Not sure the internet can carry that level of data.
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If the reviews have been recorded “off file” outside the TRIMS record keeping system, ASADA could be in breach of the Archives Act, the FOI Act , the Financial Management and Accountability Act, public service codes of behaviour and - of direct relevance- keeping records outside the scope of Senate Standing Order of continuing effect 12.
That Senate Order gives the Senate the power to require the production of documents
The ANAO does record management audits. An audit of theDepartment of Health (not including ASADA) revealed shortcomings, including keeping records outside the official file system. In that respect, the ANAO concluded that Health could not provide an assurance that it was compliant with Senate Order 12.
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So, when ASADA, Health or others knock back FOI requests on the grounds that they cannot find relevant records, it could be asked if they have checked the records maintained separately from the TRIMS official files
I presume Senators can lodge FOI requests. ASADA might be more responsive to such requests. Or, a Senator could seek clarification of the records maintained by ASADA outside the official TRIMS file system.Compliance with that other Senate Order ( Harradine amendment on public disclosure of file lists) could also be investigated.
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OK, I am going to post a few extracts from Francis’s recent correspondence to Sharpe. Here is the first one.
I find this exchange interesting to start with, as it explains the EFC invoice refunds to some degree. I do agree with BF in that is it worrying that Alavi is agreeing to everything.
Item 7: Walker to Alavi, Page 135 was the most disgusting attempt by Walker to manipulate Alavi by planting an implausible scenario as fact:
Walker: “Virtually every Essendon player received a number of injections and AOD creams
and so forth.”
My Comment: This was a major misrepresentation. Eight players out of 46 players received
AOD creams. There were no records of how many players were administered “so forth”,
whatever that is.
Alavi: “Okay.”
Walker: “But Essendon never paid for any of the injections.”
Alavi: “Yeah”
Walker: “So, the question is then, well, how was it procured.”
Alavi: “Yes.”
Walker: “So, Stephen Dank, if you work on the assumption that he was providing substances, prohibited substances, to athletes.”
My Comment: There was no evidence Dank or Essendon or Dank’s companies were supplied
with the banned substance Thymosin Beta-4.
Alavi – “Yeah.”
Walker (page 136): “He needs to get his hands on those substances from a legitimate source … and here. We’ve discovered that he has got a ready supply of peptides … perhaps through Como pharmacy.”
My Comment: Walker lied. there was no evidence that Dank got a supply of Thymosin Beta-
4, the peptide under investigation.
Alavi: “Yes, yes.”
Walker: “And he is using as a cover MRC or ICB.”
Alavi: “I think MRC was being used.”
My Comment: Alavi didn’t know what was done at Essendon so had no grounds for claiming MRC was being used. Alavi had been so manipulated by Walker, he was too stupid to remember he hadn’t supplied Thymosin Beta-4 to Dank, Essendon or MRC or ICB.
Walker (page 136 & 137): “But he has got possession of the peptide.”
My Comment: This was a lie. Dank didn’t get possession of Thymosin Beta-4.
Alavi: “Yep.”
Walker: They mark up the price of peptides they sell to others.”
My Comment: This was a highly defamatory lie, bordering on criminal defamation. Walker is implying Dank and his business partners were involved in corruption. Walker had no idea about MRC’s pricing model.
Alavi: “Yes.”
Walker: “Offsets the costs of the peptides.”
Alavi: “Alavi supplying it - to the team, yeah. so, the — the only reason you would want to do that is to make them play better, obviously, so that he looks better and so he – his profile rises, which is what – which is what happened in the beginning of the season, right? So, I mean, I don’t follow the AFL but you can’t help but, you know hear them winning every game. I think what’s happened here, this is what – I – I don’t have proof of this – but with the Hexarelin and the – whatever else is on there that has been credited —
My Comment: Metaphorically speaking, the KGB has completed its indoctrination of its main witness Alavi
Walker: “The peptide, Thymosin.”
Alavi: “Credited, yeah, that got charged to MRC or ICB.”
Walker: “Yep.”
Walker (page 138): “No, no, and I pretty much accept the sort of position you were placed in, in not knowing the big picture.”
My Comment: Walker says “no, no” and then changes the subject from the payment conspiracy. I suspect he said no, no because there were no invoices for Thymosin Beta-4 to Dank, Essendon or Dank’s businesses during his time at Essendon
Alavi: “Yeah.”
Walker: “That’s why I have just given a flavour of the big picture just to contextualise your role.”
My Comment: I imagine a prosecutor is acting corruptly if he/she not only outlines the whole case (big picture) to a witness but does so by including a number of lies. Surely, each witness contributes a little bit to the big picture and doesn’t need to know a fiction version of the big picture.
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No you wouldn’t like all of Bruce’s stuff, he has enough to almost fill a whole room.
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According to the 2018/19 Annual Report (p35) ASADA uses AI to enhance its data analytical capacity.
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I think there’s different ways of reading the exchange and I don’t read it as Alavi agreeing to everything. Being an excerpt, it’s hard to tell the full context, but I see it as Walker laying out a hypothetical scenario and most of Alavi’s responses are just indications that he’s following along.
Alavi then referring to himself in third person “Alavi supplying it…” further indicates that.
Am I right in understanding that the hypothetical that Walker is laying out is that MRC was effectively being used as a front & marking up their prices (to other clients) to absorb the cost of supplying Essendon off the books? If so, that’s an incredibly weak hypothetical. Surely if MRC’s clients are willing to pay what MRC are charging, then profit is reason enough for whatever markup they apply.
