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There are six principles involved in the
consideration of redress (correcting the unjust outcome):
- All mistakes are admitted and put right
- A sincere and meaningful apology is offered
- Arrangements for considering redress are
made public
- Redress is fair and reasonable
- As far as possible, redress restores the
complainant to their original position
- Redress is procedurally sound
Unfortunately, under the
Ombudsman Chris Field
there has never been a successful complaint against ICWA.
According to his investigator, Judy Anderson,
the this Ombudsman
likes to micro manage and basically never allows a decision to
go into the public domain
getting personally involved.
In my case, this involvement
has gone as far as to deny the findings and comments of the responsible principal
investigator, Ian Cox. The Ombudsman Chris Field
became
personally involved in my case after the departure of Ian Cox
and had given the assurance to complete his review of my complaint within three
weeks before publishing his findings.
Instead, Chris Field took the
investigation away from Ian Cox's successor, Judy Anderson, and
ordered his new assistant, Sarah Cowie, to disregard all of Ian Cox's
research and findings and commence a new investigation from scratch.
Although I made Mrs. Sarah Cowie aware of Ian Cox's
findings, she denied their existence and instead of investigating
ICWA's handling of my claim from an administrative point of view,
as requested by the WA Attorney General, she
investigated it from the legal point of view, which again the WA Attorney
General had asked the Ombudsman not to do.
Ultimately,
Sarah Cowie's decision
was a rejection of my complaint, not so much because
it was not valid, but because the matter had been heard by the courts
and was therefore outside of the Ombudsman's jurisdiction.
When I requested a review (appeal) of his
decision,
it was again rejected arguing that I had submitted no new arguments.
This although, I had supplied the Ombudsman again with the
Attorney General's letter of
Request/Instructions, copies of the
questions
Ian Cox had sent ICWA to answer and for which in
Ian Cox's own words,
he had
received "unsatisfactory"
answers and a CD containing the voice of Ian Cox
, with the comments he made to me,
during
a telephone conversation, that:
Although the WA Ombudsman's
investigator, Ian Cox, conducted his
investigation in accordance to the WA Attorney General's request by
focussing on
ICWA's
administrative handling of the claim, the
WA Ombudsman,
Chris Field, in the end
not only dismissed the critical findings of his investigator, Ian Cox
(see above), he took the investigation away from Ian Cox's replacement
investigator, Judy Anderson, and ordered his assistant Sarah Cox, to
start a new investigation from scratch. By the time his decision was
published, every single senior staff member at the WA Ombudsman's
office had been involved in the complaint at some point. By the time the review
(appeal) came around, there was no senior staff member
who had not dealt with my complaint, available
to review my appeal.
The Ombudsman's own guidelines require that any review of a decision must be conducted by a senior
staff member who has never been involved with the complaint before.
In addition, the WA Ombudsman has steadfastly
refused to answer any of my questions as to his ongoing investigation,
this included a question as to why the Chief Judge of the District
Court knew that he, the WA Ombudsman, had
"...declined to investigate the matter further".
Although this very statement was contained
in a letter from the Chief Judge - written a full three months before he, the WA Ombudsman,
commenced his investigation in the first place. This fact alone
clearly indicates that my complaint against ICWA was doomed from the
outset and the WA Ombudsman was going to reject it, no matter
what.
The
WA Ombudsman
Chris Field is clearly not acting
in the best interest of the WA public and is neither independent
nor
impartial as required by his position. This type of institution costs the WA tax payer millions of dollars each year. An institution
that is meant to protect the general public from then excesses of
government departments and public servants. Instead, what we get is a
version of "The Musketeers, one for all and all for one".
That's not good
enough, the public has a right to an impartial service by the
government. The goverment is an institution representing the public's
interest, not to saveguard the interest of the government of the day
or its various departments.
The conclusion that countless hours
investigating the background that governed my dealings with ICWA, as a
government department, has brought to light is almost identical to:
- The details coming out of the Katanning
Hostel inquiry (numerous people being aware of what was going on)
- The details coming out of the Margaret River
bushfires
- The details coming out the Kelmscott
Bushfires
Similar to my case
people who tried to bring the abuse to the attention of their
superiors or responsible authorities were threatened with various
consequences and, in some cases, made to apologies to the abusing
pedophile by the very public servants that were meant to protect those
same children. But then, what do the problems of a few winging kids matter, when acting on the information
would have upset or damaged the careers of some public servants?
And one thing that had to be prevented at all cost, was the danger
that some public servants would have faced consequences for their
actions; or lack thereof.
ICWA's and WA Ombudsman's handling of claims
and complaints, is destroying people. How much longer will it take
before our politicians become active and put an end to it? Hopefully
not another 30 years as in the case of Katanning Youth Hostel.
I note that all
these public servants have kept their jobs, salaries and benefits and
I have yet to see that any of these individuals have to face "real”
consequences for their actions or incompetence which ultimately cost
lives and destroye peoples' future.
WA Ombudsman Guidelines that he is
supposed to respect and adhere to:
Purpose Guidelines
Remedies and Redress Guidelines
Review of a Decision Guidelines
Email &
Correspondence to and from WA Ombudsman:
Initial complaint to the WA Ombudsman regarding ICWA's handling of
my claim - 7 of December 2010
Reply from WA Ombudsman - 25 of January 2011
Email
from Jane Peet - 1 March 2011
Email
from 16 of March 2011
Letter from District Court Chief Judge - advising that the "Ombudsman
had declined to investigate the matter further" a full three months
before investigation commenced! - 19 April 2011
Instruction from WA Attorney General regarding he wants the Ombudsman
to investigate 30 of June 2011
Email from Andrew Harvey - 16 August 2011
Email
from Andrew Harvey - 24 August 2011
Email from 9 September 2011
Email from 12 September 2011
Email
from Ian Cox - 20 September
2011
Email
from Ian Cox - 20 September 2011 - Second Email
that day
Email
from Ian Cox - 30 September 2011
Letter 2 to WA Ombudsman
- 10 October 2011
Letter 3 to WA Ombudsman - 24 October 2011
Letter 4 to WA Ombudsman - 27 November 2011
Letter 5 to WA Ombudsman - 20 December 2011
Initial decision of WA Ombudsman - 9 January 2012
Letter 6 to WA Ombudsman requesting review of his decision - 19
January 2012
WA Ombudsman decision regarding my request for a review of his
initial decision 27 February 2012
Statistical Analysis
of Success rate of complaints against ICWA under current WA Ombudsman
Chris Field:
Not
one successful complaint under Chris
Field
Updated 25 August 2019 JS
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