Graeme Mason
Chief Executive
Screen Australia
Level 7, 45 Jones St
Ultimo 2007
23rd
May 2016
Dear Graeme
You commence your letter of 16th
May, announcing Screen Australia’s new ban on me,
by repeating Fiona Cameron’s original
lie:
“Your substantive complaints
about Screen Australia’s decision not to fund your production Chanti’s World
have been exhaustively addressed, including by external review and
investigation by the Commonwealth Ombudsman.”
As you know, I never ever complained about Screen
Australia failing to fund “Chanti’s World.” I repeat, ‘never’. And if you have
any evidence that I did, produce it.
It was this lie of Fiona Cameron’s that triggered the
sequence of events that led to my being banned in May 2012. In repeating
Fiona’s lie you have made it your own.
I asked Fiona Cameron, over a period of more than a year,
to produce evidence from my correspondence in support of her claim that I had
made any complaint at all about “Screen Australia’s decision
not to fund… Chanti’s World”. She could not do so, because I made no such complaint.
It was my refusal to accept her non-answer as the final word on the subject
that led her to announce that she would have no further communication with me.
When I wrote to Ruth Harley to
complain about Fiona’s lie, her subsequence obfuscation to cover her lie, her
refusal to present evidence or communicate with me any further, Ruth handed my complaint to Fiona to investigate. Fiona
Cameron investigating Fiona Cameron!
You know this. The Screen Australia
board knows this. It is all well documented. Indeed, so well documented that
there is little point in going over it all again since neither you nor any
members of the Screen Australia board this past four years has had any interest
in the facts (all available on file) but only in circling your wagons around
Fiona and Ruth to protect them from being exposed as liars. The ban on me was
the most extreme example of the fatwa that had already been visited upon me by
Screen Australia. And here you are, in May 2016, repeating a lie that you know
to be a lie and who anyone looking at the correspondence would know to be a
lie.
Really, Graeme, have you no
shame!
No-one back in 2011 or 2012
had any interest in looking at the facts. This includes Elisa Harris from the
Office of the Ombudsman. She conducted no investigation at all into my
complaint. She merely spoke with Fiona Cameron on the telephone. Ms Harris did
not speak with Julia Overton, Liz Crosby or Ross Mathews – all three of whom
would have been in a position to either confirm or deny the truth of Fiona
Cameron’s allegation. Indeed, given that there is nothing in any of my
correspondence to back up Screen Australia’s assertion that I complained about
“Chanti’s World” not being funded, the meeting I had with Ross Mathews, Julia
Overton and Liz Crosby was, and remains, relevant. Did I or did I not give
Ross, Julia and Liz the impression that I believed “Chanti’s World” to have
been ‘greenlit’?
My attempts, over a
considerable length of time, to get Julia, Liz and Ross to either confirm or
deny this allegation of Fiona Cameron’s were met with silence. This is
understandable, on one level, since all
three knew that Fiona was lying but all three were also Screen Australia
employees and did not wish to rock the boat. By repeating Fiona’s lie in your letter
of 16th you have dragged Julia, Ross and Liz back into this
bureaucratic farce. Instead of doing all you can to de-escalate conflict you
have poured gasoline on the fire. As a result I have no choice but to ask you,
through FOI legislation to:
- Provide
me with any evidence Screen Australia has in support of the proposition that I
complained about “Chanti’s World” not being funded. This includes any
correspondence from myself (letter or email) and any statements made by Ross
Mathews, Liz Crosby and Julia Overton either in support of Screen Australia’s
assertion or in contradiction to it.
I have known Julia, Liz and
Ross for decades and would invite them, even after all these years, to sit at a
table opposite me and say, “Yes, Fiona Cameron told the truth. You
indicated to us that you believed “Chanti’s World” had been funded.”
They are now caught between a rock and a hard place. They have stood by for
four years and allowed me to be banned on the basis of a lie. To admit to this
now would be very difficult for all three of them. However, if they believe
that Fiona Cameron was speaking (writing) the truth they should have no problem
coming out and saying so. To my face.
