Thanks for you quick response. This issue does not deserve much...

Thanks for you quick response. This issue does not deserve much oxygen, but because words are a hobby of mine, it amused me to comment on your use of the word “extortion”, and I added an ombudsman-related experience (more amusing than relevant).

AFTA Perspective

Extortion requires that there be an extortionist, but I am unaware of a word that describes the other party. If there were a word, it would be a word that implied venality. To allege that CCP extorted AFTA suggests that AFTA is, at least, relatively impotent, and that does not help your case if they are in a position to help you. I underlined “extorted”, because that is my focus, not the other things that you mentioned in your first post on this thread.

CCP Perspective

An extortionist tries to obtain something through threats, force or violence, and to broaden that, I would include blackmail and corruption. Corruption, which covers bribery, is excluded from extortion because the other party acts willingly. Past acceptance of bribes or past corrupt behaviour could, however, be the basis of blackmail. Publicly accusing CCP of extortion, and actually naming Beregi and McLay as criminals could give rise to an actionable tort. CCP, Beregi and McLay would, IMO, not bother to pursue legal redress, but HC may well feel obliged to censure such accusations.

Alternative Approach

Ignoring the above points, you have, IMO, diluted any merit in your argument by giving both CCP and AFTA a basis to dismiss you as a vexatious complainant.

Twenty five years ago I helped a man get a $50k+ contract-termination payment by advising him to drop the argument that he was the victim of a management vendetta, and that he should advance a reasonable arguable position as to why he thought that he was entitled to the termination payment that he had claimed, a claim that in my layman's opinion had no legal merit. He had had fought for that claim for many months (over a year), and he had taken it to The NSW Ombudsman for resolution.

The man, a highly-trained IT specialist, self-admitted that he had a mental health issue that prevented him from functioning as well as he had earlier, but I do not understand what he meant when he gave his condition a medical name. There was a humanitarian reason to help him and his young family because his earning capacity had declined. However, because the other party was a Public Corporation, its management was duty-bound to be careful with its largess, so they could not hand out public money without a supportable reason. To meet NSW Government headcount reductions, that organisation had earlier encouraged him and other IT employees to resign and return as sham contractors – a contrivance that was best hidden from the NSW Government. This may have helped to persuade management to close the matter in the man's favour without him threatening to make an issue of the sham contracts (an idea that had, anyhow, not entered his mind).

The man told me that his original manager had asked him to draft his own contract using the contract of a colleague as a template. When I asked him why he had changed part of the template that dealt with the hours to be worked per year in a disadvantageous way, he explained that to recognise that he worked less hours than his colleague, he had applied a computer disk-search averaging algorithm to derive a lower “average” termination pay for himself. The contract had a subsequent provision allowing for termination on three months notice, and that is what the organisation relied upon, and rightly so in my opinion. However, there was mathematically supported evidence in his hours-to-be-worked provisions that made it patent that he had a bizarre idea of his termination entitlement. He thought, and had always thought, that he was guaranteed a full year's quota of hours per year as of 1 January each calendar year during the life of the contract.

Management terminated the contract in January, and the man claimed he was entitled to be paid until 31 December. When given a sufficient basis to support the view that he had attempted to draft a “fair” contract, and that he genuinely misunderstood the situation, the organisation agreed to pay him the $50K+ on compassionate grounds. My report did not touch on the man's unfortunate state-of-mind and related family problems, but that may also have been a factor that management and The NSW Ombudsman considered. From management's point of view, the issue was substantially a matter of principle, not the money that was not theirs anyway, so they were never going to admit wrongdoing. I did not attend the dispute resolution meeting, but The NSW Ombudman may have strongly supported the settlement that occurred.

From what the man told me later, he could not resist starting that meeting with his I-am-a-victim slant. When he had made that point, he suggested a compromise, and he tabled the written argument (the reasonably arguable position, or RAP) that suggested the no-blame way out based on misunderstanding. RAPs are a handy way to mitigate blame, especially when dealing with the ATO, and they work best when articulated in the style of official language that can be cut and pasted by the other party.