Final letter to Tony Burke MP regarding 13 year dispute with with Screen Australia

 

The Hon. Tony Burke MP

Minister for the Arts

GPO Box 594

Canberra,  ACT 2601                                                                          25^th February 2026

 

Dear Minister

re Screen Australia

 

Given Screen Australia’s lack of a functioning complaints process for filmmakers and your own clear lack of interest in helping resolve my now 14 year long dispute with Screen Australia, I recently sought legal advice from a solicitor and barrister. The salient points they made are the following:

 

-        I do not consider any of the correspondence provide by you as being intimidatory or capable of placing any SA staff at risk. I think the term intimidation is subjective and the concept of "being capable of placing staff at risk," is extremely vague. They represent language that can be manipulated to encompass a vast number of communications and potentially censor innocent people.

 

-        I doubt that you will be able to extract an apology or an acknowledgement that your alleged behaviour was not improper. Time is your biggest enemy.

 

-        The costs implications are twofold: (1) The process will cost money, (2) It is almost inevitable that the losing party will be ordered to pay the bulk of the successful party’s costs.

 

As a self-funded filmmaker with minimal assets, it would be unwise of me to initiate legal proceedings against Screen Australia and risk bankruptcy. I can only defend myself with words and hope that anyone in the future with an interest in the truth, with facts and with evidence will have access to my blog and be in a position to decide for themselves who was, back in 2012 and 2025, telling the truth and who was lying.

 

In brief:

 

It was apparent back in 2012 that I had not intimidated, harassed or placed at risk any Screen Australia staff member. The Board was aware of this but rubber-stamped Ruth Harley’s proposal that I be banned anyway.

 

In 2025 the current Board threatened to ban me yet again, citing my repeated requests for evidence of my guilt as further harassment/intimidation on my part.

 

Just as Screen Australia has no functioning complaints mechanism, so too is it with your Ministry. Facts, truth, evidence are of no consequence. The Screen Australia Board is free to censor, intimidate and ban whomsoever it likes with impunity.

 

As you would be aware if you had read any of my correspondence over the past year I have offered many times to meet with Screen Australia Board and/or senior staff members to resolve this matter. I have made it clear many times over the past 14 years that I would willingly accept my publishment if one paragraph, one sentence or even one word could be presented to me that warrants my banning. 

 

Screen Australia has not taken me up on these multiple offers because Board members and senior staff alike know that I am not guilty as charged and would not be able to look me in the eye and tell me that XXX or YYY was evidence enough for them to ban me or, in 2025, to threaten to ban me again for having the temerity to ask questions it does not wish to answer. It is one thing to bully a filmmaker in cyberspace and quite another to do so to his or her face with no evidence at all to place on the table! 

 

The current board, as with its 2012 counterpart, does not have the moral courage to declare, ‘Yes, we made a mistake in banning Mr. Ricketson;’ does not have the integrity required of a body with such enormous power to steer our fragile industry in a fair and equitable manner.

 

One problem that besets filmmakers is that the financial funding cake that we must compete with each other to acquire a slice of, is not nearly big enough to feed us all. This is just a fact of life. Filmmakers thus fall, broadly speaking, into two categories: (1) Those who are recipients of SA largesse and (2) those who are not. 

 

The former has no desire to bite the hand that feeds it, and those who are not successful in their applications have no desire to bite the hand of the funding body that they hope will feed them next time around. In the absence of a functioning complaints mechanism and considering what happens to filmmakers such as myself who seek justice, it is not surprising that few filmmakers will write to you as I have. 

 

I am far from being alone in having complaints about Screen Australia. There are many of us, but most will not risk their future by making complaints that they fear may result in their being treated as I have been since 2012.

 

The problem here is systemic and has been since Screen Australia was set up.

 

There are several reasons why we do not make many films these days that Australian audiences want to see, but amongst them is the way in which Screen Australia has been run since its inception.  The problem is systemic.

 

I believe that senior SA staff, the Board and you, as Minister, should be open to the feedback and criticisms of other filmmakers in a manner that does not result in their being ‘banned’ (officially or unofficially) by Screen Australia.

