Justice NSW Successfully Convinces NSW Civil & Administrative Tribunal to Withhold Access
to Tribunal Services from Free Community Service Provider, 27.06.2023
The free community service is NSW Freedom of Information, fully volunteered by one single person Telina Webb, locatable at www.nswfreedomofinformation.net.
Ms Webb operates her website remotely while based in the Lake Macquarie area, north of Sydney CBD where NCAT holds its hearings. The free service was created in order to help the general public navigate the state’s access to information processes, better understand the legislation, and expose the way government employees view and respond to the public’s endeavours to exercise legally enforceable rights to avail government records and documentations.
Currently, formal training courses in the Government Information (Public Access) Act 2009, GIPA, completely precludes the general public, so the FOI Dice is completely loaded and agencies support that status quo.
Ms Webb was motivated to launch a website further to a Principal Member of the NCAT suggesting she “write a paper or something” as he processed an Application for a restraining order against her, a Section 110 application under the GIPA Act 2009 which he had actually suggested to the agency Port Stephens Council and then presided over and approved, making it clear he was biased. In record time of (12) twelve business days he published his decision; there was no actual need for a hearing, his mind was already made up.
Ms Webb was also motivated to launch a website after she won her appeal to have the Section 110 order overturned and rightfully issued a media release about her victory against a team of (6) six including a barrister, but which Port Stephens Council’s Governance Manager Tony Wickham is thereafter evidenced to use public monies to have removed from the internet. Her victory was all the more significant because unrepresented she managed to prove the Member had acted with bias.
It was this culmination of events that resulted in the launching of the website during Information & Privacy Commissioners' Right to Know Week 2021.
Ms Webb regularly files and serves documents with NCAT in person; her matters concerning NSW Government Agencies. In doing so she undertakes the (5) five-hour return driving trip from Lake Macquarie to the Sydney CBD, totalling approximately (300) three hundred kilometres. Add the fuel and premium parking and premium tolls, the cost and time involved is considerable for each individual journey.
It is little wonder then that she has availed herself of the Audio Visual Link (AVL) for most of the resultant NCAT case conferences and hearings.
Fast forward to current proceedings with the Secretary, Dept of Communities & Justice, Justice NSW, where Ms Webb had requested to attend the upcoming hearing via AVL, which was nothing unusual.
However, in-house solicitor for Justice NSW Jonathan Franklin campaigned vehemently and ferociously against that request, succeeding in having it refused.
Mr Franklin’s submissions disclosed Justice NSW had stooped to trolling the internet for information about Ms Webb he asserted painted a picture of her undermining the Tribunal’s processes.
He also submitted that Ms Webb’s offers to assist the public were actions and conduct to be frowned upon by the Tribunal, including the design and promotion of an Awareness Ribbon which represents and supports the hundreds of Victims of NCAT.
In particular, Mr Franklin had succeeded in creating a moral panic about the concocted potential Ms Webb would circulate information and communicate covertly on a non-public forum such as ‘Sub-Reddits’, and that she along with other unknown individuals who may have remote access to the hearing would illegally record and share the proceedings.
Jonathan Franklin was crystal-balling as there was no evidence of any such action on the part of Ms Webb occurring.
The NCAT made a formal decision about these issues and Mr Franklin’s submissions, formalising its views about Ms Webb’s so-called conduct and the false allegations she would act illegally or unethically during a hearing should the AVL facility be made available to her.
The Tribunal does not ordinarily do so and it is clear both Justice and the Tribunal were intent on sending Ms Webb and other public advocates a very strong message, one which was designed to humiliate and damage her at least on this occasion.
“For the most part I found it very amusing that Justice NSW and the Tribunal should disclose their collective need to control me by such great lengths, but what it actually showed was that individuals who speak out against this arm of the judiciary should expect to be targeted for their courage to do so. Likewise, should any member of the public offer assistance in a forum concerning the accessing of government information, they will find themselves being accused of behaviours they have not been involved in, but which the judiciary believes and accepts on face value.
