by Ganesh Sahathevan
SMH columnist Brian Toohey reported recently:
In an unprecedented step, students enrolled in a higher degree by research at the University of Sydney will now have to fill out a wide-ranging Declaration of External Interests form that has more intrusive questions than an ASIO security clearance at the height of the Cold War. These students must declare their personal relationships, including sexual partners, de facto partners, ex-partners, close friends and family members broadly relevant to their candidature (see story below).
The University has a history of contriving evidence to suit its own ends.
This writer for example has had his alumni email service first suspended for illegally connecting the email service to a third party (paraphrase) and when that reason was questioned, finally suspended (for more than 17 years) for attempting to contact "John Howard" presumably the former prime minister, via the alumni system. University General Counsel Richard Fisher and the University have never explained why that would be a crime, but have demanded that this writer provide an undertaking to not abuse the alumni email system.
While the circumstances above remain unexplained, it is known that the University's decision had been communicated to one Adrian Ong Chee Beng, whose business activities this writer had investigated, and who was then convicted for fraud. Ong was informed even before the suspension had been communicated to this writer.
The University has recently hired a former Executive Officer of the NSW LPAB, and it does appear that the Declaration of External Interests has been adapted from the NSW LPAB's failed disclosure requirements used to determine if persons seeking admission to practise in NSW are fit and proper (see story below from The Australian). The NSW LPAB also has a history of contriving evidence, including confecting paper trails.
TO BE READ WITH
Monday, May 24, 2021
Sydney University adapts the failed NSW LPAB disclosure method to address security issues - USYD General Counsel, VC run risk of resembling Johnny English while pretending to be George Smiley
by Ganesh Sahathevan
From Brian Toohey in this morning's SMH:
In an unprecedented step, students enrolled in a higher degree by research at the University of Sydney will now have to fill out a wide-ranging Declaration of External Interests form that has more intrusive questions than an ASIO security clearance at the height of the Cold War. These students must declare their personal relationships, including sexual partners, de facto partners, ex-partners, close friends and family members broadly relevant to their candidature. The information required goes back to 36 months ago.
The form says, “If there is any uncertainty, it is better to declare the relationship than not to do so.” It is uncertain, for example, whether students should declare a sexual relationship with a staff member at another university in the same research field.
The form ...... says that access (to the information provided) is “at the discretion” of the university’s general council (sic). However, the spokesperson said the information on the declarations from HDR students will “only be made available to officers of the university.
Lawyers in NSW will probably recognise the wording of the declaration, its form and reported substance.It is almost an exact copy of the NSW LPAB declaration required of anyone seeking admission to practise in NSW. The NSW LPAB declaration system is flawed, and survives despite incidents such as the one reported below by Ben Butler in The Australian.
The disclosure system allows NSW LPAB staff, and USYD's General Counsel and his staff, to pretend to have forensic and investigative skills they simply do not have. Like the chairman of the NSW LPAB, USYD's General Counsel, and Vice-Chancellor (who must take ultimate responsibility) run the risks of looking like Johnny English while trying to play at being George Smiley.
TO BE READ WITH
Bizarre blog claims used to deny man right to practise law
F
BEN BUTLER
BUSINESS REPORTER
12:00AM JANUARY 17, 2019
2 COMMENTS
The body overseen by Chief Justice Tom Bathurst responsible for deciding who can practise law in NSW relied on a wildly defamatory Malaysian blog depicting ABC journalists, former British prime minister Tony Blair, financier George Soros and others as part of a global conspiracy when deciding to deny a would-be solicitor a certificate to practise.
Chief Justice Bathurst and Legal Practitioner Admission Board executive officer Louise Pritchard declined to answer The Australian’s questions about how the article came into the board’s hands and why its members felt the conspiracy-laden material could be relied upon as part of a decision to deny Sydney man Ganesh Sahathevan admission as a lawyer. Nor would either say which of the 10 members of the LPAB, three of whom are serving NSW Supreme Court judges, was on the deciding panel.
