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