Trust the police - Police lie in inquiry

Telstra denies Victoria police requested Graham Ashton’s phone records for hotel quarantine inquiry

Phone records of former police chief considered crucial in investigation to determine who made the decision to use private security guards

Victoria police never formally requested Telstra provide ex-police chief Graham Ashton’s phone records to help the hotel quarantine inquiry uncover who made the decision to use private security guards in the botched program, Guardian Australia can reveal.

On Wednesday, a spokesperson for Victoria police told Guardian Australia that police “did contact Telstra and request incoming call data for the former chief commissioner’s phone”.

Telstra on Friday, however, disputed the police’s account and denied a formal request was made.

“I can confirm that we did not receive any formal requests for information,” a Telstra spokesperson told Guardian Australia.

A Victoria police spokeswoman said police had “cooperated fully and transparently with the inquiry”.

“As it remains underway it would not be appropriate for us to comment further at this time.”

The phone records are considered crucial in the inquiry’s investigation to determine who made the decision on 27 March to use private security guards in the program.

The inquiry heard the then-Victoria police commissioner, Ashton, knew before the program was announced by the prime minister at 2.15pm that day that security guards would be there to guard returning travellers.

In text messages from Ashton to the Australian Federal Police commissioner, Reece Kershaw, at 1.12pm on the day the program was announced, Ashton said: “Mate. Question. Why wouldn’t AFP Guard people at the Hotel??”

Then four minutes later he texted the head of the Victorian Department of Premier and Cabinet, Chris Eccles, about whether police would be guarding guests.

Six minutes later, at 1.22pm, Ashton texted Kershaw again saying he now knew “private security will be used”.

Ashton alleged at the inquiry he had been unable to remember how he learned private security would be used, and Victoria police has claimed it could not obtain the incoming call records from Telstra under data retention legislation, which might reveal who Ashton had spoken to.

“Victoria police has gone to great lengths to cooperate fully with the inquiry as we understand the critical importance of its work. Victoria police did contact Telstra and request incoming call data for the former chief commissioner’s phone but they advised correctly that under the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 they are unable to provide that data unless it relates to a criminal investigation or missing person investigation,” a spokesperson said.

Under the Act, requests for the data have to be made in writing or electronic form, and signed by an authorised officer. Following inquiries from Guardian Australia on the matter this week, Telstra said no such formal request was made.

It comes after premier Daniel Andrews faced questions over whether the inquiry had enough powers to investigate this information gap. He told Sky News host Peta Credlin at the daily press conference on Friday that the inquiry had not sought more powers to obtain Ashton’s phone records.

When asked whether Andrews and his staff or ministers would be willing to hand over their own phone records, the premier said the inquiry had not sought them.

“At any point where this inquiry has sought more from the government, the answer has been ‘yes’,” he said.

The counsel assisting the inquiry has suggested the decision to use private security guards was not a decision at all, instead a “creeping assumption” by those developing the program throughout the course of the day on 27 March.

A number of final submissions to the inquiry have challenged this theory, pointing to the six-minute gap in Ashton’s evidence.

Lawyers representing Rydges Hotel, one of the two outbreak hotels, told the inquiry the phone records should be obtained.

“Without interrogating the network provider’s records of all incoming and outgoing landline and mobile telephone calls of Mr Ashton, Mr Eccles and those working with them in that short period of time on the afternoon of 27 March 2020, the chair could not possibly conclude there was simply a ‘creeping assumption’.

“Mr Ashton’s contemporaneous text message, which should be preferred to his lack of recollection in the witness box, indicates that the decision in fact came from within DPC. A ‘creeping assumption’ takes time to form – it does not form in six minutes.”

Former health minister Jenny Mikakos said the decision couldn’t be a “creeping assumption” due to the costs involved in the hotel quarantine program.

“This decision had substantial cost and resource implications for the state and it is inherently unlikely, if not implausible, that such a decision would be the result of a ‘creeping assumption’ rather than a considered choice at an elevated level of government,” she said.

“That is also the only cogent explanation for the contemporaneous text messages of Ashton, which described the appointment of private security as a ‘deal set up’ by the Department of Premier and Cabinet.”

Andrews has said he will answer all questions surrounding the inquiry once its report is handed down on 6 November.

Source: The Guardian

Corporations immune from damages? Vaccine suppliers given indemnity

“The world is made for corporations, and we are corporate fodder”, is the reality our biodegradable bodies live in, except the ones that consume McDonald’s food like items, where the decomposition rate is much longer, and your existence on this planet is shorter, due to the poisons ingested but that’s another story.

The steering committee of this pirate ship we call Australia is subservient to corporations and not the people (where the people are doing nothing about it), under the leadership of a person “Scotty from marketing” has given indemnity to vaccine manufacturers for side effects that are ‘inevitable’ when a vaccine is rolled out.

So if/when your child dies from the vaccine, it was just 'inevitable'.

How many lives lost due to the vaccine is acceptable?

“ZERO, is the only acceptable number”.

