James Ricketson
Europe Guest House
# 51, Street 136 Phnom Penh
+85517 898 361
Graeme
Mason
Chief
Executive
Screen
Australia
Level
7, 45 Jones St
Ultimo
2007
9th
May 2016
Dear
Graeme
Four years ago today your predecessor, Ruth
Harley, conducted a ring around of members of the Screen Australia board. She
requested that they vote to ban me from making any form of application to Screen Australia, or
of even speaking with members of Screen Australia staff.
The board agreed to Ruth’s request, made on
the recommendation of Ian Govey - the then Australian Government Solicitor. In order
to make the ban on me legal, Mr Govey agreed that Screen Australia’s Terms of
Trade could be amended.
For four years I have asked Screen Australia
to provide me with examples of my having intimidated, harassed or placed at
risk members of Screen Australia’s staff with my correspondence – the
ostensible reason for the ban on me. No evidence has been forthcoming. Not one
example!
As you know, as the Screen Australia board
knows and as three successive Ministers for the Arts know (and have done for
four years), there is no evidence. The board, perhaps acting in good faith at
the outset, rubber-stamped Ruth Harley’s request – perhaps in the belief that
if Mr Govey believed such a ban was warranted he must have had solid evidence
that this was so. The following extract from my letter to Mr Govey speaks for
itself:
Given that, back in May 2012, you gave
Screen Australia your stamp of approval on my banning, I would like to ask you:
Did Ruth Harley provide you with evidence
that I had intimidated, harassed or placed at risk members of Screen
Australia’s staff with my correspondence?
If Ruth Harley provided you with no
evidence, on what basis did you agree to allow the Screen Australia board to
change its Terms of Trade (overnight!) in order to provide a retrospective
legal basis upon which to ban me?
If Ruth Harley did provide you with evidence,
from my correspondence, of my guilt of the crimes that led to my being banned,
why did you feel the need, back in May 2012, to keep evidence of my guilt
secret? Why do you, in May 2016, feel the need to keep this evidence secret?
Yes, you have the legal right to keep the
reasoning behind your decision to recommend that I be banned a secret. But why?
I imagine that situations do arise in which such secrecy is warranted. Do such
reasons apply here? Is there some national security reason why the evidence
against me must be kept secret?
This dispute has gone beyond absurd. It has
entered the realms of Alice in Wonderland and Franz Kafka:
“You have been accused of a crime, found
guilty of that crime and are being punished accordingly. You have no right to
be appraised of evidence in support of the proposition that you committed a
crime and nor are you entitled to defend yourself.”
One does not need to be a trained lawyer to see what is
wrong with this proposition. Or of how dangerous a precedent it sets.
As I have written countless times now, if
there is any evidence that I am guilty as charged, (one paragraph, one sentence
or even one word) make this evidence available to me and my fellow filmmakers.
If there is no evidence, make this publicly known and restore my reputation to
me.
I have sought from Louise Vardanega, the current
Australian Government Solicitor (acting), under FOI legislation, copies of the correspondence
Mr Govey had with Ruth Harley that led him to believe that Screen Australia’s
Terms of Trade should be altered to ban me.
Ms Vardanega has informed me that this
correspondence is “exempt from the operation of the FOI Act.” In short, I am not
entitled to know upon what evidence Mr Ian Gorvey was basing his decision to
approve a ban on me.
An extract from my letter to Ms Vardanega:
Dear Ms Vardanega
…If there is evidence on file, in writing,
the ban on me is justified and my fellow filmmakers are entitled to know the
truth. If there is no evidence, there has been a gross miscarriage of
justice here and the record needs to be set straight. And, again, my fellow
filmmakers are entitled to know the truth.
That the truth has been kept hidden this
past 4 years is absurd. Why?
I can only come up with two possible
explanations:
Mr Ian Govey rubber stamped a decision made
by someone further down the bureaucratic ladder within your department to have
me banned and to have Screen Australia’s Terms of Trade changed to make the ban
possible. In short, he did not pay adequate attention to the letter he was
signing.
If this be the case I can well understand
why Mr Govey (and now yourself) might have a vested interest in keeping the
circumstances surrounding this rubber stamping secret.
Mr Govey was provided with a solid
argument, in terms of evidence, as to why a ban on me was justified and cannot
be blamed if the evidence he was provided with was false.
If Mr Govey was acting in good faith on the
basis of the evidence before him there is only one conclusion that I can draw –
namely that Ruth Harley presented Mr Govey with lies of such magnitude that he
felt quite justified in providing his imprimatur to my banning. If this be the
scenario, I wonder if Ruth Harley knew, in advance, that her lies would never
come to light – for reasons outlined in (Ms Vardaneg’s) letter to me?
If there is some other explanation that has
not occurred to me as to why I cannot be appraised of the reasons for my being
banned, please provide it to me as soon as you possibly can. I would much
rather not expend a huge amount of time, energy and money getting an answer to
a question you could so easily provide with a quick review of the files; an
answer to a question that both the Minister for the Arts and the Commonwealth
Ombudsman could have obtained at any time this past 4 years by simply picking
up the phone and saying: “Please provide Mr Ricketson with evidence.”
best wishes
Ms Vardanega’s response was:
“The matters of
which you complain are of a nature upon which AGS would only comment if
instructed to do so by a client. AGS has no instructions to comment on your
email.”
As Chief Executive, you are now the ‘client’,
Graeme. Unpleasant though it may be, it is your job to clean up the mess
created by Ruth Harley and Fiona Cameron. Could you please instruct Ms
Vardanega to release copies of the correspondence upon which Mr Ian Govey based
his decision to recommend to the Screen Australia board that I be banned. If
you will not so instruct Ms Vardanega, could you please provide me with a
reason why.
Queen of Hearts: Now... are you ready for your sentence?
Alice: Sentence? But there has to be a verdict
first...
Queen of Hearts: Sentence first! Verdict afterwards.
Alice: But that just isn't the way...
Queen of Hearts: [shouting] All ways are...!
Alice: ...your ways, your
Majesty.
I was informed of the verdict of the Screen
Australia Kangaroo Court set up by Ruth Harley on 10th May 2012, and
of the sentence, but four years down the track have yet to be presented with evidence
of my crime.
Evidence please, Graeme.
best wishes
James Ricketson
cc Senator Mitch Fifield
Mr Colin Neave,
Commonwealth Ombudsman
Australian
Director’s Guild
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