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This site brings together a range of issues that relate to family, fairness and the law.
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Through experience we are able to identify how our government structures are now failing in their core obligation to the communities that they have been set up to serve. One core obligation is to ensure that lawyers entrusted with the care of the assets of the deceased do not abuse their positions or abuse the family unit by becoming Lawyers or Grave Robbers?
We all presume that our government structures exist to protect and care for our families, these are the very entities that form our society and make up our communities.
We do not presume that our government structures would pursue the interest of money and power above the interests of the communities that they are formed from. The systemic failure of our regulatory system monopolised by the legal profession requires answers. When the regulator of lawyers cannot even discipline a lawyer and a law firm for lying to a family about their mothers final wishes what hope do we have of regulating our most powerful people within our community.
The failure of these government structures to do a proper job is hurting many individual people and their family structures. The core regulator is the regulator of lawyers in Victoria it is the Victorian Legal Services Commissioner. The regulator of the legal profession sets the standard for all of the regulators because those regulators come from the legal profession.
Thousands of people in Australia are being hurt in the following areas of legal practice by self serving unaccountable members of the legal fraternity who are motivated by profit rather than care for the customer:
Inheritance Law
Family Law
Criminal Law
Medical negligence
When building their homes
When dealing with a bank. Obtaining finance
Institutional care of the elderly,
Institutional care of children,past and present
Tax avoidance by the super rich
The gambling Industry
The illicit narcotics industry
Personal Injury.
These are just a few of the areas where the government structures that we rely upon for our long term well-being and safety have and are failing us. Unless you are very wealthy or live on an Island a long way from Victoria you will be affected.
In Australia we have three tiers of government, Federal, State and Local. There is one Federal Government that makes federal laws then there are six separate state governments and two territories who all make their own separate laws and then there are a multitude of separate councils who all make by laws. We live in a nation that has laws upon laws upon laws. This is why we need a legal industry to help us manage the maize of laws.
The legal industry is composed of people who have studied Law. They work in the courts administering the law. They work as paid lawyers for individuals and families when required. They work for government, insurance companies and big business. They also work in reforming and making new laws. The business of law is enormous and it affects every single one of us on every single day whether we are aware of it or not.
The government organisations that are supposed to regulate and guide this industry for the benefit of the people who live in Australia and in the state of Victoria are:
1.The Law Institute of Victoria
2.The Victorian Legal Ombudsman (Kate Hammond)
3.The Victorian Legal Services Commissioner (LSC)
4.The Australian Consumer and Competition Commission. (ACCC)
5. Consumer Affairs Victoria (CAV)
6.The Victorian Law Reform Commission
7.The Australian Productivity Commission
8.The Victorian Ombudsman
9.The Victorian Attorney General
10. The Federal Attorney General
11. The Victorian Freedom of Information Commissioner
One would also have thought that the eminent members of Russell Kennedy named in my mother`s probate documents who sit on numerous government advisory committees would be aware of any recommendations relating to inheritance law and abide by them. These people administer various Government Acts including The Trade Practices Act of 1974 now renamed Australian Consumer Law (ACL) by our lawyer`s. This piece of law gives the people and families of Australia protection from greedy unscrupulous suppliers of goods and services by stating:
Thou shall not engage in misleading and deceptive conduct Thou shall not engage in unconscionable conduct Thou shall not unfairly empower oneself over another in a contract.
With all of these powerful and well-resourced government bodies armed with a very clear and powerful piece of legislation overseeing an honourable profession of well-educated people who have obtained law degrees we should all believe that our interests as human being`s and those of our families are well protected and when we use the services of the legal profession our laws and our governance will work for the benefit of our families.
So if you are a perceptive person, you have to ask yourself. Why are there so many people who have been ripped off and so many stories of despair about injustice and so many inquiries into Crime and Corruption, that identify the failure of our regulatory organisations to do their jobs and why are we always watching the repeat movie as time goes by and we discover that the recommendations of one inquiry are never implemented so as to allow another catastrophe upon our families to develop that leads to another expensive inquiry?
My own journey into this sewer pit of deception and the supporting documentation will help to explain the pure and simple fact that Australia’s laws do not hold the family unit as the fundamental and most important factor, when determining a decision through a legal process. This journey shows how the organisations that are responsible for the care of our communities work to protect the interests of the privileged and the powerful by failing to bring the legal industry to account.
