Pod Insights ABC Rewind 05 | Conspiracy | Judgement Day About this episode After Patrick Stevedores sacks its 1,400 maritime union workers the waterfront dispute turns into a courtroom drama as the legal teams battle it out in the Federal Court before heading all the way to the High Court.
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0:07 Speaker 01 A warning that this episode of Rewind contains strong language and a brief mention of suicide.
0:15 Speaker 02 Good morning, this is Saturday AM. I'm Hamish Robertson. Today is the 11th day of the waterfront dispute. And in the early hours of this morning, on Melbourne's East Swanson Dock, it looked like the 11th hour.
0:27 Speaker 03 The helicopters were flying overhead. People had drums, boom, boom, boom. The fires were going.
0:34 Speaker 04 It's April 17th, 1998. A full moon hangs over Melbourne's East Swanson Dock.
0:41 Speaker 05 All I remember was the sound of the horses. Horses, police on horses coming down Footscray Road in Melbourne.
0:49 Speaker 04 It's been 10 days since Patrick Stevedores sacked its 1,400 maritime union workers from docks around the country. The pickets have grown, with East Swanson Dock one of the biggest. Victorian Premier Geoff Kennett is fed up with the picket. And tonight, he's sending in 500 cops to break it up.
1:13 Speaker 04 The MUA sounds the alarm and calls on supporters to come down to the dock. By dawn, the picket swells to over 3,000 people. The MUA's Kevin Bracken is there.
1:25 Speaker 03 Well, it had a surreal feel about it, you know? With the smoke, helicopters flying overhead, you know, lighting the lights on, you know, knowing the police were on the way too.
1:33 Speaker 04 One of those cops is Phil Copsy. And, yes, that is his real name.
1:39 Speaker 06 The picketers wanted to stop whatever was coming through. It was our job then to get that stuff through.
1:45 Speaker 03 And about, I think, 1 o'clock in the morning, they said, righto, the police are down the other end. And sure enough, they marched down. And there's, I don't know, maybe 1,000 police, maybe 3,000 of us.
1:59 Speaker 05 We all held each other's arms.
2:04 Speaker 05 Some of us were quite, like, teary. It was very, very emotional, and getting emotional now.
2:11 Speaker 04 Construction workers arrive en masse to support the protest. Hundreds of them.
2:17 Speaker 01 Those construction workers, they came in behind the police, completely blocking their exit.
2:25 Speaker 02 Well, our reporter, Joe Jarvis, is now at the dogs.
2:28 Speaker 07 In a very tense moment, only about five minutes ago, the building workers marched down. They were coming in behind police.
2:37 Speaker 04 It's a precarious moment. The cops caught between protesters.
2:43 Speaker 04 So there was this huge standoff of thousands of people and hundreds of police. And basically standing off facing each other with a couple of metres in between.
2:53 Speaker 07 So basically, the police were sandwiched between hundreds of building workers on one side and then the picketers, the protesters, on the other side.
3:01 Speaker 06 The last thing any of us ever wanted to do was get into a push and shovel or a box on with the picketers. Because where was it going to end?
3:10 Speaker 04 We were all waiting for actually something big to happen, and it didn't. It was a standoff and they eventually had to retreat because they weren't getting past us.
3:23 Speaker 04 The union negotiates a retreat. The police remove their hats and walk away.
3:29 Speaker 01 It was the collective effort and will of the whole union movement.
3:35 Speaker 04 This night becomes known as the Dawn Raid and goes down in union history as a pivotal moment of people power. I'm Jan Fran and this is Conspiracy: War on the Waterfront. Episode five, Judgment Day.
3:56 Speaker 04 Last time, the defining moment of the waterfront dispute.
3:59 Speaker 01 At 11pm, I caught them goons with their dogs, stormed all the wharves. Oh, it was a terrible stuff, terrible stuff. It was so scary, you know, like it's a miracle someone didn't get killed.
4:16 Speaker 04 The non-union workers, brought in to replace the sacked wharffies, weren't having a great time.
