Howdy dear availees...and yes I know it's been awhile, again, but it's been a very long coupla' months...(what with the 20th anniversary of the June 2002 commencement of the St Martins Lutheran School Child Abuse Cover-up-Ed)...yeah, that, that certainly hasn't helped with my general disposition toward Mt Gambier specifically and humanity just in general...there's also a coupla' full-on things I can't really discuss 'cos it's sortta' mostly about other people's business that just happens to heavily/deeply involve me...(could you be any more vague?-Ed)...well deliberately vague, yes, 'cos, like I said, it involves a lotta' other peeps personal stuff...enough to say that I've been physically and mentally through the ringer and it ain't helped my perpetual sense of exhaustion..(and not quite knowing what day it is sometimes-Ed)...yeah, that too, that too...and I haven't forgotten that I've promised multiple posts about how notorious 'Rapist Protector' James 'Jimmy Trumpets' Morrison has abandoned/scurried away from Mt Gambier...(and the posts about just how massively and fundamentally the Mt Gambier City Council have roo-ooo-ooo-ted the Farcical Aquatic Recreation Centre-Ed)...yeah, those too...(and the totes bizarre MGCC/District Council of Grant 'Amalgamation' plan that literally just dropped outta' the clear blue sky a coupla' weeks back-Ed)...strewth, yeah, and that...(and even posts revisiting the St Martins Cover-up-Ed)...sure sure, but like I said, no apologies this time 'cos I'm just exhausted, so let's just do this one and see where we end-up, ok?...
So there's our recent post, More South Australian ICAC Related Parliamentary Corruption, where-in I cut-'n'-pasted my own original submission to the Sow Strayan Parliamentary Inquiry into ICAC Cock-ups...(otherwise known by the title just below there where we've cut-'n'-pasted your actual personal testimony-Ed)...well, the first coupla' pages, yeah, with several more posts to follow as I explain-step y'all through my testimony, the related documents, etc...but what's really pissed me off is the trouble and effort I went to to ever-so politely wedge my way into the SA Parliament's Legislative Council 'Special Inquiry' into the Harms and Adverse Outcomes...(yes, they weren't that keen to have you along at first, were they?-Ed)...not exactly bursting with enthusiasm, no, but as per my submission, I quite reasonably argued that what had happened (been done) to me could happen to any and/or every private citizen, therefore, it was an issue too big to ignore/exclude...anyhoos, to jump ahead of our own posts by a bit, I went through all the time and effort of the submission and negotiations...(then actually getting to Adelaide to appear before the Committee/Inquiry-Ed)...yep, all of that, and proved how corrupted and retributional my treatment had been at the hands of ICAC/SAPol(police)/Courts, with full documented evidence to support my otherwise outlandish claims...and take a wild guess exactly how much of my testimont/evidence made it into the final report?...(well we've already done this one before, and the answer then was "zero, not one word", so unless something has changed since then?-Ed)...nope, as far as I'm aware it is as it was, zero, not a single word...
There's only one place I 'appear' in the entire Final Report, available to peruse here, at this link below, and scroll down to where it says Committee Files and there you'll see Final Report of the Select Committee on Damage Harm or Adverse Outcomes Resulting from ICAC Investigations, just click on that...
https://www.parliament.sa.gov.au/Search/Result?type=committee&id=377
I'll save y'all some time should you be lookin' for any mention of me and/or mine, and just scroll through to the very last page, to literally the last 2 words...and there, behold! in the Index of Witnesses, I am identified as the final one...
I've also included, should y'all wish to read it, a 'response' from ICAC Commissioner Ann Vanstone QC...I note this letter was written 15th December 2021, stating that, "On 30 November 2021 a report by the Select Committee on Damage, Harm or Adverse Outcomes resulting from ICAC investigations was tabled in the Legislative Council."...meaning that the Final Report was collated, concluded and tabled only 5 weeks after I appeared, and whilst I was still in contact with the Committee/Inquiry trying to negotiate another hearing to complete my testimony...(ah yeah, that's right, 'cos they started about an hour late on your 'session' so you only got to go through the technical details, timeline, etc, of your ICAC "persecution"-Ed)...yeah, and I'd asked for a full day 'cos of the protracted and convoluted nature of my entire ICAC 'experience'...also, I was never notified that the Final Report had been tabled...here's that link...