This will not happen of
course. The last thing Screen Australia wants is for the truth to come out.
Your job now is, in whatever way you can, to put a lid on this. And you have,
foolishly, thought that the best way to do so is ban me for a further two years
– a ban based on allegations but not evidence – and issue a thinly veiled
threat that Screen Australia will sue me for defamation if I do not close
delete evidence of my innocence from my blog.
Your repeat of Fiona Cameron’s
original lie, foolish though it is, is also not relevant to the question of
whether or not I intimidated and placed at risk members of Screen Australia’s
staff with my correspondence – the ostensible reason for my being banned. You can commit Fiona Cameron’s
lie regarding ‘Chanti’s World’ to writing (again!) because you know, from
experience, that the Commonwealth Ombudsman will not ask you for evidence to
back it up. Nor will the Minister for the Arts. Nor will the Australian
Director’s Guild. There is no-one who will hold you accountable for your
falsehood – just as there has been no-one, for the past four years, prepared to
hold Ruth Harley accountable for her assertion that I intimidated, harassed or
placed at risk members of Screen Australia staff; to ask her (or now you) the
simple question:
“Evidence please.”
When a bureaucrat such as
yourself writes, “This matter has been thoroughly canvassed…” or “exhaustively
addressed” they mean, “We have refused to answer your question a dozen times
now and will continue to do so no matter how many times you ask it. And if you
continue to ask it we will accuse you of harassment!”
‘Canvassed’ is one of many
weasel words (as is the expression
“exhaustively addressed” used by bureaucrats to create to illusion of
accountability and due process. It is the oft used first move in a bureaucratic
chess game in which the rules are rigged in the bureaucrat’s favour. If the
person whose question has never been answered (‘Evidence please’) continues to
ask it (despite the bureaucrat’s declaration that it has been ‘canvassed’,
‘addressed’) he or she will next be accused of wasting the bureaucrats precious
time and told that no further communication will be entered into. The
bureaucrat has given him or herself the license to ignore all further asking of
the question that was never answered in the first place.
Now, if the person asking the
question continues to ask it, despite it having been ‘canvassed’, despite the
fatwa that has been placed on communication, the next move in this particular
bureaucratic chess game is to accuse the questioner of ‘harassing’ the person
who will not answer the question.
It is but a small step from
‘harassment’ to ‘intimidation’ – especially in an era in which a person’s
‘feeling’ that she is being intimidated is what counts; not whether or not she
has in fact been intimidated. This particular ‘intimidation’ ploy is one oft
used by female bureaucrats. On the one hand they can play bureaucratic politics
in as hardball and Machiavellian a manner as any man but they have a secret
weapon, if they choose to use it; one not readily available to a make
bureaucrat: “I feel intimidated.” The person whose questions have never been answered
is now the bully who intimidates!
I am not sure how the
imaginative leap is made from intimidation to ‘placing at risk’, however. How
can correspondence, words on paper, words on a computer screen, constitute a
risk to the reader? How can a telephone conversation between myself and a
member of Screen Australia staff place them at risk? At risk of what? Have I
ever, in either my correspondence or on the telephone, threatened a member of
Screen Australia’s staff? Have I ever sworn or been abusive in my use of words
or tone of voice? If so, I presume that some complaint must have been placed on
file by whoever was at the receiving end of such behavior from myself.
I have asked this ‘placing at
risk’ question many times but received no answer. And, of course, the fact that
I continue to ask it is evidence (as is this letter) of my continuing to harass
Screen Australia staff! And so it is that Screen Australia has stacked the deck
such that any communication from me is evidence of the need to have me banned!
To add to my list of FOI
questions:
- Please
provide me with whatever documented evidence Screen Australia has that I placed
any member of Screen Australia staff ‘at risk’ in any of my correspondence –
either email or letter?
