THE TIP OF THE BRIMSTONE - PART 13

ADDENDUM: POLICY OF CONCEALMENT
The Timeline of Abuse followed thirty years of effort to reach a point where I was finally permitted to actually put something in writing, albeit something that was dismissed out of hand despite claims it had been ‘assessed’ over a four month period. The decision was, apparently, based on ‘Statue of Limitations’ and the ‘unlikelihood of any convictions’. If you read it, you would realise that there are several things in there that raise serious doubts as to whether anybody bothered to read it at all.

The offences have been occurring over the last forty years. Many of them raise suspicions and evidence of theft, fraud, mail tampering, intimidation, and at least three suspicious deaths that have never been investigated, in addition to multiple incidents of extreme child abuse inflicted on multiple victims by three individuals including a former police officer, a nurse, and the son of a former town Mayor. But if you think the systemic failures involved in those incidents are an isolated incident, think again – they are the tip of the brimstone.

The letter below was sent to several politicians in 2011. It revealed the same entrenched culture of corruption festering in multiple agencies, the very same systemic failures present in the RBH, ATO, and CSS. And these were simply the three addressed in detail – the same vile culture can be found in many, many other agencies. I wrote that letter to alert those political representatives – and later Laurence Springborg - of these issues in the public services so that they could take action to address them.

Their responses, however, revealed something of which a great many of us are already well aware – our so-called political ‘representatives’ are part of the problem. They did everything they were required to do. They used laws, policies and procedures to do exactly what the agencies exposed in this letter did – isolated and silenced the victim, while concealing and enabling predators, crime, systemic failure, and injustice. They each referred me back to the agency at fault.

They each instructed me to report the matter to management in the agencies detailed so that they could conduct an ‘internal investigation’ to determine if there was any legitimacy to my ‘allegations’ and need for action. The Minister for Health, Mr Springborg, was adamant in this directive. When I responded by indicating that he had clearly misunderstood, and that management in the RBH was part of the problem, he sent the same instruction, with a greater level of hostility, and broke contact.

It doesn’t take a genius to see where the problem originates – the top down. The people in charge set the standard. This is what happens when meritocracy is replaced with nepotism, and accountability with a process that uses a conflict of interest to ensure the systemic failure is concealed from the public. The Legal System is a wonderful thing for parasites that are determined to hide in plain sight. The most disadvantaged cannot access, let alone afford, a Legal Outcome, a commodity no different to human life and IVF.

A victim who cannot produce witnesses, hard-copy written, photographic, audio or video evidence is dismissed as a liar. Even if they can, the bar is set higher and higher at every stage until the witness is broken and can be dismissed, as a liar. And that’s assuming they can get past the agencies and politicians - who serve as bollards to justice - in order to make a report. Those at fault protect one another, but the systemic failures are still there, and remain so until someone pays the ultimate price, and even afterwards.

The most recent of these have included Luke Batty, Jill Meagher, Mason Lee, Tara Brown, Tialeigh Palmer, and the hundreds, even thousands of others who never even made the news. Sure, there will be inquests and a lot of politicians and bobble-heads in positions of authority making the right politically motivated and opportunistic sounds, but nothing will really change. It never does. It can’t. The people that are making the ‘changes’ are too often part of the problem, as are too many of those who are tasked with implementing the recommendations.

How can we expect to get a conviction when the authorities refuse to even investigate? How can any real investigation speak with all those who have been affected by a crime when the name of the ‘alleged’ suspects are suppressed or never make the media? Yes, the Rights of the accused are protected, particularly their Right to Privacy, but at what expense? In the headlong rush to protect the Rights of someone who has brutally denied those same Rights to others, the Legal System stomps all over the Rights of the victims.

Recent efforts by the police to supress even what little the media manages to report have revealed just how insidious this sick culture of corruption has become, and the levels of rot in which those in positions of authority will engage in order to conceal injustice. The following letter was my attempt to reveal serious systemic failures. I’ve spoken with dozens, hundreds of others who have suffered the same injustices and yet nothing is ever done to address them, affect positive change, or correct the failure in question.

http://www.couriermail.com.au/rendezview/tiahleigh-palmers-death-must-not-be-in-vain-our-child-protection-service-needs-serious-help/news-story/d28aac0400397da740ecd5058dd1c1a3

And yet, LNP governments feel qualified in their hypocrisy to drag the Churches and Unions (political rivals) through (admittedly well-deserved and long-overdue) Royal Commissions and Inquests chaired by stooges and sycophants, and concluding with (in some cases) predetermined findings that are not supported by the facts. It is shocking to hear the condemnations and recommendations in response to what is uncovered when what is uncovered is exactly the same systemic failures and entrenched culture of corruption as exists in the public services! Such hubris! Such faith in their protections that they do not fear exposure of their own sins!

