Mood:
chattyTopic: legal
Sent: Monday, August 04, 2008 6:43 AM
Subject: tactical obsevations re Coca Cola Case - hold fast folks - white knuckle time approaching
1. Only near the end of my 4 weeks temping job at big law firm Allens did I reveal my city email address there to CC Amatil and Gosford CC. About this same time the normal CCA inhouse lawyer Yvonne McKay (on this case at least 2 years) instructing Tomasetti was boosted with a "legalsecondee" turning up in her email CC.
2. Also another three things happened.
(a) I referred CCA openly to the ACCC about a week back for allegedly breach of s.52 of the Trade Practices Act as all this "spring" water is actually from bores 70 metres into the ground. Apparently this is the case in the bottled water sector generally. And refer the flippant SMH editorial last Saturday about Mars water - here about water "allegedly from mineral water springs" - they might be reading my micro news reports about ACCC referral of CCA? [bold added]:
Water on Mars a selling opportunity
THE news from NASA is excellent: the Phoenix Mars mission has found water. Not only does this mean enterprising real estate agents have vast untouched acreage to advertise as water frontage (not to mention water views, and then water glimpses when those quarter-acre lots on the Martian arctic plains start going under the hammer), but the precious fluid itself can be used to enrich our lives back here on the home planet. We can see the slogans now: Mars water - it's out of this world. Marketers know consumers are prepared to pay a 1000 per cent mark-up to buy bottles of water allegedly from mineral springs on boring old Earth. What will they pay for water allegedly from a different planet?
The discovery provides hope, too, for Starbucks. The mission, we are certain, will find Mars's coffee culture is second-rate - fertile ground, then, for this enterprising chain. There's a reason those little men look green: they've been hanging out for a mugaccino.
(b) Then mid this week I reveal that the reason I got the missing Green Folder of evidence back was because I referred the Registry to the Judicial Commission albeit putting the accusation on Gosford Council's lawyer not registry, and in mild tones about human error. A radical move - not your usual lawyer tactics:
(c) We filed (and published on the web) our Outline of Submissions
which was quite a revealing document flushing out .....CCA and GCC lawyers [organising] the consent conditions process of the court, [avoiding, we say] the full contrary evidence being contested, and [realising] this permanent water extraction when no other land holder can get anything like that consideration 25 to 66ML per year, and the whole place over allocated and quarries unlicensed. And we posted it on the web too empowering other media and community stakeholders.
3. At the same time as 2(b) CCA got my riposte reminding the court I can go back to the Judicial Commission if I am not treated fairly in the future - which is my legal right. Definitely not your usual lawyer response. Included in that surprising move is the even more surprising evidence of their own stand in barrister Nick Eastman giving me comfort over the beating I received from the Registrar. Bet CCA didn't know they were paying for that! God bless him. He's a good bloke on balance.
4. Lastly they have my resume' from Intervenor Diamond's earlier affidavit - not least taking on Noranda etc in Chile US$3B dollar project which fell over in 2005 (my role only a small but serious part with seed funding from Oz for 2 years, journalist and visual artist).
5. My theory is that their Director of Corporate Affairs - Alex Wagstaff who swears the affidavits - if he has any brain which he surely does, and if I were in his shoes - has decided to strengthen or even replace Yvonne McKay on the legal team. This secondee is Amanda Tesvic.
(Alternatively putting my ego to one side Yvonne is simply going on holiday and needs a back up?)
Now see this: Blake Dawson - Amanda Tesvic [She looks a bit like Kirsty Ruddock, EDO principal too!]
Amanda Tesvic Senior Associate, Sydney
SERVICE AREAS
- Competition & Consumer Protection
IT, Communications & Media
5A. First impressions - 1st class honours, also social sciences degree so smart, possibly highly manipulative of community groups (?), mid range experience senior associate thus ambitious and used to winning. Specialty is competition and fair trading law - like my ACCC referral (!). Which all suggests this analysis in this email should be passed onto the ACCC also.
5B. So it seems it's true. They are boosting the legal team. [(This could explain Yvonne McKay looking stressed in the court pre hearing when greeted before ironically I was trashed by the Registrar (which Yvonne enjoyed by the looks later)]. Whereas before it was Mangrove Mountain District Community Group Inc and local landholders going through their succession of lawyers, now CCA may have blinked, like CAE Lane blinked twice with two expert report postponements.
6. So now we have Tesvic running their correspondence last Friday, with minor glitch on her part which I exploited, turning the tables on her condescending prose - well she's entitled to try - that's a good degree she has there and well paid job too. What they might realise is I grew up in a lawyer household, with another brother as a lawyer, and I know legal arrogance like the back of my hand (not too impressed by it either). Usually shallow, tendentious.
7. Now this rather useful article by Matthew Moore, as FoI editor for the SMH - I know that Media Monitors clips these things and package them to the Courts Administration for the judges (?) (probably a breach of the evidence rules re sources for cases(?) but that's institutional power) - I did that reader job at MM for 2 years. So if the 'dear' Registrar Dixon in our CCA/GCC case doesn't read it herself it will likely still filter down to the LEC one way or another possibly by the Supreme Court. I'll be posting it on my blog this morning too. And sending an acknowledgement to Matthew too.
2-3 August 2008 Prising open cautious NSW courts - Opinion - smh.com.au
8. And on we go [to the hearing set down tentatively for Wednesday and Thursday 3-4 Sept 2008 - including site inspection at Peats Ridge near Gosford - somehow in that timetable, at the Land & Environment Court, 225 Macquarie St Sydney, in the Coca Cola Water Bottling case called David Kettle Consulting [as agent for CCA] v Gosford City Council 10429 of 2005]
Yours truly ....
Posted by editor
at 8:47 AM NZT
Updated: Monday, 4 August 2008 10:20 AM NZT
