If anyone reading this
ever finds themselves in need of the intervention of the Commonwealth
Ombudsman, do not get your hopes up too high. The Ombudsman has little interest
in facts, evidence or truth when it comes to investigations of this kind. After
7 months of ‘investigating’ the latest two year ban on me (imposed in May 16)
this is what the Ombudsman’s representative came up with. My response to Kent
Purvis’ letter follows. The farce continues:
Dear Mr
Ricketson
I apologize
for the delay in this response.
As I
understand it:
You believe
Screen Australia’s actions are biased towards you because of statement you made
about it in the past
You
disagree with SA’s decision to have no contact with you until May 2018, as you
believe SA has supplied no support for its decision.
You believe
this office has not, at any time, properly investigated your complaints, having
not asked questions you believe to be crucial to a proper assessment of the
issues.
On 10th
April 2016 I opened a new investigation into SA’s decision not to accept your
funding applications, and not to correspond with you about funding applications,
for a further period of two years (until May 2018). I requested SA to provide
the basis for its decision, including copies of correspondence you sent to SA
from May 2014 to May 2016.
On 29th
August, having considered the information provided by SA, I notified you of my
decision to finalize the investigation because in my view, SA’s decision not to
communicate with you was reasonable and open to it under the circumstances.
On 2nd
Sept 2016, after reconsidering my decision, I wrote to you and advised that I
decided to contact SA again. I contacted SA because, in my preliminary view,
the refusal to communicate with you should not extend to dealing with your
funding applications. I received SA’s response on 26 Oct 2016. Having
considered their response, I am writing to advise you that I have decided to
finalise the investigation.
SA’s response
indicated that should you be successful in your application for funding, SA
staff would be required to meet with you on multiple occasions in order to
engage in close analysis of the script, feedback, and coaching. SA believes
that, given the frequent unreasonably behaviour
you displayed over the past six years in contacting SA, it is not
appropriate to require its staff to deal with your funding application.
SA, like
all government agencies, has a legal obligation to provide a safe working environment for its staff. If customers behave
in a manner that compromises this obligation, then it may be reasonable to
restrict the way it will do business with those customers.
I
acknowledge this means SA will not assess any funding applications from you
until May 2018 when it reviews the arrangement. However, it is apparent to me
that SA has made this decision by considering the dual obligations of workplace
health and safety and service delivery.
For the
above reasons, I have decided to finalise my investigation.
I accept
you may be satisfied by my decision. It is open for you to request a review of
my decision, and the process for doing so is available on our website.
Yours
sincerely
Kent Purvis
Investigation
Officer
Although I know it will be
an exercise in futility and lead to more of the same nonsense, I will go
through the motions of having the Ombudsman’s decision reviewed. My response to Kent:
Kent Purvis
Investigation
Officer; Operations
Commonwealth
Ombudsman
14th
Dec. 2016
Dear Kent
In response to your letter of 2nd Dec 2016. You
have finally completed your 7 month ‘investigation’ of Screen Australia’s 3rd
bi-annual banning of me!
The good news is that the offense that led to my now
56 month long ban (but which, in reality, is, as you know, a lifetime ban) has
been downgraded from ‘intimidation’
and ‘placing at risk’ to the far
less serious charge of being ‘unreasonable’.
This is good news, a step in the right direction.
However, the question must be asked:
Is being ‘unreasonable’ an offense so heinous that
Screen Australia had no choice, in May 2012, but to terminate the career of an
Australian filmmaker?
And an obvious question arises:
“What unreasonable behaviour is Screen Australia
referring to?
Earlier in your letter you make your investigative modus
operandi clear:
“I requested SA to provide the basis for its decision,
including copies of correspondence you sent to SA from May 2014 to May 2016. On 29th August…”
Screen Australia obliged. You were provided with
‘copies of correspondence’. Your response:
“…having considered the
information provided by SA, I notified you of my decision to finalize the
investigation…”
What information (found in ‘copies of correspondence’)
did Screen Australia provide you with that gave you confidence to finalize your
investigation? Is this the same ‘information’ I have been asking Screen
Australia for this past 56 months – evidence of my having intimidated, harassed
and placed at risk members of Screen Australia staff?
Oops! Sorry, I mean evidence of my having been so ‘unreasonable’
as to deserve a lifetime Screen Australia ban? (Does the Office of the
Ombudsman really believe that there is some equivalence between ‘intimidation’
and being ‘unreasonable’!?)
