James Ricketson
Europe Guest House
# 51, Street 136 Phnom Penh
+85517 898 361
Senator Mitch
Fifield
Minister for
Communications and the Arts
Level 2
4 National
Circuit
Barton, ACT
2600
19th
April 2016
Dear Senator
Fifield
Receipt of my
letter to you of 25th January remains unacknowledged. The same applies to all of my letters.
You have joined
with the Screen Australia Board and the Commonwealth Ombudsman in deciding that
a person banned from making films in his own country (which is what the ban on
me boils down to in practice) is not entitled to be provided with evidence of
his guilt of the crimes that led to the ban.
Given that the
Screen Australia board has no intention of ever providing me with evidence in
support of the original proposition that I intimidated and placed at risk
members of SA staff with my correspondence, I have no choice but to commence
legal proceedings against Screen Australia.
My objective is not monetary gain but the restoration of my reputation. That
I should have to do so in order to get an answer to a simple question, a
question that you (or the Commonwealth Ombudsman) could get an answer to with
just one phone call, is absurd.
A great deal of
my time, energy and money will be spent getting an answer to this question. And
a great deal of Screen Australia’s time, energy and money will be spent (as was
the case with the 2012 Supreme Court hearings) trying to prevent me from
getting an answer to this question. And the question is, as I have been asking
for four years:
“Please
provide me with at least one example of my having intimidated or placed at risk
members of Screen Australia staff with my correspondence?”
Whilst I believe
that more than one instance of my guilt should be required to warrant a
lifetime ban, I will accept just one instance. Provide this to me, I will
accept the Screen Australia board’s fatwa, and this matter can be put to rest.
I have been
left with no choice but to retire as an Australian filmmaker. However, I wish
to retire with my reputation intact and not besmirched by Ruth Harley and Fiona
Cameron’s lies. These led the Screen Australia board, with undue haste, and
without my being able to answer my accusers, without any board meeting, to sign off on a
letter (dated 9th May) that Ruth Harley had already written.
The legal
justification for the ban was provided by the Australian Government Solicitor
dated 9th May 2012. Despite my various requests through FOI the
contents of this letter have never been
made available to me. Nor have the
letters sent to the Government Solicitor upon which he based his judgment. Not
only am I not allowed to be appraised of evidence of my crimes, I am also not
allowed to know the contents of the Government Solicitor’s letter which, I must
presume, states the reasons why a ban should be imposed on me and why it was
felt necessary to amend Screen Australia’s Terms of Trade to retrospectively
create the legal justification for the ban.
I have enclosed
a copy of Nick Coyle’s note to members of Screen Australia’s board dated 9th
May. Please note that this was sent to board members at 5.37 in the afternoon.
Given that Ruth Harley’s letter to me was posted on 9th May I think
it fair to assume that the board decided to end a filmmaker’s career not only
in the absence of evidence (true evidence that is; evidence that had been
tested), not only in the absence of a board meeting to discuss the Government
Solicitor’s letter, but in the space of a few hours. The expressions “undue
haste” and “rubber stamp” spring to mind.
If, at this
late stage, you felt inclined to pick up the phone and ask Screen Australia for
evidence of my crimes a great deal of time, energy and money – expended by a
long list of people – would be saved.
best wishes
James Ricketson
cc Graeme Mason
Commonwealth
Ombudsman
Screen
Australia Board
Australian
Directors Guild
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