Members
of the Screen Australia Board
Level
4, 150 William St
Woolloomooloo 2011 21st. June 2013
Dear
Board Members
Ruth Harley will soon
leave the Screen Australia stage – having never been asked or obliged by the
Board to provide evidence that I have, in my correspondence, intimidated or
placed at risk members of Screen Australia’s staff. One of the new Chief
Executive’s early tasks may well be to make a decision as to whether or not s/he believes I am entitled to be provided
with evidence of the crimes for which I have been tried, found guilty and led
to my being banned. Will s/he demonstrate a commitment to the precepts of
transparency and accountability by recommending to the Board that I be provided
with such evidence? Or will s/he, like Ruth, simply ignore my request that the
evidence of my alleged offenses, in the interests of transparency and
accountability, be made public?
Is it appropriate that
a new Chief Executive be saddled with such a decision? Would it not be more
appropriate, before s/he takes over, that the Board make the evidence public
and reveal either myself or Ruth to be playing fast and loose with the truth?
Or, if there is no evidence (which is my contention) that the Board recommend
to Ruth before she leaves that the ban on me be lifted or simply overrule Ruth?
The question of the
existence or non existence of intimidating correspondence from myself cannot be
considered in isolation from Chief Operating Officer Fiona Cameron’s letter to
me dated 10th Nov 2010 - a letter in which the existence of phantom
correspondence is first raised. Fiona writes, in relation to my meeting with
Ross Mathews and Julia Overton in August of that year:
“Unfortunately
it appears from your correspondence that you came away from that meeting with
an understanding that you application for further development for further
development funding for Chanti’s World had been effectively green lit. This is
jot the case, nor could it be….It is certainly regrettable that you came away
from the meeting with a misunderstanding of its intent, or of remarks made by
Mr Mathews.”
For two years I asked Fiona to
provide me with copies of the correspondence in which I suggested or even
intimated that I had come away from the August 2010 meeting with the belief
that Chanti’s World had been green lit. When, after two FOI applications, many
letters and blog entries, Fiona eventually identified the correspondence in
which I had, supposedly, revealed my belief that Chanti’s World had been green
lit, it did not contain any such suggestion from me. The Board has been aware of
this fact for the past year at least.
Fiona’s allegation that I had
written correspondence that I had not written is one of the main triggers of
the long running and, in so many ways, farcical dispute that led to my being
banned. And, because Fiona was never obliged to provide evidence that I had
written in my correspondence what she claimed I had written, the stage was set
for Ruth Harley to do the same – as she did in her letter to me of 10th
May 2010. Ruth knew full well, when she justified her ban on me on the grounds
that I had intimidated and placed at risk members of Screen Australia’s staff
in my correspondence, that she would never be asked by the Screen Australia
Board to provide evidence that I had done so. She could make whatever
allegations she chose knowing that they would go unchallenged.
A precedent has been set in place
with my banning such that Screen Australia’s Chief Executive and Chief
Operating Officer (and anyone else in senior management) can justify the
banning, defamation or marginalizing of any filmmaker by making reference to non-existent
correspondence secure in the knowledge that the Screen Australia Board will not
ask to see the correspondence; secure in the knowledge that they will not be
held in any way publicly accountable for decisions made on the basis of this
non-existent correspondence.
If Fiona Cameron has made it onto
a short list to replace Ruth Harley as Chief Executive I trust that the
relevant decision-makers will ask her to provide evidence, from my own
correspondence, of her assertion that I came away from my meeting believing
that Chant’s World had been green lit. Do we want a new Chief Executive who
plays as fast and loose with the truth as did Ruth?
If the Board find this last
statement offensive, please provide me with just one example from my
correspondence (or more if the Board so
chooses) in which I have intimidated or placed at risk members of Screen
Australia’s staff; one sentence or even one phrase from my correspondence that
suggests I believed Chanti’s World had been green lit. And make these examples
public – the very essence of the kind of transparency and accountability the
Board should be committed to.
If the Screen Australia Board
feels ill equipped to decide whether or not the offending correspondence exists
or whether or not I (and the industry) should have access to it, perhaps the suggestions
I made in May 2012 could, even at this ate date, be entertained.
On
17th May 2012 I suggested a ‘Simple
Solution’ – namely that:
“A Conciliator is called in who
has no connection with Screen Australia or myself and no vested interest in the
outcome – a cross between Judge Judy and a marriage guidance counselor. S/he
would be interested in verifiable facts only…I would suggest that such a
conciliation meeting occur as soon as possible and that all present agree with
whatever findings the Conciliator arrives at and that the matter be put to rest
once and for all.”
A
week later, in 23rd May 2012 ‘Conciliation…Mediation’,
I wrote:
“Please Ruth, Fiona,
agree to take part in a conciliation/mediation process overseen by someone who
has no vested interest in the outcome but who is interested in the facts only.”
A great deal of time,
energy and angst could have been prevented if the Conciliation/Mediation
process I recommended over a year ago had taken place. It should take place now
best
wishes
James
Ricketson
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