Ruth
Harley
Chief
Executive
Screen
Australia
Level
4
150
William St.
Woolloomooloo
2011 4th Sept 2012
Dear
Ruth
You
will not, as you promised on 10th May, read this letter. Given that it will be posted on the internet,
however, others will read it and perhaps someone will appraise you of
its contents.
Tomorrow,
5th Sept, the ongoing dispute between myself and Screen Australia will
have its initial hearing in the Supreme Court of NSW. This is a
dispute that could and should have been resolved in Nov. 2010 if
Screen Australia had a functioning complaints process; if you as
Chief Executive had not allowed it to fester for around 20 months.
All that was required at the outset was one question of Claire Jager
and Ross Mathews: “Did you or did you not view James’ ‘promo’
for ‘Chanti’s World’ before knocking back his development
application?” A truthful answer to this question would have
resulted in a competent Chief Executive declaring the first
assessment null and void and requesting of Ross that a new
assessment commissioned – but not by Claire Jager who, with the
multiple factual errors she made in her first assessment (with no
apology forthcoming fro not having viewed my ‘promo, should have
been disqualified from making a second assessment on the ground of a
conflict of interest. A second question, for Fiona Cameron in Nov
2010 would have been, “Please produce the correspondence in which
James makes it clear that he believed ‘Chanti’s World’ had been
‘greenlit’.”
Of
course the reality is that you knew that Fiona’s ‘greenlit’
correspondence did not exist back in Nov 2010 just as you knew back
in 2010 that Ross and Claire did not view my ‘promo’ and just as
you know that there is no correspondence from me on file at Screen
Australia that has intimidated or placed at risk members of your
staff. Yes, you have plenty of correspondence from me with questions
relating to Fiona’s dishonest claims vis a vis my ‘greenlit’
correspondence and yes, you have plenty of correspondence from me in
which I ask that Screen Australia act in accordance with the precepts
of accountability and transparency it claims to. And yes there is
plenty of criticism of Screen Australia policies that I believe to be
detrimental to Australian film. But there is not one letter, one
email, one paragraph, one sentence or even ne phrase in which I have
threatened violence against a member of your staff or written
anything that even comes close to any dictionary definition of the
verb ‘to intimidate’.
It
would seem that your hope, tomorrow in the Supreme Court, is that
your legal counsel will find some way of guaranteeing that no-one in
the film community, not even members of the Board that banned me,
will get to see for themselves the evidence of my having intimidated
your staff. My hope, needless to say, is that the presiding judge
will not be swayed by such arguments and will agree that your having
accused me of intimidation and placing your staff at risk warrants
that the case be heard at a later date. My suspicion is that s/he
will, regardless of a determination, make it clear it is not
appropriate that this dispute be resolved in the Supreme Court of NSW
when there are easier, more appropriate and less costly forms of
resolution available to both Screen Australia and myself – each one
of which would necessitate that you produce documentary evidence of
my having intimidated your staff.
My
amended Statement of Claim reads:
On 9tthMay 2012 the Defendant published to Directors of the Screen Australia
Board a draft letter to the Plaintiff which included the words, “your
correspondence places our staff at risk. We are under an obligation
to protect our staff from harassment and intimidation.” This
statement harmed the Plaintiff’s reputation in the eyes of film
colleagues on the Screen Australia board.
On
10th May the Defendant confirmed the damage that had been done to the
Plaintiff’s reputation when she wrote informing him that “Screen
Australia has taken the decision that it will not accept further
funding applications from you, or engage in correspondence with you
about funding applications.” The Defended added, in this letter,
“…any correspondence which you send to us about the decision
notified in this letter will not be read.”
The
Plaintiff insists that he has never intimidated or placed at risk any
member of Screen Australia staff in his correspondence or in any
other manner.
On
11th May the Plaintiff, wishing to defend himself against the allegations
of intimidation that had led the Screen Australia Board to
effectively ban him, wrote to the Defendant requesting that she
provide him with copies of correspondence from himself in which he
had allegedly harassed, intimidated and placed at risk members of
Screen Australia staff. The Defendant did not respond to the
Plaintiff’s request.
Since
12th Nov 2010 the Plaintiff had been writing to the Defendant requesting
copies of other correspondence he had allegedly written and which
were damaging to his reputation. His requests were refused and
correspondence written by the Plaintiff to the office of the
Ombudsman to obtain copies of the allegedly intimidating
correspondence were ignored.
On
14th May 2012 The Plaintiff requested assistance from the Administrative
Appeals Tribunal in acquiring copies of the allegedly intimidating
correspondence he had written so that he could appeal the decision
made by the Screen Australia Board. The AAT informed the Plaintiff
that there was no legislation that would allow the AAT to review the
decision taken by the Screen Australia Board.
On
25th May 2012 the Plaintiff wrote to the Ombudsman, in the following
terms:
“If I were obliged to reduce my request for assistance from the
office of the Ombudsman to one simple question it would be: “Please
ask Ruth Harley to quote one sentence, one
paragraph,
one email, one letter to a member of her staff that contains anything
that could be construed, by even the most sensitive or Screen
Australia employee, as posing a risk to them.” The Plaintiff did
not receive a response to this letter, or even acknowledgement of its
receipt from the office of the Ombudsman.