Given that Screen Australia refuses to provide me with
evidence of my ‘unreasonableness’, that the Australian Government Solicitor
refuses to provide me with it, that both the Minister for the Arts and the
Australian Director’s Guild refuse to request of Screen Australia that such
evidence be made public, perhaps you’d like to share with me just what this
evidence comprises?
Must be pretty bad, I guess! I mean, you don’t ban
someone for common and garden ‘unreasonableness’, do you? You have to be
seriously ‘unreasonable’ to warrant a ban, right?
Does my propensity for ‘unreasonableness’ lead me, on
even one occasion, in my correspondence, to swearing, using abusive or
threatening language?
The answer, as you know, is ‘no’. (Feel free to correct me if I am lying here!)
Is there any one instance in which a reasonable person
(even an unreasonable one!) might form the impression that I was intimidating
the recipient of my correspondence?
The answer, as you know, is ‘no’. (Or do you believe it to be ‘yes’, Kent?)
Is there any one instance to be found in my
correspondence in which my choice of words could be construed as placing the
reader at risk?
The answer again is, as you know, ‘no’.
If you believe that the answer to any or all these
questions is ‘yes’ please provide me (and readers of my blog) with evidence
that will prove me to be a liar.
“If I am guilty I will pay”, sings Bob Marley, whilst
declaring that he did not shoot the
Sheriff. If I am guilty of
intimidation or placing at risk members of SA staff I should ‘pay’. I deserve
to suffer reputational damage if I am guilty as charged and for lying about
being innocent even of the allegation that I am ‘unreasonable’.
Am I a hypocrite, Kent, or telling the truth? You have
the evidence in front of you in the form of my correspondence. Share it with me. Share it with fellow
filmmakers (many of them friends of decades standing) who at present believe
that I have intimidated and placed at risk members of Screen Australia staff.
Did it not occur to you, in the name of natural
justice, when you had documented evidence of my ‘unreasonableness’ in front of
you, to ask me a question along these lines:
“Screen Australia considers the following statements
of yours, to be found in your correspondence, to be unreasonable enough to
warrant a lifetime ban; would you care to respond this this assertion?”
No, you decided that I had no right to be appraised of
the evidence of my ‘unreasonableness’ or given an opportunity to respond:
“…because in my view, SA’s decision not to communicate
with you was reasonable and open to it under the circumstances...”
At the risk of belabouring the point, what was it in
my correspondence that you feel constitutes evidence of my ‘unreasonableness’? Or
are you, as is the case with the Australian Government Solicitor, under no
obligation to share with me the evidence upon which you have based your
decision that I am, indeed, guilty of ‘unreasonableness’?
You write:
“On 2nd Sept 2016, after reconsidering my
decision, I wrote to you and advised that I decided to contact SA again. I
contacted SA because, in my preliminary view, the refusal to communicate with
you should not extend to dealing with your funding applications. I received
SA’s response on 26 Oct 2016.
Did it not occur to you on 26th Oct, prior
to providing Screen Australia’s ban with the stamp of your approval, to provide
me with the reasoning Screen Australia presented you with vis a via refusing
funding applications from me? So that I could respond as I saw fit? I would
have thought that natural justice demand that I be appraised of the evidence
and given an opportunity to present a defence on my own behalf.
No, this is not how you conduct an ‘investigation!
“Having considered their response, I am writing to
advise you that I have decided to finalise the investigation.”
In a process akin to the workings of Star Chambers of centuries gone by you decided,
acting as both judge and jury, without the defendant being given an opportunity
to peruse the evidence or present a defence, that the offense (“Mr Ricketson is
charged with being ‘unreasonable’”) was proven and that the appropriate
punishment is the termination of his career as an Australian filmmaker? And
yes, Kent, you do know, because it has been explained to you many times, that a
Screen Australia ban is essentially the kiss of death for any filmmaker in this
country.
Of Screen Australia’s reasoning for the May 2016 ban
placed on me, you write:
“SA’s response indicated that should you be successful
in your application for funding, SA staff would be required to meet with you on
multiple occasions in order to engage in close analysis of the script,
feedback, and coaching. SA believes that, given the frequent unreasonable
behaviour you displayed over the past six years in contacting SA, it is not
appropriate to require its staff to deal with your funding application.”
There is that word again, ‘unreasonable’. Not as
damning as ‘intimidating’ but what, precisely, is ‘unreasonable’ in my
correspondence?
