AUSTRALIAN VETERAN MATTERS

Allen Petersen operates an email list.


This list can only be described as biased, inaccurate, stupid, irresponsible and immature. It deals with gossip and abuse, threats and defamation and never ever presents accurate information regarding the issues of Veteran entitlements, health care and ADF matters. Allen Petersen changes the emails which people send to him to suit his own agenda....which is to spread the mad galah agenda.


We have however noted that since the Australian Defence Association and some mad galah members have either lined Petersen up or left his list that he has toned down his information. Maybe he is trying to rescue his tattered reputation. 


Petersen himself is well known in the West Australian Veteran community as somebody who lies, causes trouble in ESOs and who is an immature, unintelligent fool.


Petersen is simply a fraud who plays on the emotions in the community to have his fun.


Some years ago Allen Petersen was part of a plot to strip the wealthy WA TPI Association of money and pipe this money into the WA RSL. This deceptive, backdoor scheme failed and he resigned from the WA TPI Association Committee in disgrace after back stabbing the then President. 


Petersen is a chronic liar and arch manipulator who just can't help himself.


The email list he operates is a disgrace. Petersen's failure to moderate this list responsibly and with decency has been the main cause of community ill feeling and infighting through his passage of the mad galah nonsense around the ex Service and wider communities. If he had refused to act as the mad galah mailman for people like Barry Corse, David Briggs,Keith Joyce, Ted Colmer, Jim Wiltshire, proven DVA fraud Harry Kirkman,Terry Westerway, Paul Dignon, Don Tate, Noel Muller and others we ex Servicemembers would never have been embarassed the way we have been and there would never have been the bitterness and angst we see in our community. Canberra politicians just love the infighting the Petersen email list causes. While Petersen peddles his bile and misinformation the politicians sit by and largely ignore the real issues facing our community.


Petersen is the main problem because he passes on the mad galah garbage and by doing this he gets his rocks off...it's his sort of thrill, his ego dance with his name swirling in lights, his chance at fame. He is a Drama Queen who just thrives on the limelight and cares nothing for the Veteran and ex Service community.


Recently the Executive Director of the Australian Defence Association sent the following email to Petersen to try and convince him to adopt some even handedness, decency and accuracy. This was all to no avail and Petersen continues on his merry way, causing trouble and enjoying every moment of it.


This is what Neil James of the ADA recently said to this peddler of hysterical nonsense ...............


From: Australia Defence Association

Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2009 9:10 PM

To: 'Allen J Petersen'

Subject: The Bias of Allen Petersen's Supposed "Forum" on Veterans Issues

Importance: High

Dear Allen,

You must know that what you have stated below is not true. We continue to hope that your position stems from mistakes rather than deceit.


First, disagreeable postings are not the issue and you must know this. When you let cowards and frauds spew lies and abuse about us and then block and censor our replies, and on a whim, this is not a case of disagreeable expression or mere disagreement.


Second, vexatious postings are not the issue either because you publish the vexatious and dishonest attacks on the ADA, no matter how offensively they are expressed, but do not publish our replies that refute them no matter how reasonably or patiently we word such replies. The more our emails to you refuted the crap said about us the less likely it was that you would distribute them or, if eventually published, the more likely you would be to delay distribution (thus allowing more attacks to go unanswered) or reword the emails to suit yourself (and thus cause more confusion or even false accusations that we were somehow not answering the attacks).

 

Third, when you arbitrarily stopped publishing our replies, and then changed some of them so they misrepresented our position, we complained. You brushed off our legitimate complaints and claimed it was somehow your right to do whatever you wanted to as you made the rules on your forum. This attitude and behaviour was unfair, wrong and inexcusable.

 

Fourth, your behaviour was not that of a messenger, shot or otherwise, or indeed any form of neutral forum mediator. You were and remain nothing more than a highly biased participant. You and your forum lost any credibility that day among objective participants who were aware of these facts although you have deceptively hid these facts from many of those involved with your forum by not posting our emails.

 

Fifth, the ADA does not participate in forums that do not meet the community standards to be reasonably expected in informed public debate. Our members would be rightly disappointed if we did. We advised you of this and your only comment was to maintain that it was your exclusive right to decide what got published and what did not.

 

Sixth, unfortunately for you, some of your forum interlocutors among the liars and frauds have sent us your private comments to them about us because they are either too stupid to realise what further damage this causes to your credibility or they are so carried away by malice and/or pet conspiracy theories that they have totally lost any sense of reality or perspective.


Seventh, we continue to receive far more supportive emails from veterans than ones that attack us (and often membership applications). This mirrors closely the feedback we receive from Australians generally. We also have an independently refereed system for handling complaints about the Association. You should try this.


Eighth, your forum does not somehow represent or facilitate mainstream veteran opinion, or indeed any properly-run forum, and you must know this. If you do not then this only indicates the depth of your problem.

 

Ninth,  you and your forum are part of the problem not part of the solution to all the ills affecting veterans. We are comfortable with the fact that the vast majority of decent, mainstream, veterans, where they know or care about us or you, understand our position on defence issues - and our support for genuine ESO in their efforts to achieve real reform on veterans issues - and that they respect these stances.

 

Tenth, let us see whether you have the honesty, courage or integrity to publish this reply, immediately, uncensored, in context and without further incorrect statements by you about the history and issues involved. It is now 2058 hours Eastern Standard Daylight-Saving Time on Sunday 04 January 2008.


Neil James
Executive Director
Australia Defence Association

(02) 6231-4444

www.ada.asn.au


National Office: PO Box 320, Erindale Centre, ACT, 2903, Australia
(ABN 16 083 007 390)