Well, someone once said, “just because you silence a man does not mean you have converted him”. Someone else said, “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”. I give you a (sterilised) copy of a letter I sent to our political ‘representatives’ with some quotes (inserted) concerning related incidents that occurred around the same time. Our authorities may be insulated from reality by their wages and circumstances, but where there is one victim of their jack-booted fascism, you will find many others. One day, someone will read Blogs like mine and be able to look back and pass judgement on our society’s barbaric approach to equality and justice.          

To the Hon Ms Anna Bligh, Hon Mr Campbell Newman, and Hon Mr Geoff Wilson,

My name is ‘Lee’ and I would like to share some personal experiences concerning incompetence and violations of State and Federal laws occurring within the RBH, ATO, and CSS.

Attempts to rectify these issues have failed because one person cannot make a difference if they are someone like me, but not if they are someone like you.

The details of these issues are provided in the attachment and reveal a culture of indifference to problems that have escalated over years of indifference.  This, in turn, has eroded good judgement and workplace ethics in a manner that allows the rights of Australians to be violated with apparent impunity.

There appears to be no disincentives to discourage this type of behaviour because current business practices ensure such extreme violations of basic human dignity, equality, and justice are concealed behind the unintended application of privacy rights.

I can only hope you see fit to launch an investigation and do something to remedy these attitudes and implement serious disincentive to discourage those who have no regard for the rights of their fellow citizens and State and Federal laws.    

If you would like further information on my experiences regarding these issues, please don’t hesitate to contact me on [DELETED] or at this email address.

May the Lord bless you with the strength, courage, and wisdom to do what is right and demonstrate what it means to live in God’s country and speak for those who have no voice as is written in Mark 4: 21-25 and Matthew 7: 7-12.

Yours sincerely,

‘Lee’ [DELETED]

The RBH

My employment with the RBH began at the end of 2006 and lasted for three years.  My role was Patient Support.  I applied for the job after a previous employer had decided not to pay me for three months and, it turned out, hadn’t paid any of my Superannuation for the entire eighteen months I had worked for him (see The ATO below).

The initial application remained unanswered for six months and so I applied again, explaining the situation, and was offered employment.  At this time, my wife and I had finally become pregnant with our first child after three years of trying.  My wife worked full time and we had agreed that if one of us was getting paid less than child care would cost, that person would work weekends and stay at home with the baby during the week.

I explained this situation to my supervisors and they didn’t have a problem with it, initially.  They put me to work as a casual with several contracts that used me to replace staff on annual leave and so there was full-time work for several weeks.  Our daughter was born a few months later.

At this stage, my wife was getting paid almost three times more than me and the allocations officer was more than happy for me to work weekends.  He told me that he was desperate for reliable weekend staff and I was on top of his list for three reasons: I always came in regardless of how little warning I was given; he only received good reports on my performance, and even requests from nursing staff; and I was one of only a few people who had ever come in to report being overpaid and make arrangements to repay the money (a situation that affected many staff, often repeatedly).

During my employment, however, there were many situations that caused me concern.  The low morale of staff, both patient support and nursing was a big issue and seemed to be the result of parasitic full-time staff who only worked to get around the system and incompetent management leading to constant workplace harassment, which in turn led to low self-esteem and indifference among otherwise competent staff.

Full-time staff are often notified about inspections to ensure they are doing their jobs and take sick days a few days in advance.  The casual replacement Patient Support staff then clean what they have neglected between inspections and so management effectively turns a blind-eye to incompetent and idle staff.

The “not my patient” and “not my job” responses were quite common, even when wandering patients and a few on the run had left their ward or even the hospital.  Several nurses treated junior nurses and patient support badly, violating workplace harassment laws with wild abandon, even abusing them in front of patients. 

In one case I was abused and threatened by an older nurse in front of a wheelchair bound patient and her family for failing to move faster than allowed.  In several other cases I witnessed other staff receiving similar treatment and was threatened after suggesting the behaviour of the person responsible was both unprofessional and unacceptable.

The attitude of management in Patient Support was appalling.  After working for eighteen months, I discovered I was entitled to an additional allowance when sent to work in Mental Health, for handling dirty linen, and other circumstances.  The paperwork for these allowances had to be filled in at the end of the shift and, in Mental Health at least, was hidden beneath a bag of mops in a locked supply room on top of a locker.  There was no pen.