4:22 Speaker 03 We've had windows smashed. Firing ball bearings at us. And one of them had a pretty good slingshot. It would actually go nearly all the way through a truck door. When you see an image of yourself...
4:31 Speaker 04 On a placard and pig's blood splattered all over it and big black letters below it, "We know where you live." And the fight moved to the courts, where an accusation of conspiracy is lodged against the government.
4:45 Speaker 03 The case may see the key players in the dispute asked to take the witness stand to answer claims that they were involved in a conspiracy. They include Workplace Relations Minister Peter Reith.
5:01 Speaker 04 As day breaks on the morning of April 18th and the police retreat, the sacked Wharfies and their supporters claim East Swanson Dock as their own. And now, they wait. Justice Tony North is currently deliberating over whether or not the union Wharfies should be reinstated.
5:23 Speaker 04 Here's historian Geraldine Feller.
5:25 Speaker 05 The nation is on tenterhooks, waiting for the decision from the courts. The pressure on Corrigan and the government is building. People are saying to ask questions about the government's role in this. You know, why has this incredibly disruptive lockout happened? And when is it going to be fixed? When is it going to be resolved? You know, Corrigan's really put himself out on a financial limb here. There's banks knocking on the door, waiting for like, when are you going to fix your, you know, get your house in order? So it's a tense time.
5:54 Speaker 04 Okay, the B team.
5:55 Speaker 05 Bornstein, Burnside, Borenstein.
5:58 Speaker 04 This is the B team. They are arguing a case on behalf of the unions. What is their case exactly?
6:05 Speaker 05 So the MUAs case had two prongs. The first prong is about basically putting a freeze on the termination of the workforce, stopping them from sacking them. The second kind of prong of their case was conspiracy. And this is the juicy prong.
6:25 Speaker 04 Oh, I do love a juicy prong.
6:31 Speaker 04 The MUA's lawyers alleged that Patrick Stevedores, the NFF, and members of the Howard government, namely Peter Wreath, had conspired to have the MUA members sacked because they were union members. A conspiracy is when two or more parties work together to hurt or injure a third party. So lots of people would say, well, don't employers work with government all the time to reform workplaces and change industrial relations? That's not legal. Absolutely, that's true, they do. But what made this an alleged unlawful conspiracy
7:12 Speaker 04 was that the government was being accused of collaborating or working with Patrick's to de-unionise the waterfront. Under Peter Wreath's new workplace relations laws, everyone had the right to either be in or not be in a union. Right, because they got rid of compulsory unionism. So now it was up to you. If you wanted to be in a union, you could. If you didn't, you didn't have to. That's right. So they'd reaffirmed the right to not be in a union, but also to be in a union. And then the MUA members had been sacked because they're in a union. They were trying to trip the government up using the government's own laws. Exactly. So the government basically tied their own shoelaces together and then tripped on them.
7:56 Speaker 04 A conspiracy case involving the government raises the stakes for everyone.
8:02 Speaker 00 I'd been at the court for four years and I'd never seen anything like it.
8:07 Speaker 04 Bruce Phillips is the communications manager at the federal court.
8:11 Speaker 00 The country was like a tinderbox, really. You know, pretty ugly scenes on the docks throughout the country. There was demonstrations, it was running hot in Parliament. And yeah, I just hadn't seen anything like it.
8:23 Speaker 06 All of a sudden, this thing turns into a courtroom drama.
8:27 Speaker 04 Greg Conbase, a young gun at the ACTU, the Australian Council of Trade Unions.
8:32 Speaker 06 It was amazing. Of course, that captures people's attention. It's exciting for the journos and it's good telly, you know, people coming out of the court, the tension of waiting for a judgment.
8:44 Speaker 04 Yeah. Even Justice North, who's about to hand down the judgment, is tense.