Yes, it is true I do have a number of associates I support, individuals who also have their own websites and publish concerns about their own experiences with our government; I've never attempted to keep that secret. Regrettably that list is growing through no fault of the public. However, as I state on my website, we all have differing views and I respect those views as they do mine.
In my view, witnessing first-hand employees of the Dept of Communities and Justice, when I am a member of the community they serve and seek justice they are expected to deliver, acting to obstruct my legitimate access to judicial products and services for no other reason other than to completely inconvenience me and cause me financial, personal and professional cost, is indicative of the kinds of people we carelessly trust and overpay.
This case, the hearing of this matter, concerns the public presentation by Justice NSW’ Director Open Government Information & Privacy Unit (OGIPU) Ms Jodie Cobbin, where she is evidenced to blatantly breach the public’s privacy and obstruct legitimate access to government information. Jodie Cobbin used departmental time and resources to do so, then shared that presentation to an audience of over (460) four hundred and sixty individuals, some of whom were not government employees but comprised private enterprise. She shared her personal strategies for controlling and dealing with individuals she classified as fixated GIPA Applicants, recommending state-wide to seek punitive legal costs, engage NSW Police, and secure restraining orders under Section 110 of the GIPA Act. Such actions from a former NSW Police Superintendent! It may very well be Ms Cobbin still thinks she is a cop!
And as the deciding member for a simple AVL stated at close of her decision, QUOTE “However, I have no evidence before me that Ms Webb does record proceedings or shares such recordings or that because she has a website or is active on social media that there is an increased risk that she will record and distribute the proceedings” UNQUOTE, the same member actually confirmed she had no legitimate reason to deny access to the requested AVL facility.
Clearly the NSW Civil & Administrative Tribunal has a serious problem of systemic bias with the President sound asleep at the wheel.”
Ms Webb plans to appeal the decision which will see her incur additional cost and inconvenience which is likely the Tribunal’s and Justice NSW’s intention.
Contact: Jonathan Franklin
Jonathan.franklin@justice.nsw.gov.au
Jodie Cobbin
Jodie.cobbin@justice.nsw.gov.au
Ms Webb operates her website remotely while based in the Lake Macquarie area, north of Sydney CBD where NCAT holds its hearings. The free service was created in order to help the general public navigate the state’s access to information processes, better understand the legislation, and expose the way government employees view and respond to the public’s endeavours to exercise legally enforceable rights to avail government records and documentations.
Currently, formal training courses in the Government Information (Public Access) Act 2009, GIPA, completely precludes the general public, so the FOI Dice is completely loaded and agencies support that status quo.
Ms Webb was motivated to launch a website further to a Principal Member of the NCAT suggesting she “write a paper or something” as he processed an Application for a restraining order against her, a Section 110 application under the GIPA Act 2009 which he had actually suggested to the agency Port Stephens Council and then presided over and approved, making it clear he was biased. In record time of (12) twelve business days he published his decision; there was no actual need for a hearing, his mind was already made up.
Ms Webb was also motivated to launch a website after she won her appeal to have the Section 110 order overturned and rightfully issued a media release about her victory against a team of (6) six including a barrister, but which Port Stephens Council’s Governance Manager Tony Wickham is thereafter evidenced to use public monies to have removed from the internet. Her victory was all the more significant because unrepresented she managed to prove the Member had acted with bias.
It was this culmination of events that resulted in the launching of the website during Information & Privacy Commissioners' Right to Know Week 2021.
Ms Webb regularly files and serves documents with NCAT in person; her matters concerning NSW Government Agencies. In doing so she undertakes the (5) five-hour return driving trip from Lake Macquarie to the Sydney CBD, totalling approximately (300) three hundred kilometres. Add the fuel and premium parking and premium tolls, the cost and time involved is considerable for each individual journey.
It is little wonder then that she has availed herself of the Audio Visual Link (AVL) for most of the resultant NCAT case conferences and hearings.
