See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil – old proverb
It seems that it is not only the public trustee that has been turning a blind eye. WBT received this email from Gary White today about Anne Connolly’s ABC Four Corners show in March 2022 titled State Control: Australians trapped, stripped of assets and silenced. – Ian Curr, Ed., 28 Nov 2022.
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Peter Fray made a bad mistake but Anne Connolly’s mistake is far more serious. The outburst by Peter Fray of Crikey at the Walkley Awards was most unfortunate to say the least. We were aware of the ABC’s Anne Connolly’s plans of doing an exposé on Public Trustees as far back as May 2019. However, when this still had not eventuated two years later, Crikey’s Amber Schultz carried out her own research and investigations which resulted in her own very fine series, Kidnapped by the State, being published in September 2021. She followed this up with further reports earlier this year.
There is no question the Four Corners exposé on Public Trustees resulted in a much wider section of the Australian community being made aware that the Public Trustees are not to be trusted. Their lack of compassion or respect for their clients was aptly illustrated in the case stories Four Corners presented. Anne Connolly and her team can take full credit for this. It was certainly a very significant programme despite some missed opportunities.
What was puzzling to many of our members, however, was the heavy promotion the Melbourne based advocacy group AASGAA was given on the Four Corners exposé when it had been the Committee to Expose the Public Trustee of Qld and Advocacy Tasmania which had been responsible for having the Public Trustees’ conduct in their respective states placed under the public spotlight. Leanne Groombridge, Advocacy Tasmania’s CEO, in particular has been relentless in her efforts to have the Public Trustee in her state made more accountable. What she is doing for Tasmania will ultimately affect what happens over the rest of Australia. She has been an outstanding advocate for our cause.
The Committee to Expose the Public Trustee of Qld, on the other hand, was totally ignored by Four Corners despite three of the four case stories presented in the exposé involving the Public Trustee of Qld (PTQ). It was the Qld advocacy group that exposed the alleged corruption at PTQ forcing the early termination of its then CEO’s contract and which led to Four Corners putting its focus heavily on Qld.
AASGAA did finance the public meeting held on the Gold Coast but it relied heavily on the support of the Qld group for its success. However, what was far more concerning was Four Corners promotion of AASGAA as a grassroots advocacy group when its connections are with extreme right wing conspiracy theorists such as Karen Brewer whose illegal anti vaccine/anti lockdown rallies held during the pandemic were supported and promoted by AASGAA. AASGAA is also closely affiliated with TS Radio which called on AASGAA’s members to take up armaments against our law enforcers brought in to break up their illegal rallies.
Many of our supporters were shocked by the call and were further surprised that the ABC would then go and promote a group which is closely affiliated with these extremists. Anne Connolly was made aware of AASGAA’s connections with extremist organisations prior to the Four Corners exposé going to air. She was also advised of TS Radio’s call to AASGAA’s members to take up arms against the authorities. AASGAA’s leader was on the programme at the time and did not object to the call or express horror at such a proposal being put to her members. We find it very concerning that the ABC should promote AASGAA under the circumstances as it certainly raises the possibility that somebody drawn to AASGAA through the ABC might actually take up TS Radio’s call.
Quite bluntly, there was never any need for the ABC to be promoting AASGAA in the first place. We believe Anne Connolly and Amber Schultz are both equally deserving of recognition for their stories exposing the Public Trustees.
However, Anne Connolly made a very serious error of judgement in promoting AASGAA as a grassroots advocacy group on Four Corners when it actually represents the most extreme elements of our movement.
Yes, Peter Fray made a bad mistake with his outburst at the Walkley Awards. However, Anne Connolly made an even greater mistake with the potential for her mistake to have far more serious consequences by her promotion of AASGAA to such a wide audience.
Gary White
28 Nov 2022
Hello Gary,
You are right to criticise the ABC’s Four Corners handling of complaints about the public trustee.
I know little of the back story that you speak of. As an outsider, I have found the ‘Qld group’ to expose the public trustee that you refer to has always been very supportive of people who get into trouble with the Queensland Public Trustee.
People from the ‘Queensland group’ met with Anne Connolly (ABC) at the Three Monkeys (sic) in West End in Brisbane before the Four Corners show was broadcast and outlined the grievances we had with the Public Trustee.