The example is a simple one. A Melbourne law firm Russell Kennedy was nominated by late mother to work with my sister in managing her financial affairs after her death. Instead of working with my mother`s family they lied, hid crucial information, and refused to work in the interests of family cohesion so as they could create unnecessary fees of $80,0000 against her estate. The story shows how each of the regulators did not respect the needs of my mother`s family and refused to bring the lawyers Ian Bult, Arthur Bolkas and the members of the Melbourne law firm Russell Kennedy to account for creating irreparable damage to my mother’s family and for robbing her grave. It has made me realise that Lawyers in Australia are allowed to be Grave Robbers a culture created from a very dark and evil past.
Since this saga began 12 years ago I have become aware that there are hundreds of thousands of people living within Australia who have been abused by privileged and powerful people and institutions, who when they lodge their concerns with the designated regulator or regulators all get a similar response of inaction and the perpetrator of the abuse just like Ian Bult of Russell Kennedy and his accomplice Arthur Bolkas walk away Scot free leaving the family they have abused in a crumpled mess.
- The Law Institute of Victoria I first raised my concerns regarding the behaviour of the Melbourne law firm Russell Kennedy and Ian Bult through my lawyer. The matter was taken to the Ethics Committee who determined that Ian Bult and Russell Kennedy did not have a conflict of interest in managing my late mother`s estate despite the fact that Ian Bult was hiding a letter that he claimed showed my mother`s wishes and that his behaviour of bullying and threatening exorbitant legal costs against the estate had forced my sister the only named executor in the will from taking up her role as executor. Six months later I approached the law institute of Victoria and raised my concerns in regards to Ian Bult and Russell Kennedy`s wasteful processes when dealing with the estate. The Law Institute of Victoria advised me to hire a lawyer and take the matter to the Supreme Court. The problem with this is that I would have had to hire a lawyer who wears a wig, it would be defended and all of the costs would be extracted from the estate thus hurting my own family and all of my mother`s family all because of the actions of an evil lawyer. At this point in time I was informed that lawyers who act as executors are not bound by the Legal Proffessional Act of 2004 as they are executors and not considered to be doing the work of lawyers.
- The Victorian Legal Ombudsman Kate Hammond I approached the legal Ombudsman who stated they were powerless to act and to take the matter to the Supreme Court.
- The Victorian Legal Services Commissioner (LSC) Four years later I lodged a complaint with the Legal Services Commissioner based upon the fact that Ian Bult aided and abetted by Arthur Bolkas and the members of the Melbourne law firm Russell Kennedy had committed human rights abuses against my mother`s family. The Victorian Legal Services Commissioner informed me that lawyers who are in private practice are not bound by the Victorian Charter of Human Rights. During this period I made a submission to The Queensland Law Reform Commission outlining my concerns in regards to the lack of any standards for lawyers who were acting as executors. One of the recommendations that emerged from this commission which took fifteen years, was that it should be a statutory requirement that the legal file of a deceased estate should be available for inspection by any beneficiary of a deceased estate. This recommendation has not been placed into law. Follow the conversation of resistance by Michael Main of the Melbourne law firm Russell Kennedy and his refusal to allow inspection of the deceased estate file. After obtaining the hidden letter from Paul Gleeson of the Melbourne law firm Russell Kennedy that proved that Ian Bult of Russell Kennedy had lied to my mother`s children about her final wishes and that Arthur Bolkas had sat on his back side and not informed my sister who he was also supposed to be representing at the same time that Ian Bult was lying. I again approached the Victorian Legal Services Commissioner after receiving a letter from the then attorney General Robert Clark that the LSC could review a complaint if new evidence were submitted. The Victorian Legal Services Commissioner Michael McGarvie dismissed my complaint because Ian Bult was acting as an executor and he also lied to me by saying that his office did not have the power to investigate law firms when it was at the time the only Legal Services Commissioner in Australia that did have the power to investigate law firms.
- The Australian Consumer and Competition Commission (ACCC) I then approached the ACCC on the grounds that Ian Bult aided and abetted by Arthur Bolkas and the members of the Melbourne law firm Russell Kennedy had engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct, unconscionable conduct and empowered themselves unfairly over another in a contract. The Australian Consumer and Competition Commission rejected my concerns on the basis that they only dealt with systemic issues and they said they had no evidence that this was a systemic issue.