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Well, ASADA HAS to use artificial intelligence, because they have displayed they have none of the natural kind.
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Walker should be spoken to in regards to his leading questions to the witness. Very poor interviewing technique.
AI…LOL. A heap of nested IF then ELSE statements is NOT AI. True AI does not exist and won’t for a long time, the human brain is proving very hard to replicate !
That statement was meant to impress and justify $$$$$$
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Would be interesting to know if ASADA shared that information with WADA. Afterall they are subservient to them and do have form in operating outside of Australian law.
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FWalker a former Queensland murder detective, may have enjoyed the lesser scrutiny of his evidence in civil proceedings.
He was a witness at the Federal Court and his written testimony featured in the Federal Court proceedings, in the ADT and CAS.
But he has not been exposed to grilling before Senate Estimates ( even though he has been on the ASADA team).
At CAS, the objections of the Players Counsel to the veracity of evidence and on grounds of conflict of interest of some appearing before CAS were dismissed by CAS.
At the Senate Estimates of 3 March 2016, Senator Back suggested to McDevitt that, if the appeal had been conducted within an Australian legal framework, the result would have been the same as the ADT. McDevitt QC was however of the view that those involved in the ADT were more versed in criminal trials, inferring that they lacked the competence to apply the comfortable satisfaction standard of proof.
Going through that Senate Estimatex transcript, all those questions that MCD took on notice, but has not answered, e.g,
- why is TB4 banned?
- could you show us specifically where TB4 is specically mentioned in the Code?
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I am posting a few extracts from Francis’s recent correspondence to Sharpe. Here is the second one.
THIS IS IN WALKERS AFFIDAVIT, the one that Alavi wouldn’t sign as it did not represent the truth.
Notwithstanding it wasn’t signed, it was still presented to CAS as evidence
Shame ASADA. Shame ASADA. Shame ASADA.
Item 9: Aaron Walker Affidavit about Alavi, paragraph 81:
“At 11.03AM on 12 March 2014, I sent an email to Mr Alavi posing a number of questions. Within the body of the email I stated … As a summary, we have established with your help that 26 vials of ‘peptide Thymosin’ and 21 vials of Hexarelin were delivered to Dank in clear vials in January 2012… Now focussing on the Thymosin only – we (ASADA) say the evidence readily establishes it to be Beta-4 (my emphasis). Dank then procures those peptides (TB-4 (my emphasis) and Hexarelin) from you under the false impression of having them tested at Mimotopes; he then later claims they were fired and disposed of by Mimotopes.”
My Comment:
i. Walker is leading the witness (Alavi) by stating “We (ASADA) say the evidence readily
establishes it to be Beta-4.
ii. Walker wasn’t telling the truth. ASADA had not established that it was Beta-4. As the substance imported from China that was labelled Thymosin was never tested, no one, including Walker, ASADA, Dank, Alavi and the three panellists knows the name of the substance.
iii. Walker planted evidence by replacing Thymosin with TB-4 in his statement that “Dank
then procures those peptides (TB-4 and Hexarelin)”.
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I would add that, while the ADT did not directly slam Walker in regard to his evidence, it did raise serious questions about the veracity of evidence of others, which in part was drawn from Walker’s evidence.
And, at the Federal Cout proceedings. Walker ( the chief investigator) denied that the investigation was joint, referring to it as “overlapping”.
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LOL?
AI does exist and is used across multiple industries…
Could always ask ANAO for the reports of its record keeping audits of ASADA. Where I worked, ANAO used to do regular record keeping audits, but did not always publish them.
When J34 provided a submission to the ANAO in 2016 for an audit of ASADA in relation to the Essendon investigation they claimed it was a highly unusual request. They claimed to have not audited ASADA itself before??
The three central components to the submission were
-
ASADA’s role and obligations.
-
The scientific basis for the investigation.
-
Integrity of evidence presented by ASADA.
If Sharpe’s reviews were done “off book” then, as you say, he could be in breach of a number of regulations. A 2019 version of a submission to the ANAO might need to remind the auditors of that possibility. And this would include the pattern of ASADA behaviour that started with McDevitt (as illustrated in his responses at Senate Estimates in 2016) and now with Sharpe.
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A review of ANAO policy audits suggests that its work program on such issues is driven by political interest in high profile controversies, including mismanagement of major projects.
It does however undertake regular and run of the mill financial and record management audits across all agencies, on which it would not normally publish a report.
The recent record management published report on the Health Deoartment appears to be a one-off and driven by reasons that are not clear to me.
As an alternative to the broader J34 request to the ANAO, you could ask ANAO for a copy of any audit of ASADA record management or ask for one to be done.
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ANAO circulates a draft work program and seeks Parliament approval. Its site states that it receives requests for audits from Members and Senators.
The 2019/2O program for the Health portfolio performance audits covers ongoing assessments and potential audits, including one for the sport infrastructure funding otherwise all directly health related. ASADA is assessed as low risk in deciding on audits.
Not true sentience I think is what they are getting at.
AI exists now depending on how you define it.
We teach can teach machines to memorize and learn/predict or to make decisions based on criteria or environmental factors. We are a long way off self awareness which is the end game.
Computers still do exactly what we tell them to do (thankfully).
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