 

We live in challenging times and the advent of AI, the ubiquity of streaming services that adversely affect cinema ticket sales, present our ‘industry’ with challenges that must be met with boldness and imagination and with the input of older generation filmmakers with decades of experience and the skills acquired along the way, and of young filmmakers who may have little or no experience but have an understanding of the media landscape that we older generation filmmakers do not. “Let a thousand flowers bloom.” Do not rely for good ideas on career bureaucrats who tend to lack the kind of boldness we need now.

 

At the risk of belabouring the point, Screen Australia’s problems are systemic. It has an ‘attitude problem’. The changes needed are radical if we are to convince Australian audiences that Australian films are exciting not just as entertainment but as a mirror we hold up to ourselves as a culture.

 

cheers

 

James Ricketson

cc Members of the Screen Australia Board

Dierdre Brennan CEO, Screen Australia

Why an Australian Film Industry? Questions for Arts Minister, Tony Burke

                                                                 James Ricketson

58 Braidwood Road

Goulburn 2580

jamesricketson@gmail.com

0488543555

The Hon. Tony Burke MP

Minister for the Arts

GPO Box 594

Canberra,  ACT 2601                                                                                  13^th February 2026

 

Dear Minister

re Screen Australia

 

I am clearly not going to receive a response to any of the letters I have written to you since 2012.   

 

So much for your commitment as Minister for the Arts to transparency and accountability – both of which are also lacking within Screen Australia. Why need senior management and the Board adhere to such principles when their Minister does not?

 

As I have mentioned before, the fate of one filmmaker at the hands of Screen Australia is of no great consequence in the grand scheme of things. However, the treatment meted out to me this past dozen years does raise questions that should be of concern to you. What else is taking place within Screen Australia that you have little knowledge of or interest in finding out about?   

 

A filmmaker critic of Screen Australia need look no further than my own experience to think twice about saying what she or he thinks; to challenge the peak funding body’s decision-making processes. To put it bluntly: Why do certain filmmakers continue to be successful one application after another regardless of their track record, whilst others cannot even speak with a member of Screen Australia staff?  

 

I am far from being alone in feeling that there is something fundamentally wrong with Screen Australia; that there is a need for an independent review of its relationship with the film and TV community and its funding modus operandi – if only because we are, let’s be frank, not making very many good films that Australian audiences want to see. 

 

Context:

 

Consider the box office results of the top 126 films released in Australia in 2025.

 

45 ‘Kangaroo’                         $3,870,000

67 ‘Bring Her Back’                  $1,748,000

112 ‘Together’                          $784,000

126 ‘The Correspondent’         $729,000

 

These figures need to be read cautiously. Whilst ‘Together’ appears at 112 and took $308,000 in Australia, a figure of $32 million worldwide is to be found online for this American Australian co-production. And another figure for Kangaroo is $5.2 million.

 

If, as Minister, you are in possession of more accurate figures than I have been able to find online, please do let me and my fellow filmmakers know what these are. Screen Australia, along with other Australian funding bodies are reluctant to release budget and box office figures that might suggest all is not well with the Australian Film Industry.

 

All up, Australian audiences paid around $6,500,000 at the box office to see Australian films in 2025, out of a box office total of roughly $1 billion.

 

This is considerably less than 0.1% of box office takings last year earned by Australian films. Again, if my maths here is faulty, please correct me. Do you know? If so, please share the figures with us. If these figures are to remain a secret please explain why this is so.

 

If the 0.1% figure I have just quoted is accurate, the question arises:  Why do we bother to have an Australian Film Industry at all?

 

Can we, should we, must we, ask this question in 2026, with a view to finding out if our industry is deserving of the Australian tax-payer dollars pumped into it each year?

 

How many such tax dollars are invested in Australian film production each year? 

 

It is not easy (virtually impossible, actually) to obtain an answer to this question from funding bodies.

 

Perhaps you can help me here? How many Australian tax-payer dollars were invested in Screen Australia funded films in 2025?  For instance, SA provided ‘major production investment’ in THE CORRESPONDENT. How much? Are Australian taxpayers entitled to know this figure? And if not, why not?