8:50 Speaker 03 Australia is looking to the federal court to see the answer. And I knew the pressures that were coming from the industrial parties. And I was very focused on getting an answer quickly because, you know, there were big crowds on the docks, there was a lot of aggravation in the community. So it needed a quick response. Journalists started flying down from Sydney and from Canberra and the focus went on. And it's only a tiny little street was being packed out with TV cameras and, you know, journalists and, and just hordes of lawyers.
9:29 Speaker 04 Finally, well into the evening of Monday, the 21st of April, Justice North delivers his judgment. He says there is an arguable case that the Patrick's workers have been unlawfully sacked. And...
9:44 Speaker 03 Good afternoon. Tony Eastley with this special ABC News update. The federal court in Melbourne has ordered the reinstatement of the 1,400 waterfront workers sacked by Patrick Stevedores. Justice Tony North has ruled that there was an arguable case, there was an unlawful conspiracy between the government and Patrick Stevedores. The government's determination to reform the Australian waterfront will remain undiminished irrespective of the outcome of this or any other court decision.
10:11 Speaker 06 The workforce was dismissed because they were union members. That, to me, was always a very strong argument for returning them.
10:22 Speaker 03 Patrick's, on the other hand, had argued that they had another workforce which they'd engage through the National Farmers' Federation, and that if the workforce were returned, they would be having to pay two lots of workers. And in the end, the way I looked at it was, well, they brought that on themselves. They knew that was a risk, and they thought that they would be able to persuade a court that that was strong enough for the court not to order that the 1,400 workers go back to work, but I was not in the least persuaded by that.
11:01 Speaker 04 We've just had some news that the MUI have won. As Justice North's decision is handed down, the crowd goes nuts at pickets around the country. But the jubilation is short-lived. The minute the ruling is handed down, Patrick's appeals, and Justice North is not happy.
11:23 Speaker 03 In fact, I have a recollection of being pretty mad, and I said, "You haven't even read the judgment. So how can you know whether there's going to, you know, you've got grounds for an appeal or not?" So I was quite annoyed about that.
11:38 Speaker 04 So it's round two in the federal court. This time, three judges hear the case.
11:45 Speaker 07 It's the biggest show here. I can tell you there are four PSCs and six barristers here at huge expense, 200 people crowded into the courtroom.
11:54 Speaker 04 Just two days later, the full bench of the federal court makes its ruling. And in an Australian first, the judgment's going to be broadcast live. Pressure is on the court's media manager, Bruce Phillips, to get the timing right. And then the next question is going to be, "Well, what time is it going to be?" And I didn't know, because they're in...
12:14 Speaker 00 There, working on the judgment. And it just went on and on and on and like, everyone's getting excited and, you know, I remember talking to Paul Bonjourno from Channel 10 and they were the early bulletin and they missed the bus and then seven and nine missed the bus and the ABC missed the bus. So everyone was missing the bus.
12:33 Speaker 04 It's a crazy scene. Journalists are just hanging for the judgment, watching deadline after deadline pass. And when it finally comes, just after 7pm.
12:45 Speaker 00 It was so big that we knocked Saturday the century off the air, they had to delay that.
12:50 Speaker 03 We have read and carefully considered the whole of Justice North's reasons for judgment, but we find them free from a palatable error.
12:59 Speaker 00 The punchline came, I think about seven and a half minutes into the read of the 15 pages where he said they found Justice North's judgment free of a palatable error.
13:08 Speaker 03 And I remember sitting in my chambers and when they agreed, that was satisfying. You know, I'm not usually invested in appeals, but I think because this was so smelly, in the industrial climate of that time, this appeared like an attempt to strike out into a different mode of conducting industrial relations. That is of a brutal sort of bashing up of the workforce. I mean, even a fair-minded, uncommitted person would have seen the dogs on the wharf
13:48 Speaker 03 and the balaclavas and thought to themselves, this is new, this is not what we ordinarily do in Australia.
13:58 Speaker 05 After many hours of people sitting, hoping, praying, as soon as Greg Comby got on the stage, everyone's arms just went full on in the air and just eruption of excitement.