That’s the slogan used in Victoria for road deaths, a number that EVERYONE knows is not obtainable, but it’s an excellent excuse for revenue raising, for travelling 3km/h over the posted velocity limit.

Every new action/law passed by those in government is detrimental to your rights/freedoms and now legal right to sue for damages.

STILL not convinced you live in a penal colony?

See following article by The Sydney Morning Herald of the headline:

Vaccine suppliers given indemnity for 'inevitable' side effects

The Morrison government has given the suppliers of two COVID-19 vaccines indemnity against liability for rare side effects that experts say are "inevitable" when a vaccine is rolled out.

But the government will not set up a statutory compensation scheme, which the president of the Australian Medical Association, Omar Khorshid, said meant Australians who suffered "extremely rare" side effects from the vaccines would face a tough battle to seek compensation.

The federal government will give two of the companies making the COVID-19 vaccine indemnity against prosecution.Credit:Bloomberg

"With a brand new vaccine, it's going to be really hard to tell what is a vaccine injury and what is a rare medical condition that someone would have had anyway," Dr Khorshid said.

As part of its $1.7 billion deals to secure more than 84.8 million doses of the Oxford University and University of Queensland vaccines if successful, the federal government has indemnified the suppliers, meaning they cannot be held liable for adverse events caused by the vaccines.

British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca is the sponsor of the Oxford University vaccine, while the University of Queensland vaccine is being marketed by Seqirus (CSL).

Plans to distribute the vaccine quickly across the population once successful phase three trials are complete mean the full safety picture will not be known when the first doses are administered.

Tuesday's federal budget assumed a nation-wide vaccination program would be rolled out next year.

But the government has rejected calls to set up a no-fault vaccine injury compensation scheme, instead opting to pick up the bill for any compensation payout if a member of the public takes legal action against the drug companies.

University of Sydney Associate Professor Nick Wood, a vaccine expert who designs hospital immunisation programs, said Australians who received a COVID-19 vaccine "for the benefit of themselves and the community" deserved the reassurance of a "safety net" through a no-fault scheme in case they experienced a rare adverse reaction.

Grattan Institute health economist Stephen Duckett, a former secretary of the federal health department, agreed that such a scheme was needed, saying there would "inevitably" be some adverse events associated with the vaccines and that some may take years to appear.

No-fault vaccine injury compensation schemes allow people who experience an adverse reaction to access compensation without having to convince a court that the vaccine was the cause of their injury.

Dr Duckett said safety data would continue to be collected after a COVID-19 vaccine was rolled out, giving a clearer picture over time of any adverse events, including by people in vulnerable groups such as diabetics and people with blood pressure conditions.

Professor Wood said community confidence would be vital in ensuring that there was wide enough take-up of the vaccine for it to be effective at preventing COVID-19 from spreading.

"If we get a scare and someone has a reaction, coverage will probably be hard to get up," he said.

The no-fault schemes operate in Canada, New Zealand, the United States, the United Kingdom, Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Norway, Russia, Latvia, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, China, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Nepal and Thailand.

A spokesman for the federal health department said the government was "committed to providing access to safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines" and had agreed to indemnify the drug companies due to "the need to appropriately share risks associated with achieving early access to a successful vaccine."

Constitutional Crisis eat your heart out, try a ‘Monarchical Crisis’

Aussies should be familiar with something called the ‘constitutional crisis’, that being in 1975 or more simply referred to as the ‘Dismissal’ with reference to Gough Whitlam.

A big deal was made about that, many an article was written and a fiercely debated topic from time to time, but there is another ‘problem’ we Australians have of greater magnitude and an older one at that.

In the 80’s the colony called Australia was considered a laughing stock, a legal ‘basket case’ by many great legal minds of it’s motherland with regards to the enactment of a certain Act.

Realistically Australia has been a legal ‘basket case’ even before 1778, around the time of 1770, but that’s another story.

Since the happenings of recent world events, where the focus of the actions of people in government fall on those in Victoria, the general population has been made aware of the deceitful, unlawful and shady actions of those in (the Andrews) government.

They require the serfs to call them ‘honourable’ yet their actions are everything but that.

Australia’s justice system or rather justice business falls under this banner too.

The judiciary issues orders, incarcerates persons, defaults families homes, effects people’s livelihood  all unlawfully.

How?

Under a label called the ‘Queen of Australia’.

While this information is not new, as many in the judicature are aware of this and they certainly will not inform Joe Average of this, and a fair few legal researchers have made headway on this topic, even achieving success in court in a particular matter, to such an extent that the matter was never documented to be in court, so that the serfs will not find out about it. 

In 2015 an FOI (Freedom of Information) request went out to the Australian Government / Attorney-General's Department, where the response below was given and just recently has been made public.

NOTE:

"The author attempted to establish if the powers of assent found in section 58 of the Commonwealth Constitution had been officially delegated from the Queen in the Sovereignty of the United Kingdom to an alternate non statutory corporation sole known as the Queen of Australia. The Attorney Generals Department failed to supply the transfer of power."