Fast forward to current proceedings with the Secretary, Dept of Communities & Justice, Justice NSW, where Ms Webb had requested to attend the upcoming hearing via AVL, which was nothing unusual.
However, in-house solicitor for Justice NSW Jonathan Franklin campaigned vehemently and ferociously against that request, succeeding in having it refused.
Mr Franklin’s submissions disclosed Justice NSW had stooped to trolling the internet for information about Ms Webb he asserted painted a picture of her undermining the Tribunal’s processes.
He also submitted that Ms Webb’s offers to assist the public were actions and conduct to be frowned upon by the Tribunal, including the design and promotion of an Awareness Ribbon which represents and supports the hundreds of Victims of NCAT.
In particular, Mr Franklin had succeeded in creating a moral panic about the concocted potential Ms Webb would circulate information and communicate covertly on a non-public forum such as ‘Sub-Reddits’, and that she along with other unknown individuals who may have remote access to the hearing would illegally record and share the proceedings.
Jonathan Franklin was crystal-balling as there was no evidence of any such action on the part of Ms Webb occurring.
The NCAT made a formal decision about these issues and Mr Franklin’s submissions, formalising its views about Ms Webb’s so-called conduct and the false allegations she would act illegally or unethically during a hearing should the AVL facility be made available to her.
The Tribunal does not ordinarily do so and it is clear both Justice and the Tribunal were intent on sending Ms Webb and other public advocates a very strong message, one which was designed to humiliate and damage her at least on this occasion.
“For the most part I found it very amusing that Justice NSW and the Tribunal should disclose their collective need to control me by such great lengths, but what it actually showed was that individuals who speak out against this arm of the judiciary should expect to be targeted for their courage to do so. Likewise, should any member of the public offer assistance in a forum concerning the accessing of government information, they will find themselves being accused of behaviours they have not been involved in, but which the judiciary believes and accepts on face value.
Yes, it is true I do have a number of associates I support, individuals who also have their own websites and publish concerns about their own experiences with our government; I've never attempted to keep that secret. Regrettably that list is growing through no fault of the public. However, as I state on my website, we all have differing views and I respect those views as they do mine.
In my view, witnessing first-hand employees of the Dept of Communities and Justice, when I am a member of the community they serve and seek justice they are expected to deliver, acting to obstruct my legitimate access to judicial products and services for no other reason other than to completely inconvenience me and cause me financial, personal and professional cost, is indicative of the kinds of people we carelessly trust and overpay.
This case, the hearing of this matter, concerns the public presentation by Justice NSW’ Director Open Government Information & Privacy Unit (OGIPU) Ms Jodie Cobbin, where she is evidenced to blatantly breach the public’s privacy and obstruct legitimate access to government information. Jodie Cobbin used departmental time and resources to do so, then shared that presentation to an audience of over (460) four hundred and sixty individuals, some of whom were not government employees but comprised private enterprise. She shared her personal strategies for controlling and dealing with individuals she classified as fixated GIPA Applicants, recommending state-wide to seek punitive legal costs, engage NSW Police, and secure restraining orders under Section 110 of the GIPA Act. Such actions from a former NSW Police Superintendent! It may very well be Ms Cobbin still thinks she is a cop!
And as the deciding member for a simple AVL stated at close of her decision, QUOTE “However, I have no evidence before me that Ms Webb does record proceedings or shares such recordings or that because she has a website or is active on social media that there is an increased risk that she will record and distribute the proceedings” UNQUOTE, the same member actually confirmed she had no legitimate reason to deny access to the requested AVL facility.
Clearly the NSW Civil & Administrative Tribunal has a serious problem of systemic bias with the President sound asleep at the wheel.”
Ms Webb plans to appeal the decision which will see her incur additional cost and inconvenience which is likely the Tribunal’s and Justice NSW’s intention.
Contact: Jonathan Franklin
Jonathan.franklin@justice.nsw.gov.au
Jodie Cobbin
Jodie.cobbin@justice.nsw.gov.au