Several other staff were also unaware of these allowances.  After asking why they were not simply applied to our pay and why we hadn’t been told about them, our supervisors informed us that “we are not here to tell you what you’re entitled to, it’s up to you to find out” and “we aren’t here to look after you”.  An interesting attitude but one that seems outdated and it got worse.

After my first year, management became more aggressive toward me.  Senior supervisors, all middle-aged women began to get more aggressive toward me and told me I had to start working during the week.  They told me “weekend work and the extra pay is reserved as a reward for staff that want it, and a punishment for those that don’t”.

http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/government-it/worst-failure-of-public-administration-in-this-nation-payroll-system-20130806-hv1cw.html

The allocations officer told me to ignore them.  He said many staff didn’t want to work weekends and others, like myself, were desperate to do so.  For the first eighteen months I worked almost every weekend, then the weekends began to become less frequent.

Management continued to corner me when there were no witnesses and make their demands even though I explained my situation.  I was told that “you should have thought about that before you had children” and “your wife should stay at home with the children”.  I even said that if they wanted me to resign then I could just go and look for another job, but they never did.

Instead, my weekends became even more infrequent.  I watched many staff come and go and heard many similar stories of harassment and incompetence.  It became obvious that management seemed to consist of people who had been promoted as a result of friendships within management rather than competence.  This in turn led to managers who were well out of their depth and who responded by bullying those beneath them, particularly anybody who might be more competent.

Once I was even reprimanded for mopping-up a trail of blood from DEM to the front entrance of the hospital, a trail that led five metres outside my area of responsibility.  The last day I worked at the RBH, I requested ashtrays and a recycle bin for DEM after cleaning a conference room littered with empty alcohol bottles and cigarette butts.  That was the last time I was called in for work.

Although my employment has never been formerly terminated, I haven’t been contacted for over two years and after six weeks of no contact it was too embarrassing to call and ask what was going on.  The allocation officer had been replaced a few months before my last day and it was a hostile and unpleasant work environment anyway.

After speaking with current staff at the RBH (many of those who worked at the time I did are gone), it seems the situation has become even worse.  Staff turn-over in Patient Support is extreme and if nursing staff make a good report about Patient Support staff, they are moved to another area. 

The whole system is a disgrace and a disaster just waiting to happen.  You cannot reason with unreasonable people, but you can make sure incompetents are removed from positions of authority so that decent people who work-hard are not driven away and disenfranchised from society.  It is time Queensland set the example and allowed those that want to work do so with dignity, honour and pride again.

The ATO

From late 2004 to early 2006, my employer was a company called [DELETED].  In reality, it was one man who worked as a consultant engineer for Main Roads.  He had decided to start his own property development business and hired me to work in his office under the Clerical level 2 award.

The opportunity included the promise of training and increases in wages to reflect skill development, and while the work was usually well out of my abilities and the equivalent of an AO4 in government, it was better than previous opportunities.  What I didn’t know at the time was he had a history of abusing staff and poor conduct at Main Roads and yet he remained in their employment until 2010.

My wife and I wanted to start a family, but after putting myself through university and working part time, the only job I had managed to obtain was as a storeman for minimum wages.  After seeking a raise there after my first year, my employer only offered to increase my wages to K$28 from K$26, and yet an unskilled friend he had hired (who only did half the same work) was getting K$36.

The new job offered a chance to use and improve upon my degree.  Unfortunately, that did not occur.  My employer, a Minister with the Presbyterian Church, was unhinged to say the least and thought nothing of bullying me and other staff he hired when his incompetence left him unable to handle situations.

Worse, it turned out he had a history of tax evasion and during my daily tasks I would discover he was billing his employers (including Main Roads) for hours we had not put in and staff that were no longer even with the company.  The charge-out rate was three times the staff member’s wage and paid for their weekly employment, but this made me uncomfortable and I said as much.

Unfortunately, at the same time my employer refused to honour his promise of a raise.  According to him my skills had not improved because I had not completed training (which he had refused to provide as he had promised) and my abilities were less than he had been led to believe.  Again, he was expecting me to perform AO4 tasks for the equivalent of AO2 wages.

Then I discovered that he had not been paying my wages properly, and I was three months out of pocket.  He refused to provide payslips and I only discovered the problem when I received my bank statement.  He refused to pay the wages until I provided proof and, after being given a copy of my bank statement, accused me of faking my hours and demanded my diary.