- Consumer Affairs Victoria (CAV) I then approached CAV they rejected my claim on the basis that the Victorian Legal Services Commissioner had investigated my complaint and found that there was no basis for the complaint even though the Victorian Legal Services Commissioner had rejected the complaint because: He stated that lawyers who acted as executors were not regarded as lawyers and were therefore not bound by the Legal Professional Act of 2004 which he administers. And because he lied by stating that he could not investigate law firms therefore not investigating the reasons why Arthur Bolkas did not inform my sister who was his client at the time of Ian Bult`s lies.
- The Victorian Law Reform Commission The Victorian Law Reform Commission conducted a review of our inheritance laws called Succession Law Reform which was part of the agenda for the unification of or inheritance laws throughout Australia that began with the Queensland Law Reform Commission. I submitted my recommendations to the Commission. The Commission recommended that Lawyers who are executors should be seen as lawyers and be bound by the Legal Professional Act of 2004 and that the Law Institute of Victoria should write the guidelines. Two years on and the guidelines have not been written.
- The Australian Productivity Commission In 2014 The Productivity Commission ran an inquiry into the cost of Access to Justice to which I placed a submission and appeared at a public hearing in Melbourne. One of the key recommendations was that the legal regulators must consider the consumer rights of customers of the legal profession at the highest order when considering complaints against lawyers. I gather that zero dollars and zero resources have been allocated to these recommendations.
- The Victorian Ombudsman I have forwarded my concerns about the inaction of the Victorian Legal Services Commissioner to the Victorian Ombudsman and those concerns have all been rebuffed. I have attempted to obtain a report the Victorian Ombudsman made on the office of The Legal Services Commission in 2009 of which a part was published in his annual report of 2009 but have been refused access to that report. I mentioned the problem to the Productivity Commissioners who also requested a copy of the report but were not provided with a copy.
- The Victorian Attorney General`s Department I have communicated my concerns to the Victorian Attorney General who no longer wants to discuss these most important issues with me.
- The Federal Attorney General`s Department The Federal Attorney General`s Department is hand-balling the matter to the Victorian Attorney General despite the fact that the problem sits fairly and squarely in his basket as it relates to the national project of unifying our ascendancy laws and relates to the recommendations put forward by the Productivity Commission with regards to the inquiry into Access to Justice.
- The Victorian Freedom of information Commissioner I have made inquiries to the freedom of information Commissioner in regards to the Ombudsman’s report of 2009 on the office of the Victorian Legal Services Commission but have discovered this is a top secret document harder to obtain than the deign parameters of an atomic bomb.
- The refusal by the Melbourne law firm Russell Kennedy to allow my mother`s family access to the deceased estate file. I have received written permission from my sister to obtain access to my mother`s deceased estate file in order to discover her true wishes but Michael Main and Paul Gleeson of the Melbourne law firm Russell Kennedy are refusing access to the file because they know that when the file is revealed it will expose their firm to criminal action.
I ask myself how can a nation like Australia allow a powerful Melbourne law firm like Russell Kennedy when placed in the highest position of trust to get away with lying to the children of their dead mother about her final wishes so as to rob her estate by charging unnecessary fees for unnecessary work against the estate whilst simultaneously destroying her family?
The answer is simple. When you found a nation and its laws based upon the principle of TERRA NULLIUS the laws of oppression and power take precedence over FAMILY and COMMUNITY as the law has determined there was no family or community.
A wonderful situation for the British Empire: A land with no Hobbits no common law to get in the way of their brutality their greed and their heartless gutless cruelty.
There was one small problem there were Aboriginal people living on the land and they had been living here for a very long time so they introduced disease and alcohol to weaken their cultural structures, then drove them from their lands, starved them, poisoned their water and slaughtered them, without concern for their families, their culture or their communities.
Through their brutal laws they committed genocide in a land where nobody was watching then herded those that survived to the outskirts of their communities, fed them with alcohol drove them into poverty and then stole their children from them, imprisoned them, all in the name of the rule of law.
Modern day Australia must face its past and acknowledge that the current nation and its legal system is founded upon the atrocity of the destruction of the Aboriginal Nation a nation that developed over at least 50,000 years, the longest surviving civilisation known to mankind that founded its laws upon family and community and not upon power and greed.