 

Is the purpose of an Australian Film Industry to provide employment for Australian crews working on foreign films produced in Australia?  Or is it to produce Australian films, based on Australian stories, told by Australian screenwriters and directors, with (predominantly) Australian actors for Australian audiences?

 

These two objectives are not mutually exclusive, of course. 

 

It is worthwhile, every now and then, to revisit the past of our ‘industry’ to focus our attention on why we have an ‘industry’ at all:

 

In 1963 the Senate Select Committee Report on the Encouragement of Australian Productions for television felt that there was: 

 

“a responsibility to protect an industry with a strong cultural element.” 

 

In the late 60’s and early 70’s the various bodies involved in providing the industry with a philosophical base stressed that: 

 

“The industry (should be) pre-eminently Australian in character, not dominated by other cultures; that government sponsorship (should) support ‘film and television projects of quality’ and produce ‘distinctively Australian’ films that would ‘provide the Australian people with a national voice and a record of their way of life.”

 

The Report of the Interim Board of the Australian Film Commission declared that:

 

“Australia, as a nation, cannot accept, in this powerful and persuasive medium, the current flood of other nations’ productions on our screens without it constituting a very serious threat to our national identity. The Commission should actively encourage the making of those films of high artistic or conceptual value which may or may not be regarded at the time as conforming to the current criteria of genre, style or taste, but which have cultural, artistic or social relevance. 

 

How many Australian films produced in the last five years, say, fulfil these noble artistic and cultural objectives?

 

Does Screen Australia consistently produce films of artistic worth that tell Australian stories for Australian audiences? 

 

No.

 

Do our funding bodies finance projects that consistently do well at the box office? 

 

No

 

Has Australia become a service industry for overseas producers, subsidised by Australian taxpayers? 

 

Yes.

 

Should we, as an ‘industry’, as funding bodies such as Screen NSW, be pondering such questions aloud?

 

I believe that we should; that we are long overdue for public dialogue and debate about such questions. One of the obstacles to such dialoguer and debate is that senior management and the Board of Screen Australia are very thin-skinned when it comes to criticism and, as my own experience makes clear, will go to great lengths to silence critics.

 

The words ‘film industry’ suggest that we are producing products that will yield for a profit for investors. We are not.

 

Will ‘Bring Them Back’ and ‘Together’ join ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock’, ‘Storm Boy’, ‘The Castle’, Breaker Morant’, ‘Rabbit Proof Fence’, ‘My Brilliant Career’, Sunday Too Far Away’, ‘Kenny’ and others that DO fulfill the creative dreams articulated back in the 196s and 70s? 

 

To pretend that the bulk of truly Australian films will ever generate profits is to delude ourselves. Imagine if we referred to the ‘Australian ballet industry’, the ‘Australian Opera industry’, the ‘Sydney symphony orchestra industry’, ‘the poetry industry’ and so on. As industries they are all abject failures, so why do we bother to subsidize them? 

 

The Report of the Interim Board of the Australian Film Commission’s answer:

 

Some (films) may not become commercially successful ventures, but these may include films which posterity will regard as some of the most significant films made by and for Australians. Profit and entertainment on the one hand and artistic standards and integrity on the other, are not mutually exclusive. In the long term the establishment of a quality Australian output is more important for a profitable, soundly based industry than the production, exclusively, as what might be regarded as sure-fire box-office formula hits.

 

If we stop using the word ‘industry’, and think primarily in terms of ‘Australian film’ as a cultural artefact, two questions worthy of discussion in 2026 are:

 

-        In five, ten, twenty years will it matter whether or not Warwick Thornton’s films returned a profit to investors? 

 

-        In five, ten, twenty years will our children and our children’s children, our film culture, care that films such as ‘Captain America: Brave New World’ and ‘Bridget Jones: Mad about the Boy’ returned a profit? 

 

It is wonderful, of course, that thousands of Australian film and TV technicians have regular work, but has our becoming a Hollywood backlot helped or hindered our capacity to create the films that our ‘industry’ was set up to produce?

