Rachel Perkins
Blackfella Films
10 Cecil Street
Paddington
NSW 2021
26th June 2012
Dear Rachel
You are a member of the Screen Australia Board. The
Board voted to ban me from having any further dealings with Screen Australia.
The Board did not require of Ruth Harley that she provide evidence in support
of this ban. I maintain that there is no evidence; that Ruth has abused the
power vested in her by the Board in a ham-fisted attempt to silence a critic
and cover up a cockup that occurred within Screen Australia in 2010 and which would
have been appropriately dealt with at the time if Screen Australia had a
functioning complaints process. If Ruth has proof that I have placed members of
Screen Australia staff at risk of any kind, please ask her to make it public.
I have asked the Chair of the Board, Glen Boreham,
the same questions I am asking you here. Many times. Glen has ignored my
requests. I am now asking you to do so in your capacity as a board member and
as a fellow filmmaker who must, I am sure, be aware of the ramifications for a
filmmaker of being banned by Screen Australia.
The question for Ruth is a simple one:
“Please provide both the Screen Australia Board and James Ricketson with
the dates on which he wrote either letters or emails that you believe contain
evidence that he has harassed, intimidated and placed at risk members of Screen
Australia staff?”
This will take less than five minutes of your time,
Rachel, and I do not think it would be unreasonable to expect of Ruth that she
provide the evidence within 24 hours. If Ruth can provide no evidence the ban
on me should be lifted immediately and I should receive from both Ruth Harley
and the Screen Australia Board a public apology.
Ruth’s ban of me, with the blessing of the Board, is
the culmination of a dispute that began 18 months ago and which you have been
aware of since Feb 2011 when I first wrote to you and Robert Connolly in your
capacities as Board Members. To paraphrase my email of Feb 2011:
“Please ask Fiona Cameron to release the correspondence of mine she
refers to in her letter to me dated 12th Nov 2010 and ask Ross
Mathews if he and Claire Jager viewed the ‘promo’ that accompanied my first
CHANTIS WORLD application in mid 2010 – the point at which this dispute really
begins.”
I do appreciate, Rachel, that you are in the middle
of a production now but 18 months is a long time for me to wait to get simple
answers to simple questions.
best wishes
James Ricketson
I have watched this drama unfold in slow motion this past couple of months and have been struck, as a lawyer, by the fact that neither Ruth Harley nor Fiona Cameron have commenced legal action against Ricketson for defamation. Despite Harley’s veiled threat it also seems that Screen Australia’s legal department has not even sent Ricketson a letter demanding that he cease making defamatory comments about Harley and Cameron. Why, I wonder? Why do they allow, day after day, this assault on their character, their integrity, without doing all that is within their power (and to which they are legally entitled) to silence Ricketson? The only conclusion I have been able to come up with is that the correspondence to which Harley and Cameron refer does not in fact exist and that Ricketson is telling the truth. It follows that the Screen Australia Board, backing Harley and Cameron and not Ricketson, are complicit in defaming Ricketson and that Simon Crean and the Ombudsman seem to be unconcerned that this should be occurring. What a sorry state of affairs.I will be very disappointed if Rachel Perkins does not respond to Ricketson's request.
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