Ms Pritchard has left her role at the LPAB since The Australian began making inquiries in September. The article, published in December 2017 on website The Third Force, accuses Mr Sahathevan of engaging in a conspiracy to attack then Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak.
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EXCLUSIVE
Would-be lawyer denied by blog
BEN BUTLER
Mahathir Mohamad, who returned as prime minister after toppling Mr Najib in elections held last May, is also smeared as a participant in the globe-spanning conspiracy.
Mr Najib was under pressure at the time over the country’s sovereign wealth fund, 1MDB, which the US Department of Justice says has been looted of billions of dollars that was spent on property, art, jewels and the Leonardo DiCaprio film, The Wolf of Wall Street.
Malaysian authorities have charged Mr Najib with dozens of corruption offences that could attract decades in jail over his role in the 1MDB scandal, which allegedly included the flow of about $US1 billion through his personal bank account.
The article’s author, Malaysian political operative and Najib loyalist Raggie Jessy, also accused Rewcastle-Brown, Stein and Besser of receiving money, totalling millions of dollars, to participate in a Four Corners program exposing the 1MDB scandal that aired on the ABC in March 2016.
There is no suggestion any of Mr Jessy’s bizarre allegations are true. However, the LPAB cited the piece when denying Mr Sahathevan admission as a lawyer in an undated and unsigned set of reasons sent to him on August 3 last year.
It used the article as evidence in a passage dealing with legal conflicts between Mr Sahathevan, who has largely worked in the past as a journalist, his former employer, Malaysia’s Sun Media Group, and the company’s owner, tycoon Vincent Tan.
In that context, the board said the Third Force article reported “that Mr Sahathevan was investigated for blackmail, extortion, bribery and defamation”. While the article claims that blackmail, extortion, bribery and defamation “are but some of the transgressions many from around the world attribute” to Mr Sahathevan, The Australian was unable to find any reference in it to an investigation into him on these grounds.
It is unclear why the board felt the need to rely on the article, as it also made adverse findings about Mr Sahathevan’s character based on a series of other allegations including that he used “threatening and intimidating” language in emails to the College of Law and the NSW Attorney General and did not disclose his sacking from a previous job to the board.
Mr Sahathevan has denied the allegations in correspondence with the board.
The board also cited evidence that one of Mr Sahathevan’s blogs on Malaysian politics was banned by the Najib regime as indicating his poor character.
In an email to Chief Justice Bathurst, sent on August 30, Rewcastle-Brown said her site, Sarawak Report, which exposed much of the 1MDB scandal, was banned by the Malaysian government.
“I along with other critics of the 1MDB scandal (which includes Mr Sahathevan) became the target of immense state-backed vilification, intimidation and online defamation campaigns on behalf of the Malaysian government,” she said.
She said the board’s use of the Third Force article against Mr Sahathevan displayed “a troubling level of misjudgment and poor quality research, giving a strong impression that someone seeking to find reasons to disqualify this candidate simply went through the internet looking for ‘dirt’ against him”.
“The Third Force has consistently been by far the most outlandish, libellous, vicious and frankly ludicrous of all the publications that were commissioned as part of former prime minister Najib Razak’s self-proclaimed ‘cyber army’ which he paid (and continues to pay) to defame his perceived enemies and critics,” she said.
Besser, who now works in the ABC’s London bureau, told The Australian: “It’s clearly nonsense and comes from the darkest corners of some pretty wild Malaysian conspiracy theorists.”
Mr Sahathevan’s application is to be reconsidered at an LPAB meeting next month (Admission has since been denied, for the same reasons, but without explicit reference to the Thirdforce story).
BEN BUTLER
BUSINESS REPORTER
Business reporter Ben Butler has covered everything from tractors to fashion to corporate collapses. He has previously worked for the Herald Sun and as a senior business reporter with The Age and Sydney Morning... Read more