Source: https://constitutionwatch.com.au/has-there-been-a-transfer-of-the-prerogative-power-of-assent-to-the-queen-of-australia/

So next time you’re in court with your lawyer/barrister/QC where you’re paying through your nose for their existence in your matter, ask them about the ‘Queen of Australia’ where maybe they’ll give you a response that indicates that you should be paying them their weight in manure for their so called 'help'.

 How can one be ‘just doing my job’ if one is not in office lawfully?

Trust the police - Police can deactivate body cameras, edit footage

Victorian police officers can deactivate their body-worn cameras whenever they choose, edit the footage before court cases and limit complainants' access to images, prompting calls for a dramatic revamp of the system.

The Age can reveal that the Andrews government has given police full power to deal “in-house” with any potential breaches of body-worn cameras, which have so far been sent to 8085 frontline police and protective services officers across the state.

A police officer wears a body-worn camera.Credit:

But lawyers and human rights advocates fear that without independent sanctions and oversight, the system - designed to improve law enforcement and community safety - could easily be abused.

“There are no laws regarding when they have to be turned on, or when they have to be turned off," said Robinson Gill Lawyers principal solicitor Jeremy King, who has represented numerous victims of police brutality over the years. "Police have control of the entire system."

Critics are pushing for tougher safeguards - including state government penalties - for officers who misuse the devices.

It comes after a number of cases where investigations have been hampered because body-worn devices have not been activated at critical times.

One officer at an anti-mining protest used his body camera as a billboard for a sticker saying “EAD [Eat a Dick], Hippy”.

Victorian Children’s Commissioner Liana Buchanan was recently unable to fully examine alleged brutality by prison guards against youth offenders at the Grevillea Youth Justice Unit because “body-worn cameras were not operative during the time of the alleged assaults".

And in Queensland in 2016, the Supreme Court was forced to rule on claims of unlawful arrest involving a police officer whose body-worn camera was switched off during the period where consent to a search had allegedly been given.

Under the latest police guidelines, reviewed last month, officers are meant to turn on their cameras when “exercising their powers”, such as when they make an arrest or execute a warrant.

But they ultimately have the discretion to decide if or when they choose to activate the device, in a bid to protect privacy or other sensitivities, and they do not need to inform people they are being filmed. If a recording is not made - or if the camera is stopped prematurely - the officer must simply make a note outlining the circumstances. Compliance is monitored by the professional standards unit.

"At this point in time no disciplinary action has been taken regarding misuse of a body worn camera," a Victoria Police spokeswoman said.

The data recorded on the cameras is uploaded at the end of each shift to a secure storage system. However, the guidelines show that police can edit or redact the footage when preparing evidence "where absolutely necessary or required by law".

Police Minister Lisa Neville and Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews.Credit:Ellen Smith

If someone making a complaint against an officer or a PSO asks to view the footage at their local police station, police can also limit access if they decide it may compromise an investigation or put a person in danger.

Police Association secretary Wayne Gatt said the current framework struck "the appropriate balance required to achieve positive benefits that support law enforcement and the community''.

"The community would not expect every single interaction police have with the public to be filmed, nor would they necessarily want it," he said.

And despite growing concerns, Police Minister Lisa Neville also defended the system, telling The Age: “We know the roll-out of body-worn cameras is already improving police and public interactions and leading to fewer complaints.''

Body-worn cameras were trialled in Victoria last year as a recommendation of the Family Violence Royal Commission, to make it easier for police to gather evidence. But they have gradually been expanded as a general feature of frontline policing, with 11,000 expected to be in operation by the end of the year.

But Gregor Husper, principal solicitor at the Police Accountability Project, argued that while the cameras have the potential to make police more accountable and boost community safety, "instead they have become another accountability failure".

Human Rights Law Centre director Ruth Barson said it was clear independent oversight was needed.

"If police are left to investigate their own, the result will be impunity."

Source: The Age

Curfew fines not legitimate

As mentioned before, do not pay any 'COVID' fine whatsoever.

The government of Victoria stands on very thin (legal) legs, something more akin to a chicken rather than a runner or weightlifter.

The mainstream media informed you that the curfew in Victoria was not legally put into action.

ANY fine as a result of breaking the so called curfew is not legal either.

Don’t pay it, elect to go to court, and seek the necessary legal advice and documentation to have it thrown out.

But be warned the judiciary will not let you off that easy, as no doubt they will STILL try to con you out of your extra hard earned cash (during these ‘virus times’).

Remember what happened in Tasmania?

For over 30 years the magistrates were not sworn in correctly and the 'system' lied to you that all the orders were issued lawfully.

Can you put in a document into court if it’s not sworn in ‘correctly’?

Can you put forward your side of the story, in the dock if you haven’t been sworn in correctly?

If you were affected by an unlawful order in Tasmania, did you seek a remedy from a corrupt system?

Would you be part of a class action lawsuit against the government of Tasmania?

There is a class action against Andrews’ response.