On
18th June 2012 The Plaintiff applied, though Freedom of Information
legislation, to acquire copies of the intimidating correspondence he
had allegedly written to member of Screen Australia’s staff.
On
18th July the Plaintiff received from Screen Australia copies of a
substantial amount of the correspondence he has sent to Screen
Australia over a period of three years but with no indication as to
which parts of it were intimidating or placed Screen Australia staff
at risk. The Plaintiff could not find one instance in this
correspondence in which he had intimidated or placed at risk members
of Screen Australia staff.
On 9th August 2012 the Plaintiff requested, through FOI, specific details of
the instances in which he had, in his correspondence, harassed,
intimidated and placed at risk members of Screen Australia staff.
Screen Australia’s FOI officer wrote to the Plaintiff, “It
is our view that this request goes beyond the scope of the FOI Act,
and is not a valid FOI request.”
Every
attempt on the part of the Plaintiff to acquire copies of the
correspondence that support of the allegations of intimidation that
the Defendant presented to the Screen Australia Board has ended in
failure.
It
is close to impossible to produce a film in Australia without
utilizing a tax incentive scheme known as the ‘Producer’s Offset’
– administered by Screen Australia. Screen Australia’s refusal to
correspond with the Plaintiff or to allow the Plaintiff to speak with
Screen Australia staff effectively prevents him from producing films
and TV programmes in an industry to which he has devoted 40 years of
his life.
On 8th August the Plaintiff wrote to the Defendant in relation to this
matter. The letter included the following: “If
Screen Australia wishes to leave it up to the Supreme Court to
determine the existence or non-existence of correspondence, so be it.
This strikes me being a dreadful waste of time, energy and financial
resources. And it will yield the same result as would be achieved by
yourself, Fiona and myself sitting around a table with an independent
Conciliator – as I suggested months ago. At such a meeting you
could produce the correspondence you both refer to in justification
of Screen Australia’s banning of me. And Fiona could produce the
correspondence I have been asking her to produce or identify for 18
months now. If correspondence exists in which I intimidate, harass
and place at risk members of Screen Australia staff, I owe these
staff an apology at the very least and my banning is appropriate to
the crime I have committed. If the correspondence does not exist,
Screen Australia owes me an apology, in writing, and the lifting of
the ban that has been placed on me.” The Defendant did not respond
to this letter.
On 31st.
August the Defendant wrote letters to the Office of the Ombudsman and
to the Minister for the Arts Mr Crean suggesting that it was
inappropriate that this dispute, which rests on the existence or
non-existence of certain correspondence, should be heard in the
Supreme Court. The Plaintiff has not, to date, received responses
from either the Office of the Ombudsman or that of the Hon Simon
Crean.
My
‘Relief Claimed’ reads:
1. That the Defendant
apologize in writing for having published, to the Screen Australia
Board, statements about the Plaintiff in relation to intimidating
correspondence that were factually incorrect and damaging to his
reputation.
2. That the Screen Australia
Board lift the ban it has placed on the Plaintiff and apologize for
having put it in place in the absence of evidence in support of it.
As
I have written many times now, if I have intimidated, harassed or
placed Screen Australia staff at risk, it is entirely appropriate
that the Board should effectively ban me from having any further
dealings with the organization. And, given the dictionary definition
of ‘intimidate’, it would not be inappropriate for Screen
Australia to take out an AVO order against me to protect its staff.
If I have not
intimidated or placed at risk members of Screen Australia’s staff,
your draft letter to the Screen Australia Board, dated 9th May 2012, is not only defamatory but an abuse of the powers vested in
you as Chief Executive.
My
guilt or innocence of the charges of intimidation rest on the
existence or non-existence of my allegedly intimidating
correspondence. My attempts to obtain copies of this correspondence,
through FOI and the office of the Ombudsman, have failed. My
suggestion that a Conciliator or some other ‘reasonable person’
to brought in to review the relevant correspondence and form an
independent view as to whether or not I have intimidated Screen
Australia staff has been ignored by yourself.
The
worst possible scenario for me is that your legal counsel produces,
in the Supreme Court, evidence in support of your allegation that I
have intimidated you staff. Even in this scenario (an unpleasant one
for me, needless to say) the question will arise: Why has Ruth Harley
waited until a Supreme Court hearing to produce correspondence that
Mr Ricketson has been asking her to produce since 11th May? A follow on question might be: “How much money has Screen
Australia wasted on legal fees that could have been saved by handing
over the correspondence in the middle of May?”
You
are in a position, Ruth, to release or identify my ‘intimidating
correspondence’ today or sufficient extracts from it to convince
any ‘reasonable person’ that I am guilty of the crimes of which I
have been accused. If I am demonstrably guilty, my public apology to
members of Screen Australia staff will be swift (today) and I will
accept my ban as an appropriate punishment. If however, on reading
through the relevant correspondence it is abundantly clear that there
is nothing intimidating in it, nothing that places Screen Australia
staff at risk, your apology should be equally swift (today), as
should the Board’s lifting of the ban on me.
Either
of these two alternatives would make it unnecessary for the matter to
be dealt with in the Supreme Court tomorrow, thus saving a good deal
of time, energy and money and not wasting the Supreme Courts time on
a matter that should not be before it anyway.
best
wishes
James
Ricketson
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