Eventually, I resigned.  He demanded I keep working and blamed me for his business failures and loss of income, despite claiming I wasn’t earning my wages.  Wageline recovered the unpaid wages when he refused to provide details on my employment, hours, wages, etc, but instructed me to contact the ATO to recover the three months outstanding Superannuation.

As it turned out, my employer had not paid any of my Superannuation for the entire eighteen months.  The ATO informed me that I had to provide all of the relevant details over the phone, there was no paperwork to fill in.  My employer refused to provide his details and instead sent an insane, aggressive and defamatory email that contradicted what it contained in numerous places.

The ATO did not send any confirmation on my application and so I called them several weeks later.  The staff member I spoke with could not find my file and after several minutes waiting on hold I was informed that it was in the “investigation stage” but “due to privacy laws we cannot give you any further details” and “don’t call us, we’ll call you”.  I was not given a case number.

Three months later I contacted the ATO again and received the same responses after waiting on hold for the staff member to find my case.  This time I asked for a case number and was given one.  The ATO had not sent me any postal correspondence or contacted me.

Another six months passed and I contacted the ATO again, receiving the same response.  The ATO contacted me a few months later to inform me the laws had changed and they could provide me with updates on my case but she was not involved with my case, only informing me of changes.  It had been a year and still the ATO had not sent me any details on my case.

I contacted the ATO six months later and received the same response laced with aggression and felt so intimidated by the treatment that I didn’t contact the ATO for another year.  The response was the same and still there was no correspondence from the ATO.

After three years I became very, very angry and told the staff member I contacted as much.  She told me I could lodge a complaint and sounded as if she was afraid she would get in trouble for telling me as much.  I lodged a complaint with the ATO immediately after speaking with the lady. 

Two working days later I received a letter from the ATO.  The case had been finalised.  My employer’s company had been deregistered two years earlier.  There would be no recovery of my Government guaranteed Superannuation.  The case was closed.

The next day, the ATO complaints person contacted me and asked what the problem was.  She said there would be an investigation.  A week later I was contacted by a different staff member who was taking over the case and I explained the situation again.  Two weeks later I received a letter from the ATO complaints investigator.

My case had been finalised.  My employer’s company had been deregistered two years earlier.  There would be no recovery of my Government guaranteed Superannuation.  There had been a computer error.  Nobody was at fault.   There was nothing I could do about it.  The case was closed.

I called to complain and got the same response.  I wrote to the Ombudsman and was referred to the ATO.  The ATO informed me, in no uncertain terms, that there was nothing I could do.  I received a letter and phone call telling me the same and if I had a problem I could contact the ATO.  In any case, I was told “it would have cost more to investigate and recover the money than what would have been recovered anyway.”

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2007/s1898306.htm

This seems very odd and perhaps the system would work better if the ATO didn’t investigate itself.  There seems to be no impartiality in such an investigation and there is no justice for people like me who have been the victims of fraud first by an employer and then incompetence and indifference at the hands of the ATO.  The ATO needs to be investigated and overhauled.   

I recently received a letter from the ATO informing me that I had failed to claim $150 interest in my Tax return and could face fines or imprisonment.  This was the icing on the cake.  After all the ATO had failed to do for me over K$5 Superannuation (including interest at the time), they could suddenly find my address and send that letter.  They also notified me by SMS that my taxes were due.      

Child Safety Services

As a child I suffered extreme abuse at the hands of my parents until I left home at the age of 17, even being forced to move interstate and change my name to escape continued threats and harassment.  My parents had defamed me to friends and relatives in order to discredit anything I might say about what they did to me during those years.

This left me isolated and with serious problems.  My health was very bad due to malnutrition, physical and mental abuse.   My mother had cleaned out my bank account before I was given access to it and there was no way I could contact my grandfather to inform him what had happened.  My grandparents no longer trusted me after the things they had been told.

Twenty years later, I had been married for ten years and had children of my own.  My wife and I needed to know who my father’s other children were.  He had a history of abuse against very young women and has at least four children to three different mothers, and rumours of two others, and is the main reason he was dismissed from the Victorian Police Force.

He never paid child support and the few times he had custody, he left me with relatives so he could spend time with his latest girlfriend.  I contacted Births, Deaths and Marriages in three States to get confirmation as to the existence, and the basic details (ie, names and approximate ages) of my father’s other children.  They informed me that “your father’s rights to privacy outweighs your desire to know who you are related to” but that “if you can get his permission or that of his other children then the information may be available”.