 

When it comes to drama, be it TV or cinema, we are failing badly. I believe that one of the reasons why Australian audiences stay away from Australian films in droves is that the quality of the screenplays from which they are produced is low, far too often. In other instances, screenplays have been geared into production 2, 3 and 4 drafts before they are ready to be produced. This points to a failure of Screen Australia’s assessment processes. I believe that these need to be reviewed independently with a view to improving the quality of screenplays.

 

I, and other concerned filmmakers would appreciate an opportunity to meet with you to discuss the role that assessment processes as currently practiced by Screen Australia are contributing to or are an obstacle to the production of high-quality Australian films, Australian stories told by Australians for Australian audiences.

 

There are many other questions to be discussed within our ‘industry’, of course, exploring a range of issues that concern us all – particularly given that the advent of AI is rapidly changing the nature of the ‘workplace’ as we have come to know it, for better and for worse.

 

I believe that there needs to be industry-wide public debate focusing on the question of why we have an ‘industry’ at all and who it is serving in the new AI ager that we confronts.

 

cheers

 

James Ricketson

 

cc Dierdre Brennan CEO

Members of the Screen Australia Board

My 4th letter to Tony Burke requesting evidence in support of my being banned - also ignored

 The Hon. Tony Burke MP

Minister for the Arts

GPO Box 594

Canberra,  ACT 2601                                                                                  21st January 2026

 

Dear Minister

re Screen Australia

 

Following on from my letters to you of 20^th and 27^th. November 2025, acknowledgement of the receipt of which I have not received. This seems to be par for the course with Members of Parliament these days – constituents being, it seems, an annoyance rather than voters whose questions, concerns or complaints should be addressed. 

 

The days are gone when the word ‘Honourable’ in front of a name meant something.

 

Unlike the Screen Australia Board, the words ‘transparency’ and ‘accountability’ mean a good deal to me. In the interests of being true in action to the meanings of both words:

 

As well as being a filmmaker I am an occasional journalist and a writer who is currently documenting my ‘adventures’ in the film industry since I joined it in 1972 with the production of my first film. An autobiography.

 

My book will (must be) factually correct and, in its final writing stages will invite all those whose names appear in it to verify that what I write is true, in accordance with the facts. The most salient of these as far as the end of my career is concerned will be available on my blog to which I will keep adding vis a vis my official banning by Screen Australia in 2012 and the Screen Australia threat to ban me again in September 2025.

 

All that I wrote in my letters regarding my banning by Screen Australia since 2012 is verifiably true, accurate, if anyone within your Ministry were to take a closer look and ask the right questions. This is not going to happen, I know, but my invitation (yet again) is on record, and I will place it there again:

 

Please provide me with one paragraph, one sentence or even one word in my correspondence that is evidence that I intimidated, harassed or placed at risk members of Screen Australia’s staff 13 years ago.

 

And, given the threat made to me by the Screen Australia Board that I may be banned again (http://jamesricketson.blogspot.com/2026/01/endemic-lack-of-transparency-and.html) please provide me with evidence of one paragraph, one sentence or even one word of my correspondence in 2025 that could warrant such a punitive response?

 

Why does any of this matter? Quite apart from the reputational damage done to me that continues to this day, I can and will provide affidavits in court if need be from fellow filmmakers who have, this past 13 years, been reluctant to collaborate with someone who is likely to behave with them as he has done, according to Screen Australia, with members of staff; behaviour that I would be loathe to tolerate in a fellow filmmaker who wished to collaborate with me.

 

 cheers

 

James Ricketson

My next letter to Minister Tony Burke - also ignored.

 The Hon. Tony Burke MP

Minister for the Arts

GPO Box 594

Canberra

ACT 2601                                                                                        27^th.November 2025

 

Dear Minister

 

re Screen Australia

 

Following on from my previous correspondence re my attempts to secure a meeting with members of SA staff and/or Board.

 

The lack of a mechanism within Screen Australia to deal honestly and effectively with legitimate complaints should, I suggest, set alarm bells ringing within your Ministry.

 

In my own case, just one filmmaker is adversely affected and clearly this is of no concern to the Screen Australia Board. The wagons have circled and my attempts to secure justice for myself have been branded as ‘intimidation’ on my part and as a reason to threaten to ban me yet again if I continue to advocate on my own behalf. Is this not intimidation on the part of the Screen Australia Board?