Let’s place my alleged ‘unreasonableness’ in context.
I have been dealing with film funding bodies since I
made my first film in 1972. I have not only been an applicant but was, for ten
years, sitting on the other side of the desk assessing scripts, documentary and
drama projects for the Australian Film Commission – now entitled Screen Australia.
Never once in the past 43 years have I intimidated or placed at risk a member
of any funding body’s staff or, when on the other side of the desk, intimidated
or placed at risk an applicant. You know this to be so. So do members of Screen
Australia’s senior management and members of the SA board. So does the
Australian Director’s Guild.
No, my ‘unreasonableness’ has manifested itself in
challenging those in authority (within Screen Australia and elsewhere) who
abuse the power that has been vested in them; those who do not adhere to the
precepts of transparency and accountability in their dealings with members of
the public.
We are living in a post-factual world, however, and
the truth, facts, evidence are as irrelevant to the Office of the Ombudsman as
they are to Screen Australia. What you have written here, acting as Screen
Australia’s echo chamber and apologist is the crudest form of ‘dog whistling’.
The subtext is clear:
“Screen Australia staff would be ‘at risk’ if they
were to be in the same room as Mr Ricketson.”
This is nonsense. It is absurd. It is very hurtful. It
is defamatory. And you have no evidence at all, and nor does Screen Australia,
that I would pose any risk at all to anyone engaged in a conversation with me
about a film project. That you accept this proposition, without question,
speaks volumes of your lack of competence as an ‘investigator’. Where is the
evidence in support of this dog-whistle proposition? There is none. And you
know it.
“SA, like all government agencies, has a legal
obligation to provide a safe working
environment for its staff. If customers behave in a manner that
compromises this obligation, then it may be reasonable to restrict the way it
will do business with those customers.”
More dog whistling.
The reason why you, why the Ombudsman’s office
generally, why senior SA management and the SA board do not wish to present
evidence of my alleged offenses (be they intimidation or being ‘unreasonable’)
is that there is no evidence. If this were to became public knowledge you would
all (how can I express this in a ‘reasonable’ fashion?) have a great deal of
egg on your faces for having ‘convicted’ me not on the basis of evidence but on
the basis of Ruth Harley and Fiona Cameron’s vindictive desire to silence a
critic; to prevent a filmmaker from ‘unreasonably’ asking them to be honest,
transparent and accountable in their dealings with him; in their dealings with
the film industry at large.
Was Fiona Cameron’s decision to call the police and
have me arrested for doing nothing more than sit in the Screen Australia foyer
waiting to be provided with evidence of my ‘unreasonableness’ a ‘reasonable’
response? Or do you think it could be fairly characterised as ‘intimidating’?
And what about Fiona Cameron’s second call to the police to have me arrested
for merely sitting in the Screen Australia foyer during business hours? Reasonable?
Intimidation?
I should add that on this second occasion my arrest
(and subsequent jailing for the weekend) took place with the blessing of the Screen
Australia board – meeting in a room just 20 feet away.
Having a filmmaker arrested and jailed for a weekend
is not ‘unreasonable’. It is intimidation, pure and simple. You blithely skate
over these arrests and my jailing; just as you blithely skate over Screen
Australia banning me from making Freedom of Information requests relevant to my
assertion that I have never been (to use the Screen Australia euphemism)
‘unreasonable’. If you had been employed as a spin doctor by Screen Australia,Kent,
you could not have done a better job than your letter of 2nd Dec.
(pasted below in its entirety) in using verbal sleight of hand to provide
Screen Australia’s ban on me with the imprimatur of the Ombudsman’s approval.
In a world in which the Office of the Ombudsman was
actually interested in facts, evidence, truth, in a world in which the Office
of the Ombudsman operated in accordance with the principles of natural justice,
you would be fired for the sheer incompetence you have demonstrated this past
six months in dealing with this matter.
Yes, I want your decision ‘reviewed’ – by someone within
your office who does not see their job as being an apologist for Screen
Australia; who will present me with evidence of the ‘unreasonableness’ that has
led to these ongoing bans.
best wishes
James Ricketson
cc Mr Colin Neave, Commonwealth Ombudsman
Senator Mitch Fifield, Minister for the Arts
Graeme Mason, CE, Screen Australia
Fiona Cameron, COO, Screen Australia
Members of the Screen Australia board
Ms Louise Vardanega, Australian Government Solicitor
(acting)
Members of the Australian Director’s Guild board
