Kent Purvis
Investigation
Officer; Operations
Commonwealth
Ombudsman
1st
July 2016
Dear Kent
Following on from my letter of 14th June.
Within Screen Australia these past few weeks memos will have been placed
on file, emails sent and meetings held between Graeme Mason, SA’s legal
department, the SA board and others with a vested interest in keeping Ruth
Harley's submission to Mr. Ian Govey secret.
“How can we achieve this end?”
will have been the question foremost in many minds. What better way to keep
Screen Australia’s decision-making modus operandi secret than to ban me from
making legitimate FOI requests and making it seem that this is a logical and
necessary response to my repeated requests for evidence of my guilt!?
Kafka again! Or is it Monty Python, with a dash of Alice in Wonderland!?
Was the decision to ban me from making FOI requests taken by the SA board?
If so, what evidence was presented to the board, by Graeme Mason, in support of the new ban? Was the ban recommended
by SA’s legal department? Or was this Graeme Mason’s ‘Captain’s’ call’ made
without reference to the legal department or the board?
In short, wherein lies responsibility for this latest two year ban? Or
is this, like so much else that takes place within Screen Australia, a secret
which must remain a secret?
Most importantly,
is Graeme Mason’s declaration that I cannot make FOI applications a breach of The
Freedom
of Information Act 1982 (FOI Act)? which “provides a
legally enforceable right of access to government documents.”?
If I make an FOI request for evidence of the alleged offences that have
led to this most recent two year ban on me and Graeme Mason refuses to accede
to my request, as he has stated will be the case, will this be a matter of
concern to the Ombudsman?
Will you, on behalf of the Ombudsman, seek evidence from Graeme Mason in
support of the latest ban on me? Or will the Ombudsman’s assessment of the need
for the ban, its fairness, its legality, be made, as was the case in 2012,
without reference to evidence of my guilt?
If Graeme Mason does provide you with evidence in support of this latest
ban will you share this with me and give me an opportunity to respond to it?
So many questions! Questions that the Ombudsman has made clear in the
past I have no right to ask in expectation of an answer. “We conduct our investigations as we see fit,” would be a fair paraphrasing
of the response of your office this past four years. “And we may or may not respond to your letters since, as far as we are
concerned, the evidence relating to your guilt has already been investigated,”
is another fair summation of the Ombudsman’s modus operandi.
Graeme Mason’s declaration that I am banned from making
any further FOI requests speaks for itself of his commitment to the precepts of
transparency and accountability.
Please correct me
if I am wrong, Kent, but it has always
been my understanding that FOI legislation exists, in large part, as a mechanism
to guarantee that bureaucrats are accountable for their actions, their
decisions; to make it difficult for bureaucrats such as Graeme Mason to play
fast and loose with the truth. My
preconceptions about FOI are borne out by what is to be found on the Australian
Information Commissioner’s website:
Rights and responsibilities
The Freedom of
Information Act 1982 (FOI
Act) provides a legally enforceable right of access to government documents.
Why is FOI important?
The Australian Parliament first considered
introducing freedom of information (FOI) legislation in the 1970s. In 1979, a
Senate committee report outlined three reasons why FOI is important:
1
FOI allows individuals to see what information
government holds about them, and to seek correction of that information if they
consider it wrong or misleading.
2
FOI enhances the transparency of policy
making, administrative decision making and government service delivery.
3
A community that is better informed can
participate more effectively in the nation’s democratic processes.
What’s covered by FOI?
The FOI Act promotes government
accountability and transparency by providing a legal framework for individuals
to request access to government documents. This includes documents containing
personal or other information, such as information about policy-making,
administrative decision-making and government service delivery. Individuals can
also request that ministers or agencies amend or annotate any information held
about them.
Surely, for Graeme
Mason to ban me from making any future FOI requests is to deny me my legal
rights in therms of the Freedom of
Information Act 1982; to make
a mockery of the FOI legislation; to reveal his contempt for the basic tenets
of FOI? Is not Graeme Mason using his right of veto as a tool to silence me;
not as a means of arriving at the truth; of being transparent and accountable?
As for the
evidence contained in Ruth Harley’s submission to Mr Ian Govey in 2012 the
Ombudsman has decided, it seems, that I have no right to be appraised of its
contents. This is absurd but to argue further with you that I have such a right
would be an exercise in futility. If Louise Vardagena will not provide me with
a copy I will instruct my lawyers to obtain a copy of this document through the
Supreme Court in whatever way they deem to be necessary. Screen Australia’s
legal counsel will no doubt argue in the Supreme Court, at considerable cost to
that organization, that I am not entitled to be appraised of the evidence that
led to Mr Govey’s approval of the ban on me. I wish him (or her) luck with
that!
In the meantime, in
relation to this most recent (may 2016) ban, let the evidence against me be
laid on the table so that a truly independent person or body (along with my
filmmaking colleagues) can decide who the liars are - myself or members of
senior management within Screen Australia who use sleight of hand (with
approval of the SA board, it seems!) to withhold evidence and yet create the
illusion that due process has been followed.
It seems that
Graeme Mason will use any and every trick in the book to withhold evidence in
support of Screen Australia’s three bans (totaling 6 years) on me. It remains
to be seen whether, at this late date, the Ombudsman has the will, the
authority, to insist that Screen Australia provide such evidence. The
Ombudsman’s website is worth quoting from here:
“We
consider and investigate complaints from people who believe they have been
treated unfairly or unreasonably by an Australian Government department /
agency or prescribed private sector organization…Our aim is to resolve
complaints impartially, informally and as quickly as reasonably practicable…we
endeavor to resolve disputes through consultation and negotiation, and if
necessary, by making formal recommendations to the most senior levels of government.”
You could put the Ombudsman’s lofty
ideals into practice, Kent, by making a ‘formal recommendation’ to Senator
Mitch Fifield to acknowledge receipt of letters (he never does) and to respond
to them. And you could put these same ideals into practice by engaging (as I
suggested four years ago) in genuine consultation and negotiation. You could
suggest to Fiona Cameron and Graeme Mason that they, along with yourself and
myself, sit down and work this dispute through to a logical and fair resolution
based on evidence. Let Fiona and Graeme lay their evidence of my guilt on the
table – literally and figuratively – and argue their case for the 6 year ban
imposed on me. Let me argue my case that Screen Australia has no evidence or
that the evidence presented by Graeme and Fiona is flawed. This, surely, is
preferable to engaging in the same exercise, at huge expense to all parties, in
the Supreme Court. If such a meeting can be arranged I will return to
Australia, with a few days notice, to take part in it.
best wishes
James Ricketson
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