This is as stupid as it is insulting but only serves to prove that sociopaths have more rights than their victims.  What followed was years of telling people what happened to me in the hope of getting answers, humiliating and without dignity, but ultimately fruitless. 

My father’s relatives refused to respond or only replied with deceit, manipulation, insults and threats.  As it turns out, he returned to make peace with his parents a few years before they died.  He arrived with a new girlfriend and even got married.  They had been dating since she was 19.  He was 25 years older than her.  Grandma was very pleased he had finally settled down.  They used IVF to produce a daughter and named her after his father’s brother, who died as a child.  Then they got Grandma a new lawyer.

What followed was a dispute of Grandma’s vast estates that turned everyone against one another and so nobody trusts anyone, especially my father and any of the children he fathered.  As it happens, my father runs several internet businesses, including one that provides him access to children and young women and in which he presents himself as a parental guru.  The only registered business address is false.

The emails he sent are extremely disturbing.  They begin with the usual attempts to manipulate and then escalate to aggression, defamation and threats.  He has created a fictitious history for himself and there is an indication that he may have interfered with at least three of his nieces, which would explain a lot about their current attitudes and behaviours.  He also continues to manipulate my mother’s father.

Attempts to contact my mother’s father have only succeeded once, and even then he sounded confused and distressed.  My mother purchased the local post office after I left and delivers his mail.  He claimed he had never received anything I sent him over the years.  My mother’s second son, as he had bragged about doing over twenty years ago, finally tricked our grandfather into signing over half his land and then sold it.     

In response, our mother and her other children set about destroying his marriage and they are manipulating him and one another to gain control of his assets.  As I told him, I have no interest in any of his things; what he does with the things he worked to build are his concern and nothing to do with me.  I just want answers.

My grandfather gave me the address of a friend to send letters to, but I have since had no further response to contact.  Even after contacting the local police and being told they delivered a letter, no response.  I have made contact with some of his other friends and the only response I have had was insulting.

I contacted the local church and after the email somehow got sent via China, the recipient passed it on and sent me an email wishing me luck and offering prayers.  The church delivered a message, or so they claimed, but still there has been no response.  Instead, my father informed me he had sent photos of my children to my mother (which I asked him not to do) and she told my grandfather I asked not to let him see them.

 I contacted the Salvation Army for help and was told I had to give my contact details to them to pass on to my relatives or they wouldn’t help.  I contacted the Family Law Courts and was referred to a Community Centre, who referred me to Legal Aid, who told me they would not provide financial assistance because there was little chance of a successful outcome and referred me to QPILCH, who referred me to my local member and suggested I ask them to change laws to be given the right to know who I am related to.

When they never responded I wrote to politicians in the departments that were in positions to help or that seemed to give a damn about victims like me.  The only person that responded was Nick Xenophon’s secretary and she broke contact when I told her I was unable to provide my residential address for security reasons.  There has been no response from any other politicians.

In desperation and growing concern for the safety and welfare of my father’s latest child, a daughter, I contacted Blue Card Australia (who never responded) and Child Safety Services.  Twenty years ago when I had spoken to the DSS in Victoria about what had happened to me and my mother’s other children, nothing was done.  My school Counsellor also told me, in front of my mother, “sometimes children need to be beaten to learn their place”, and was threatened with prison for defamation if I spoke about it again.   

The response from CSS twenty years later was astounding.  First my complaints were met with indifference, then I was accused of trying to get back at my father for something I couldn’t prove, then I was insulted, and finally someone agreed to at least give me an email address to send copies of the emails I had received to prove character in the hope something might be done.

http://www.smh.com.au/queensland/how-did-mason-lee-slip-through-the-cracks-20160710-gq2jhk

Apparently, a single complaint is not worth investigating but due to privacy rights there was no way of knowing if anybody else had ever made complaints.  I was informed that even if something was done, I would never know because of privacy rights.  Privacy rights conceal a multitude of sins.

No wonder Daniel Morecombe was missing for so long and died at the hands of predators.  My case is an example of a system gone mad, castrated by incompetence, indifference, and a legal system designed to enable predators and silence victims.  Something needs to change.

As you can see, merely accessing justice in Queensland and Australia is almost impossible, especially as we have a legal (not justice) system.  All my wife and I want to know is who I am related to and that my brothers and sisters get justice rather than live lives of isolation and deception.  No child deserves to suffer for the sins of their parents and yet the only people who seem to care are strangers from China.  From China!

THE TIP OF THE BRIMSTONE - PART 12