 

Is this lack of a functioning complaints mechanism affecting other filmmakers also? Does the awareness that there is no functioning complaints mechanism result in other filmmakers, dependent as all are on Screen Australia patronage, remaining silent out of fear of bureaucratic retribution? 

 

I know this to be true for a few fellow filmmakers who realise that their ability to access Screen Australia’s services is dependent on not biting the hand that can either feed them or slap them down – effectively killing their projects.

 

To what extent are filmmakers being intimidated into silence? 

 

Is there any mechanism within your ministry that makes it possible for you to find out? The lack of any response to my letters to you suggests that there is not. The same applied in 2012. The wagons of your Ministry circled around SA staff and the Board thirteen years ago despite the lack of any evidence to support the allegation that I had intimidated or placed at risk members of SA staff.

 

The lack of a complaints mechanism leaves open the possibility of breaches far more significant than those I have been on the receiving end of.

 

I have attached a copy of my 5^th September letter to the Board. As with all of my correspondence, the Board has ignored it and, no doubt,  filed it away as yet more evidence of intimidation on my part.

 

I hope that this letter is not met, as have been my previous letters, with total silence.

 

Cheers

 

James Ricketson

cc Michael Ebeid Chair,  Dierdre Brennan CEO

Letter to Minister for the Arts, Tony Burke - a follow up from a letter to him 12 years earlier

 When I wrote to Tony Burke in November last year I had forgotten that I had already written to him about it it 12 years earlier. He did not respond. This is standard operating procedure for politicians these days.

Needless to say, Tony did not respond to this letter either.

The Hon. Tony Burke MP

Minister for the Arts

GPO Box 594

Canberra

ACT 2601                                                                                        7^th.November 2025

 

Dear Minister

re Screen Australia

 

I am an Australian filmmaker with 54 years of experience in the industry.

 

In 2012 the Screen Australia Board banned me from making any applications to the funding body on the grounds that I had intimidated, harassed and placed at risk members of Screen Australia staff.  My repeated requests for evidence that I was guilty as charged were ignored. This ban also forbad me from speaking with members of Screen Australia staff.

 

In September 2025 Screen Australia admitted that no evidence existed in support of the allegations that led to my ban.

 

My repeated requests of the current Screen Australia Board to meet with me to discuss and resolve this 13 year old dispute have been ignored; receipt of my letters not acknowledged.

 

In 2012, my continued insistence, in writing, that I had not intimidated, harassed or placed at risk any employee at Screen Australia, my persistent asking for evidence, was presented to me as evidence of intimidation. This ‘intimidation’ on my part led the Board to ban me twice more.

 

Thirteen years later, the Screen Australia Board is again responding to my requests for evidence of intimidation as evidence of intimidation and threatening to ban me as I continue to ask for it, seemingly unaware of the cognitive dissonance this involves.  

 

A truly Kafkaesque state of affairs!

 

The impact of these rolling bans on me has been enormous. In 2012 I had to back out of various collaborations with fellow filmmakers as my name on any application to Screen Australia would have been rejected. 

 

I have not received $1 of income in Australia as a filmmaker this past 13 years - in large part as a result of these bans. In addition to the effect they have had on my income is the reputational damage caused to me. 

 

Now, at the age of 76, close to the end of my career, I want my reputation restored to me and will pursue this matter in court to that end if need be.

 

As I have stated repeatedly, since 2012, if I was then, or am now, guilty of intimidating, harassing or placing at risk any member of Screen Australia staff, the banning of me in 2012 was an appropriate response:

 

I quote here part of my 29^th September 2025 letter here to Kirsten Delaney, FOI Manager for Screen Australia:

 

“You have yet to provide me with evidence that I intimidated or placed at risk members of Screen Australia staff prior to my being banned by the SA Board in 2012. Merely providing me with copies of my own correspondence is not evidence of anything.