https://www.icac.sa.gov.au/documents/correspondence-to-cpipc-15-december-2021.pdf
Anyhoos, let's kick-off my testimony and related dissection/explanation with the first coupla' pages...across the next several posts we'll eventually cover the whole thing, and I'll try to explain stuff briefly but concisely in a context where the dear availee may be new to this subject matter...and aways we go...ahem, my testimony, ahem...***
Page
474
Legislative
Council Friday,
22 October 2021
DAMAGE,
HARM OR ADVERSE OUTCOMES RESULTING FROM ICAC INVESTIGATIONS
What
I am looking at is the harms, the
harms that I have personally suffered as a
result
of being subject to an ICAC investigation and prosecution, the
potential harm for literally every
citizen
in South Australia because, as a private citizen, what's happened to
me can happen to every
citizen
in South Australia. That's where I will refer to the first paragraph
there. Shall I read it onto the
record
as part of my statement?
3411
The
CHAIRPERSON: Yes,
but just tell us how it all began.
Mr
FLETCHER: I
don't want to get people into trouble
here. Mr Pangallo, you and I
have
spoken several times about the issue that saw me become involved in
politics way, way back,
going
back nearly 20 years ago now. Mr Wortley and I have met before and
discussed this and have
exchanged
communications, etc.,
about a child protection issue, the failure of authorities to
address
that
correctly back in 2002 at my son's school in Mount Gambier.
3412
The Hon.
R.P. WORTLEY: Just
to go onto that, just for my memory, you approached
me
when I was at an opening or something.
Mr
FLETCHER: A
car park at Coles in Mount Gambier.
3413
The Hon.
R.P. WORTLEY: That's
right.
Mr
FLETCHER: And
there were a couple of emails and stuff exchanged. You were
also
involved when Mr Xenophon got up a parliamentary inquiry into the
Teachers Registration Board
that
us parents lobbied for and Mr Xenophon helped us get. That was off
the back of what did and
didn't
happen with regard to that. That's my original position. That's how I
have become involved in
politics.
That was in the middle of 2002 and leading on from there.
I
started a blog basically out of frustration, just desperation. That
would have been
in
early January-February 2013. I appreciate that I have been less than
polite about a number of
people,
but I pride myself on being factually correct. I have a mountain of
defamation threats that
have
been levelled at me by various people—lawyers,
authorities—that
show that I have been
accurate
in what I say because none of those threats have been realised.
Nobody has ever actually
followed
up and taken me to court for saying the things that I say, which
leads into what I had to say
about
me being prosecuted under ICAC legislation, that this was an
opportunity being used to
prosecute
me.
I
actually used the term 'political persecution' in court numerous
times for the things
I
have had to say on my blog and for my activism, particularly around
the child protection issues. I
have
made many—I
don't know; I say 'enemies' is probably too strong a word, but I have
certainly
upset
a number of people on all sides of politics, Independents, etc.,
along the way. That's just the
way
it is and I don't apologise for any of it. None of it needed to
happen.
As
part of getting involved, I have run as a candidate in the state
election in 2010 for
Mount
Gambier and in the local government elections as a mayoral candidate
in 2014. I never
expected
to win. It was purely about
being involved in the debate, in the discussion, literally
putting
myself
on stage, in the manner that I am now, for people to come to me and
hold me to account for
the
things that I have been saying and to level some of their accusations
at me to my face, in public,
so
that we could get it all nutted out.
Having
said that, I am not a politician. I am a private citizen. I don't
belong to a
political
party. I have no political affiliations whatsoever. I belonged to
Greenpeace 30 years ago—
that's
about the closest I have ever come. But, through my own life
experience, I have become
increasingly
involved in politics. I have gone to the meetings—all
the meetings, whatever meeting
that
needed to go to—particularly
council meetings. My attendance at Mount Gambier
council
meetings
was better than most of the members up until this stuff happened with
ICAC, and I will go
into
that briefly as well.
As
part of that, I have witnessed numerous incidents of insider trading,
nepotism and
a
catchphrase that I would call just corrupt conduct within the council
particularly. I have endeavoured
to
address some of those issues, and ultimately that led to me
contacting both my then local member,
Don
Pegler, in late September-October 2013 and writing to the Ombudsman
at the
time. At
that stage
I
was deliberately avoiding ICAC, because I thought I knew enough about
it that I was concerned
with
what potentially was going to happen with things going into ICAC. I
had no idea what was about
to
unfold, but I had concerns.