As I have been making clear
for sometime now Screen Australia’s ban on me is no longer a matter of great concern
to me. As one door has closed, another opened, and at the ripe old age of 67 I
have commenced a new career as a non-Australian filmmaker. What is of concern
to me is that you can perpetuate the same lie Fiona Cameron placed on file more
than five years ago. This is the same Fiona Cameron who, when I spoke with her
in the foyer of Screen Australia, where I was sitting waiting to be presented
with evidence that I had intimidated her (amongst other things) called the
police to have me arrested for ‘trespassing’! Sitting on couch in the Screen Australia foyer reading a
book at 3.30 in the afternoon! Really, Graeme! You think this was necessary? An
action worthy of your defending?
It will come as no surprise to
you that I felt a little intimidated by being led from Screen Australia by the
police, placed in the back of a paddy wagon and placed in a cell (belt removed
lest I top myself!) and released on bail four or so hours later.
A few weeks later I arrived
again in the Screen Australia foyer, whilst a board meeting was in progress,
hoping that common sense would prevail; that some member of the board would
come and talk with me; present me with evidence of a crime so heinous that
banning was the only possible solution. No, the police were called again. I was
arrested again. I spent the weekend in jail. Such is the mind-set of Fiona
Cameron and the Screen Australia board when confronted by a filmmaker who has
the temerity to ask questions that they do not wish to answer. Questions like:
“Evidence please.”
Quite apart from the stupidity
and unfairness of having me twice arrested, this action reveals a mind-set that
should not exist amongst high-level film bureaucrats and a board whose task it
is to develop and fund high quality TV and feature film projects for Australian
and international audiences. That Screen Australia should refuse to read any
screenplay I write, on the stated grounds that I am banned (because the reading
of it presents a ‘risk’ to the reader!) is just plain nonsense, Graeme. And you
know it. And yet you go along with it because the alternative, the truth of the
matter (no intimidation, no placing at risk) would leave you, Ruth Harley,
Fiona Cameron and a dozen or so board members who have given their imprimatur
to my ban this past few years, with egg on their faces. A lot of egg.
I do not recognize the
validity of your most recent ban, announced on 16th May, when I had
just started (as you know) the process whereby I appealed your decision to
withhold evidence of my guilt. In order to be 100% sure that you are standing
by this ban I have this morning made an electronic application for development
funds for a 10 hour drama series I am writing entitled NEST OF VIPERS. The sum
I have asked for is $1. The Screen Australia
computer has still not been programmed to reject my application but,
interestingly, the other electronic applications I have made last year have
been deleted from the computer.
So, Graeme, you can either
accept this application (and hence nullify this latest ban) or instruct the
person who administers electronic applications to delete my application.
Back in Nov 2013 you had the
opportunity, Graeme, of bringing this dispute to an end. You chose not to take
me up on my offer. You are again faced with the same choice. You can keep up
your defense of the indefensible, writing nonsense such as you have written in
your letter to me of 16th May and we can take this to the Supreme
Court so that I can get evidence of my various (and growing list of) crimes.
Alternatively you can find some face-saving way out of the mess created by Ruth
Harley and Fiona Cameron (with the imprimatur of the SA board); a mess that you
seem all too keen to add to with lies of your own.
One final thing, Graeme. Given
the lengths to which you are going to withhold evidence of my crimes, I can’t
help but focus on the ‘placing at risk’ allegation. This one mystifies me. It
makes no sense. Could it be that Ruth Harley has placed on file (in her
communications with the Commonwealth Government Solicitor) an allegation that
is so demonstrably untrue that the release of it would open up a Pandora’s Box
of questions that Screen Australia would not want opened up.
So many questions, Graeme, and
so few answers. And now you wish to use the letter of FOI legislation to
provide Screen Australia with a quasi-legal justification for keeping evidence
of my alleged crimes secret.
best wishes
James Ricketson
cc Senator Mitch Fifield,
Minister for the Arts
Louise Vardanega, Australian
Crown Solicitor (acting)
Commonwealth Ombudsman
Australian Director’s Guild
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