Most of the information passed on to Anne Connolly related to a matter involving fraud at a community house in West End which came under the control of the public trustee.
We provided the ABC with footage relating to Carl Ross Taylor’s challenge of the sale of AHIMSA house which was solely owned by him and dedicated for use by the community. Unfortunately Ross Taylor fell into the clutches of the Public Trustee when he sought free legal advice from Caxton Legal Aid Scheme about his wife’s stolen jewellery. Caxton Legal Aid referred Ross to QCAT who put his affairs under the Public Trustee who charged Ross management fees.
As far as I could tell Brian Lennard Laver and an architect, Will Marcus, stole money ($1.3M) from the community house and left Carl Ross Taylor penniless and at the mercy of the public trustee who owned the building next door. Laver and Marcus did this by bullying Ross Taylor, a vulnerable man, into an unconscionable and unwise mortgage with a merchant bank called Challenger Bank (read high risk loan). Laver, purporting to act as power of attorney for Ross Taylor, mortgaged the building and used the funds for his own purposes and Marcus used it as the premises of his architecture business rent free for 6 years. In the case of Laver he tried to fund his delusional dream of an institute of social ecology and had renovations done to his home at 53 Marley Street West End. Friends of Ahimsa discovered Marcus used a fraudulent cheque for $68,032 pay off his mortgage on an apartment in Mollison Street just up the road from the Three Monkeys cafe. All the evidence and documentation of the illegal transactions was provided to the Public Trustee. A request for a forensic audit was ignored by Peter Carne (Public Trustee), Ian Campbell (lawyer), Mark Crofton (Solicitor to the Public Trustee) and Greg Chapell (Accountant) at the public trustee’s office. The Public trustee did nothing allowing the Challenger Bank, Laver and Marcus to get off scott-free with fraudulent and unconscionable behaviour.
Bernie Neville, a friend of Ross Taylor, protesting the sale of AHIMSA house in 2012
Subsequently an aboriginal organisation, Link Up, through its President, Sam Watson, offered to buy AHIMSA house at market value ($2.5M) for use as an aboriginal-run centre for young Murris which was then and is still now urgently needed in that area.
The public trustee thwarted the sale to Link Up for fear of having an aboriginal juve centre near a middle class school, West Primary school (next door). The police who owned the building behind, and the local member Anna Bligh and Premier were opposed to AHIMSA House from the outset. Instead Challenger bank sold the building to CJ’s Pasta at below market value ($970K). Subsequently the Education Department bought the building for over $3M and built an extension to the school.
As evidence of my claims to Anne Connolly I provided a film showing Queensland police stopping the friends of Carl Ross Taylor from preventing the sale of the community house to a local business in lieu of the aboriginal centre. An inner city Juve centre is much needed to prevent the incarceration of aboriginal children in the Brisbane City Watchouse and to stop the deaths-in-custody which is a feature of aboriginal engagement with the criminal judicial system here in Queensland.
Ironically Ross Taylor, a vulnerable man, was later abducted from his home in Sunnybank under orders from the public trustee and placed in a hell hole 100kms away from his friends. Ross was therefore consigned to the fate of many aboriginal people in the state. In a way his subsequent death, as a result of ‘a fall’, was itself a death-in-custody.
Sadly, such was the magnitude of the fraud, it was too big a task for Four Corners to take up. This story that will probably never be told in the wider public arena.
However the ‘Queensland group’ to expose the public trustee has always supported people like Ross Taylor and no doubt will continue to do so for people who fall under the control of the public trustee.
As for the ABC closely tied with a conservative political system, this story is simply too big for an organisation that has such conservative roots and toes the middle line on most issues. There’s the corruption and lies by lawyers making a buck, people looking for the limelight, police protecting wealth and status, politicians looking for another term, and ‘the sage and meticulous’ judges, what can we say about them in their big houses and protected existence.
The ABC is competing for ratings against commercial stations, why else would they lead their story on the Public Trustee Offices in Australia with story about an American celebrity. The lead story was about Britney Spears, a pop-star from a country without a proper public medical system and with a corrupt public service where nearly all services are privatised.
Do we really want Australia to follow that model?
Ian Curr
28 Nov 2022
Reference
You Can Not Trust the Public Trustee