Michelle Collins

Any reference to CASACIR or its directors, shareholders, owners or operators relates to pre-14 February 2024 when the company was sold. In no way can anything said relate to the company or its new owners, operators, directors, and shareholders after that sale.

Michelle Collins (“Collins”) is known to have been employed by KSA, and under the supervision of Smith, from at least 2009 to current date. In her role as personal assistant to Smith, she (inter alia) did the following:

On 9 February 2010 Collins prepared a letter sent to me saying her clients were interested in purchasing my related party’s property and requesting a market appraisal on it – yet Collins later prepared documents where she, KSA and Smith then used this against me to say that I was trying to force a sale, and fraudulently implying that I had used blackmail and threats when it was she, her boss and her clients who initiated that particular interest in the proposed purchase.

On 31 March 2010 Collins requested permission for CASACIR to have a hydrologist access my related party’s property. This access was requested in order to perform a hydrology report to fight the legal action taken by my related parties against CASACIR for unlawfully deviating the flow of Kookaburra Creek and thus removing the flow from our property. In her letter, she did not provide any details such as name, company, qualifications, or any such information. I gave permission and an appointment was set up and Neil Craigie (“Craigie”) attended under my supervision on 7 April 2010.

As will be seen, I was legally allowed to have my hydrologist also attend their site. On 9 May 2010, I requested permission for my hydrologist to access the quarry land for a reciprocal inspection. In that request, I gave the information that the inspection would be performed by our hydrologist and hydrogeologist, and that there were 13 items to be inspected for our report.

However, in spite of requesting such permission and giving details, and in spite of the fact that I had already allowed their hydrologist access to our property, on May 11 2011 Collins finally replied (after repeated requests for an answer):

Dear Madam, We have spoken with our client’s [sic] this day and their instructions are that they will not allow you or your nominee onto the property tomorrow.

After asking if my hydrologist could attend without me accompanying him, the reply came back on 11 May:

[O]ur client’s instructions are that the hydrologist can not go on his own either.

When asked when that week he could enter their site for the purposes of obtaining information for his report, the swift answer came back:

There must have been a misunderstanding, our clients will not allow your hydrologist on the site at all.

On 17 May 2010, Collins prepared and sent a letter to my related party, signed by Smith, admitting that:

As you will doubtless be aware, section 129 Victorian Civil and Administrative tribunal Act 1998 provides for reasonable access to land to a person who is to give evidence in a proceeding.

The letter then put it that [emphasis mine]:

We advise that our client is prepared to consider the grant of reasonable access to your expert witnesses for the purpose of enabling them to prepare evidence in the Water Act proceeding.

So in spite of admitting that we were legally entitled to have access, and having already provided some of the information they then required, the letter then made it clear that access was not necessarily going to be granted and then went on to demand the following [emphasis mine]:

This permission will be considered on provision of the following details and subject to the following conditions:

(1) you advise us of the name, qualification and area of expertise of each witness who wants to access the land;

(2) you advise us of which of your proceedings that expert is preparing to give evidence in;

(3) you make arrangements with this office for a convenient time for this access to occur, noting that we will generally need at least 7 days notice;

(4) each expert agrees to undergo a short induction session in site safety and to obey the directions of Casacir staff who will accompany the experts at all time whilst they are on site;

(5) Casacir will provide a vehicle and driver to transport the experts to those parts of the site they want to inspect (noting that whether or not safe access is available to all parts of the site is weather dependent).

We advise that permission is not granted for taking water flow measurements at the 3 springs and at the culvert and seepage.

It is to be noted that 17 May 2010 was the cut off date for filing and serving documents, thus leaving no time for access to the quarry property – as was KSA, Smith and Collins’ clear intention. By his letter, Smith proved that Collins had actively deceived me about the possibility of access.

Collins further prepared the following documents for Supreme Court, each with considerable fraudulent misrepresentations, claims and denials:

  • statement of claim, dated 29 November 2011;
  • writ and summons dated 5 December 2011;
  • amended statement of claim, dated 20 February 2012;
  • further amended statement of claim dated 2 March 2012;
  • the answers to my request for further and better particulars, dated 25 May 2012;
  • further amended statement of claim, misdated 21 December 2012 (but served on 22 November 2012);
  • further amended statement of claim, dated 23 November 2012;
  • proposed further amended statement of claim, dated 14 March 2013.

On 2 February 2012 Collins prepared and posted a letter, signed by Smith on the KSA letterhead, denying anything wrong with the first statement of claim in spite of the fact that there was very little truth in what she had written as claims or denials in the statement of claims.

It could easily be construed by her active obstructionism and the fraudulent claims and denials in the statements of claim she prepared, that Collins was part of the conspiracy to defraud me and to pervert the course of justice.