point there was discussion regarding the procurement of bug-scanning equipment through protective services. Even today I remember putting the document down and simply staring at the page for several moments. Why would anybody be requesting bug-detection equipment in relation to what was supposedly a telecommunications fault investigation? Who felt the need for such equipment? More importantly, what circumstances had led them to that point?
The questions lingered long after I finished reading.
By then, both Ann and I had become increasingly uncomfortable whenever we used the telephone. What had begun as concerns over lost calls and faulty connections was gradually evolving into something quite different. We found ourselves wondering who might be listening, who might be monitoring conversations and why certain events seemed so difficult to explain through ordinary technical failures alone.
Meanwhile, the Casualties of Telstra group continued to gather momentum.
Graham Schorer had become our official spokesperson and was carrying much of the responsibility for presenting our concerns to regulators and politicians. Early in 1993 he met with Austel Chairman Robin Davey. Following that meeting, interest from politicians began to increase. For the first time, it appeared that some people within Canberra were beginning to pay attention to what we had been saying.
Even so, we remained cautious.
The question confronting us was not whether politicians were willing to listen. The real question was whether they were willing to act.
Telstra remained one of Australia's largest and most powerful organisations. To many observers, the corporation appeared untouchable. We often found ourselves wondering whether elected representatives would genuinely support a handful of struggling small-business operators or whether they would protect one of the country's most valuable corporate assets.
There was only one way to find out.
And so the members of COT began financing our own campaign to bring the matter before the Australian Senate. Every journey to Canberra came directly from our already depleted personal finances. None of us could afford it, yet none of us saw any alternative. The system that was supposed to protect consumers had failed us repeatedly. If justice was to be found, we would have to pursue it ourselves.
Back at Cape Bridgewater, life remained a daily battle.
Although I had managed, through an assortment of desperate negotiations and refinancing arrangements, to avoid repossession of the camp, financial pressures remained immense. Every month felt like a struggle for survival. The business continued limping forward while the faults continued almost unabated.
Karen, meanwhile, had undergone a profound personal transformation. The unrelenting pressure and uncertainty had led her towards religion, and she became a committed born-again Christian. She prayed constantly for justice, not only for herself and me but for all the members of COT. Watching her, I often wondered whether faith would succeed where logic, evidence and documentation had failed.
Privately, however, I harboured doubts.
Would the truth ever emerge?
Would anybody powerful enough to make a difference actually listen?
Or would Telstra's influence be sufficient to bury the entire affair?
By then I had accumulated more than seventy written complaints from customers describing difficulties contacting the camp. Each letter represented another lost opportunity, another frustrated client and another piece of evidence suggesting that the problems were far from imaginary.
One such letter came from Mrs Elsie Teer of the Werribee Outreach Centre. Dated 5 February 1993, the correspondence advised that her organisation would be cancelling its booking due to poor participation. More significantly, she noted that she had spent five days attempting to contact me by phone but had been unable to get through. Like many others before her, she had reached the understandable conclusion that nobody answered the telephone at Cape Bridgewater.
Reading the letter was heartbreaking.
Not because it was unusual.
But because it was becoming routine.
Then another document surfaced that caught my attention for an entirely different reason.
In May 1993 I received correspondence from Ray Morris, a senior Telstra technical engineer. Unlike many other communications I had received over the years, this letter contained something invaluable.
Acknowledgement.
Mr Morris described how he personally attempted to contact my business following reports from other Telstra staff. His own experience mirrored exactly what customers had been reporting for years. According to his account, the line appeared to answer after several rings but was accompanied by loud interference and only the faintest indication that another person might be present on the call.
For perhaps the first time, a senior technical employee had personally experienced the very faults I had been complaining about.
That alone was significant.
What happened later, however, was even more interesting.
In December 1994, Mr Morris provided a statutory declaration as part of Telstra's arbitration defence. Yet nowhere within that declaration did he mention his own direct experience of the problems affecting my service.
I found that omission difficult to understand.
Perhaps there was a perfectly reasonable explanation.
Perhaps there was not.
What remained clear was that his earlier correspondence confirmed he had personally witnessed irregularities.
Equally revealing were other documents suggesting that not all complaints were being treated equally.
On one occasion I contacted Telstra's fault centre to report difficulties reaching Graham Schorer's courier business. With thirty-seven incoming lines, Graham's company was hardly a small operation, yet I was experiencing the same difficulties contacting him as customers experienced reaching me. The Telstra representative assured me the service would be tested immediately.
Months later, an FOI document surfaced containing a handwritten note indicating that once staff realised the complaint involved a member of COT, no testing was carried out.
I could hardly believe what I was reading.
Another document revealed a similar response regarding one of my own complaints. A handwritten notation suggested the fault was probably related to the RCM equipment and included instructions that no investigation was necessary.
No investigation.
Those two words spoke volumes.
For years we had been reporting faults, documenting failures and supplying evidence. Yet here were internal notes appearing to suggest that certain complaints warranted no investigation at all.
The implications were deeply unsettling.
Either Telstra genuinely believed the members of COT were incapable of recognising faults when they occurred, or some sections of the organisation had simply concluded that our complaints were too difficult, too inconvenient or too embarrassing to pursue.
Neither explanation inspired confidence.
As I closed the file and looked across the increasingly weathered buildings of Cape Bridgewater, I realised something fundamental had changed.
The battle was no longer about proving that faults existed.
The documents themselves were proving that.
The battle was becoming something far more disturbing.
It was becoming a battle to discover why, in the face of mounting evidence, so many people appeared determined not to look.
And the closer we moved towards the Senate, the more dangerous those unanswered questions seemed to become.