Friday,
22 October 2021 Legislative
Council Page
475
DAMAGE,
HARM OR ADVERSE OUTCOMES RESULTING FROM ICAC INVESTIGATIONS
I
attended
a
council
meeting,
where
I
became
aware the #### #####,
##### ########,
said he had a conflict of interest about an ############# agreement
with a
business
that was tendering to pull down the old hospital. He got up and said,
'I have an ############# agreement with these people; therefore, I have a conflict of
interest.' And he got up
and
walked out. The council then voted to give the tender to that
company. ## ######### runs # #####
in
Mount Gambier, so they were going to #### at his business. That
was one
of the specific issues
that
I raised in the letters that I've got copies of here that I wrote to
the state Ombudsman and also
to,
as I say, my local member, Don Pegler. What I didn't realise was that
under the legislation at the
time—
3414
The
CHAIRPERSON:
Are you
going to table those documents?
Mr
FLETCHER: Yes,
please, thank you. There is a letter to the state Ombudsman,
dated
2 September 2013, and one to Don Pegler dated 24 September 2013.
3415
The
CHAIRPERSON: Can
somebody move that those documents be tabled?
The
Hon. T.A. FRANKS: I
will move that they be received and published.
Carried.
Mr
FLETCHER: What
I wasn't aware of was that under the legislation at the time
any—I
call them reports, not complaints, because as far as I'm concerned
they are factual accounts
of
what I had personally witnessed, so it's not a complaint; it's a
report. Just because I'm a private
citizen
doesn't make it any different as far as I'm concerned, but I'll leave
you to define exactly what
that
is. Under that legislation, the local member and the Ombudsman are
both obliged to report to
ICAC,
because there were allegations of corruption within local government,
etc., etc.
I
therefore heard from the ICAC and from Don Pegler that
this had gone to ICAC and
was
going to be an ICAC investigation. As part of that, I received an
email from Mr Pegler, which I
would
like to enter, thank you, dated 1 October 2013.
3416
The Hon.
T.A. FRANKS: I
will move that that be received
and published.
Carried.
Mr
FLETCHER: Thank
you. He describes, if I may:
I
have been in discussions with the Attorney-General, OPI and ICAC
about what information MPs
can
give their constituents when they make complaints. It appears that
Sec 56 of the act is ambiguous and quite wordy
and
not clear enough on confidentiality.
That's
the section I was charged under a bit later, down the track. The
problem he has run into there
is
whether he's allowed to discuss with me my complaint report to him.
He ended up having to get a
written
authorisation from the ICAC commissioner just to be able to tell me
what he was doing about
my
complaint. So that's an email; that's October. Around about this time
ICAC has started an
investigation.
I'm not exactly sure
the dates for that, because I don't have them, but it was
around
those
complaints so around that time.
3417
The Hon.
R.P. WORTLEY: And
they were investigating ## ########; is that
correct?
Is that what we are talking about?
Mr
FLETCHER: ## ########
was the main one. That was basically the straw that
broke
the camel's back that led me to lodge my official reports/complaints.
I included a number of
other
issues that I considered to be nepotism: contracts going to
councillors' family members, etc.
So
there was a series of them, but I don't need to go into that. The
fact is that is what I had done;
that
is how I ended up with the ICAC.
I
received several communications through ICAC about not being allowed
to discuss
anything
and also via Mr Pegler. I wrote to them several times and rang them
to say, 'Can you clarify
what
you mean with this?' They kept sending me the same single-page
pamphlet which didn't have
any
explanation but only had the actual legislation—section
56, which is the second paragraph of my
initial
submission. Can I just ask: given the changes that have recently been
made, is that still a
current
definition? As far as I am aware, it is. I'm sorry; I just haven't
had a chance to look at the—
3418
The
CHAIRPERSON: These
are restrictions on disclosure?
Page
476
Legislative
Council Friday,
22 October 2021
DAMAGE,
HARM OR ADVERSE OUTCOMES RESULTING FROM ICAC INVESTIGATIONS
Mr
FLETCHER: Yes.
3419
The
CHAIRPERSON: They
are still in place. Anyway, continue.
Mr
FLETCHER: I
endeavoured to get a proper explanation, and at this stage I didn't have
any legal advice. I was just liaising, myself, with the ICAC. They
kept sending me the information sheet
with that definition on it.
If
I may just jump sideways a little bit there, I
challenged
that definition in court. Community
legal service, who read that definition, were so confused by it that
they had to write to
the
ICAC commissioner on my behalf, asking him to explain it. I have
copies of those letters which I
will
present shortly. It doesn't make sense. Using language like 'tending
to suggest' that something
might,
may be, could be, literally captures everything anybody might
potentially say about anything
at
any time because it might wind up in ICAC in the future.