 

On 16^th September I suggested to the Board that there were two different letters it could send to me, as was the case for the 2012 Board:

 

Dear Mr. Ricketson

 

In relation to your enquiry regarding the evidence relied upon by the Board to ban you we refer you to the following:

 

On xxx (date) you wrote xxxx in a letter to SA staff member xxx. We consider this to be an example of your intimidation of staff.

 

On xxx (date) you wrote xxx. We consider this to constitute placing SA staff at risk.

 

Yours sincerely, Screen Australia Board

 

One paragraph, one sentence and even one word will suffice as evidence.

 

Alternatively:

 

Dear Mr. Ricketson

 

In relation to your enquiry regarding the evidence relied upon by the Board to ban you in 2012 we wish to review our decision and invite you to meet with members of SA staff and the Board to resolve this matter in an amicable and collegial manner.

 

Yours sincerely, Screen Australia Board

 

I have enclosed a copy of the letter I wrote to the SA Board on 7^th. October regarding this lack of evidence. It speaks for itself. As is the case with all my correspondence to the Board, I have not even received acknowledgement of its receipt.

 

The current Board has lied about my intimidating SA staff members, as did the Board in 2012. I request, Minister that you please ask of the Board the question that it took 13 years for me to get an answer to:

 

Evidence that Mr. Ricketson was in 2012, or now in 2025, is guilty of intimidation, harassment of placing SA staff at risk.

 

If you are satisfied that there is no evidence, please request of the current Board that it acknowledge this in writing.

 

In the absence of a fair and just resolution based on facts and in truth I will initiate legal proceedings, presenting to the appropriate court a statement of claim – not with a view to receiving any form of financial compensation but merely in order to have my reputation restored to me.

 

yours sincerely

 

James Ricketson

My 1st letter to Tony Burke, 13 years ago, regarding my banning by the Screen Australia Board

 The Hon Tony Burke MP

Minister for the Arts

PO Box 156 Roselands

NSW 2196                                                                                                       2^nd July 2013

 

Dear Minister

 

In May 2012 the Screen Australia Board, on the recommendation of Chief Executive Dr Ruth Harley, instituted a ban on myself based on the proposition that I had, in certain correspondence, intimidated and placed at risk members of Screen Australia staff. This allegation has damaged my reputation and the ban has made it very difficult for me to pursue the career I have been engaged in for the past 40 years.

 

For more than a year now I have been asking Dr Harley, the Screen Australia Board and Caroline Fulton (Director, Screen Industry Section, Creative Sector Development Branch, Office for the Arts) to identify one paragraph, one sentence or even one phrase in my correspondence that bear witness to my having intimidated and placed at risk members of Screen Australia staff. They refuse to do so. I have tried to acquire evidence of my alleged crimes through FOI legislation and the Commonwealth Ombudsman to insist that Screen Australia provide me with evidence, to no avail.

 

My first question for you Minister is this: 

 

Whom can I ask, other than yourself, to be provided with evidence of the crimes of which I have been charged and found guilty?

 

My second question:

 

Am I entitled, as a banned filmmaker, to be provided with evidence that I am guilty as charged?

 

Please, Minister, do not hand this letter to an Arts Ministry spin doctor who will ‘note’ its contents and ignore my questions – each of which requires but a monosyllabic answer.

 

If I have intimidated or placed at risk any member of Screen Australia staff, I deserve to be banned and to be publicly humiliated. Please insist, Minister, that the Board either make public the evidence upon which their banning of me is based, or lift the ban such that my reputation can be restored and I am able to continue my work as an independent filmmaker without the albatross of the Screen Australia ban hanging around my neck.

 

If the Chief Executive of Screen Australia and its Board are under no obligation to provide evidence in support of the banning of a filmmaker, what other decisions do they make that are not subject to the ideals of transparency and accountability that should apply in the administration of a tax-payer funded organization such as Screen Australia.

 

The enclosed letter to the Screen Australia Board, dated 21^st. June, speaks for itself.

 

best wishes

 

James Ricketson

 

Members of the Screen Australia Board

Level 4, 150 William St

Woolloomooloo 2011                                                                                      21^st. 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 10^th 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 10^th 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 17^th 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.” 

 

http://jamesricketson.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/simple-solution.html

 

A week later, in 23^rd 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