I
went through this with the lawyer at the time, and she was politely
half laughing at
me
until she read the legislation and then, as I say, felt that she
needed to write to the ICAC
commissioner,
Mr Lander at the time, to ask him to explain and provide definitions.
I will
come to
that.
***...well that's roughly a good place to leave it...haven't got real far, but it gives y'all a good idea about what's happening...coupla' quick things...1) (obviously the 'School/Child Abuse' issue referred to is the St Martins Cover-up-Ed)...indeed, I had several contacts with Frank Pangallo while he was producer of Adelaide's Ch7 Today Tonight current affairs tv program...2) due to the complicitly corrupt and vile misuse of Final Intervention Orders by Magistrate Ian White, to try and stop me attending MGCC meetings or blogging about SAPol's corrupt conduct in my 'ICAC Trial', etc, etc, I've removed references to a certain MGCC Councillor, their name and identifying details replaced with ###...(we do note that this is testimony/evidence to a Parliamentary Inquiry and is therefore itself officially "received and published"-Ed)...yes, but I just don't need the cops on my doorstep again, makin' bogus claims about me supposedly breaching those FIOs and stickin' cameras in my face and demanding DNA samples and tellin' me I'm supposedly gunna' get "charged" at some random unidentified time in the future, etc, etc, like they did 7 times in November/December 2018...(hey yeah, what happened with all that?-Ed)...apart from the harrassment and intimidation and threats and lies?...(yeah, apart from all that-Ed)...nuthin'...
I further note that when Ian White imposed his FIOs he ignored the fact that I had official complaints already lodged/pending about the abuse, threats, and harrassment I had been repeatedly subjected to by numerous MGCC Councillors and/or staff when I attended MGCC meetings...(including the elected Member we've had to 'censor'?-Ed)...yep, including them...my complaints/reports were effectively dismissed by then Minister Geoff Brock...(now back as a Minister as part of the Labor government-Ed)...indeed, my complaint 'dismissed'/returned to then MGCC CEO Mark 'Mighty Marky Mark McShenanigans' McShane, one of the half-wits I'd complained about for harassing/threatening me...I'm looking to get those FIOs revoked but it's a long and convoluted process, and a process I have no faith in given how and why the FIOs were imposed in the first instance, as part of my broader rancidly corrupt ICAC-driven Retributional Persecution...gunna' pull stumps there, but we'll try to return absolutely asap...
Oh, but just in closing, I was gently stunned to hear on ABC South East Radio this morning, Liberal Member for McKillop Nick McBride go boots first off the 10m tower into the deep end, pardon the puns, of the MGCC/DCofG 'Amalgamation' bollocks...("10m tower"? "deep end"? puns how?-Ed)...yeah, 'cos he very bluntly identified the massive debt MGCC has conjured with the FARC (Farcical Aquatic Recreation Centre)...(some refer to it as 'The Hub' or 'Wulanda'-Ed)...well bully for them, but Nick mate went brutally blunt about why DCofG Ratepayers wouldn't want to get involved with that massive FARC debt...in context of how everyone else besides DCofG Mayor Richard 'Mumbles' Sage has danced around and/or ignored the issue, Nick was explicitly eviscerating...my Political Cynicism Radar bat senses were a'pingin' madly, is this the proof that the Labor government and probably many others know that MGCC is on the verge of going, if not already, bankrupt?...(ah, and it's politically expedient for the Libs to see Labor suffer that pain/humiliation/cost/whatevs of having to bail-out a bankrupt MGCC? is that what you're suggesting?-Ed)...spot on mate, absolutely spot on...(and despite the fact that it was Liberal Tony Pasin and the Federal and SA Liberals and Liberal-controlled MGCC who originally promoted/forced this whole 'Indoor Pool' disaster?-Ed)...mate, that's so last electoral cycle...
We're just spit-ballin' here, but damned if there wasn't something wildly uncharacteristically precise about McBride's comments this morning...
Tomorrow: Part II Of This Splendipherous Cluster-Farce
Read with wonderment just exactly how complicitly corrupt SAPol, the ICAC Commissioner Bruce 'Brews Slander' Lander, and the SA Parliament, especially then Labor Attorney-General li'l Johnny Rau, all were in changing the SA ICAC Act 2012 specifically such that I could then be prosecuted...(and how even then you were never actually 'Charged' but still needed written Bruce approval to be allowed to even speak with your own lawyer/family/friends/doctor-Ed)...fabulous stuff...
I am Nick Fletcher and this is my blog..cheers and laters...
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