14:18 Speaker 04 Unsurprisingly, Patrick's lawyers aren't quite as thrilled. Neither is the federal government.
14:25 Speaker 03 Justice North finds against Patrick's fines, there's a case to... I'd love to give him a serve, but I won't.
14:31 Speaker 04 That's the late Peter Reith, Minister for Workplace Relations in the Howard government. And in case you missed his off-the-cuff line there to journalist Fran Kelly, when she mentions Justice North's ruling, Reith says, "I'd love to give him a serve, but I won't." Ah, sounds like you kind of did.
14:49 Speaker 03 Well, were you worried by these decisions that were being made? It talked about there's a case to pursue on conspiracy and... Well, a conspiracy allegation was just an attempt to, you know, worry our side.
15:02 Speaker 03 And I suppose it did give us a bit of reason to worry. Not that we didn't think we were covered, because I thought I had good legal advice all along. I basically never did anything without getting legal advice. Incredibly frustrating, I can tell you, as that is for a minister, trying to sell a public position and having the lawyers telling what you can say, heavens.
15:19 Speaker 06 Forty minutes after the full bench of the federal court dismissed an appeal by Patrick against the court's original reinstatement orders, the company had launched another attack. They were supported by the federal government and the National Farmers' Federation in seeking an appeal to the High Court.
15:36 Speaker 04 Yep, it's round three. The case is off to the highest court in the country.
15:41 Speaker 05 Well, there was yet another turn in the waterfront war today with a High Court judge granting Patrick's request for another salvo of court action. The maritime union may have won the battle in the federal court last night, but it hasn't won the war.
15:58 Speaker 04 Down on the docks, workers are in limbo. It's late April in Melbourne, and it's getting chilly. Picketers huddle around fires in barrels. The warm sleeping bags come out.
16:12 Speaker 04 The sacked union workers are into their third week without pay. There's just a small wage coming from the union's fighting fund. Sure, there's solidarity on the picket, and there are moments of lightness and joy, but the strain is starting to show.
16:30 Speaker 06 And said, Dad, I need to talk to you.
16:32 Speaker 04 Cole Davies is an MUA official on the Brisbane docks.
16:36 Speaker 06 She said, Do you realise what an asshole you've become since you've had this job? And now this dispute? I went, Oh, it just knocked me flat, you know? You're not careful, mum will leave you. She just can't have you coming home and you won't talk. Then you're home for 10 minutes and you're down the picket line. You don't come home for two days and you come home and there was a, it was a pretty hard time.
17:02 Speaker 04 Families are living on donated food. Bank accounts are dwindling. The workers are wondering just how long they can go on like this. Here's former union organiser Mick O'Leary.
17:14 Speaker 06 The Patrick's dispute, it was fucking awful. Honestly, it was awful talking to people every day who would just say to you, Mick, what did I do wrong? Why do I deserve this? You know, I went to work every day. I did my job. The other question that was so difficult was, you know, what's going to happen? Are we going to win? Are we gonna, am I going to get my job back? You know, and you're talking, especially here in Melbourne, huge Maltese community, people from non-English speaking backgrounds, you know? And every day, every day you were confronted with trying to keep some momentum around people's involvement in the dispute.
17:52 Speaker 06 And unfortunately, you know, one, a couple of guys who took their own lives and had to deal with, you know, widows and families, you know? One guy in Melbourne here, me mate and I went out to see his wife and he's got little boys and it was just, honestly, it was, I don't look back at it as something that's a crown in glory or anything like that. I, I look back at it as a very, very difficult period of time.
18:19 Speaker 04 Natalie Hudson's job liaising with the police is putting her under huge pressure too.
18:27 Speaker 05 During the final days, the threats, night after night, of the police coming in to break up the picket line and force the buses through with the workers that had been brought in, that was very real, every day, every night. There was a massive police presence. Not right at the picket line, but we had our sources telling us that there was, you know, 100 officers here and 400 officers there, waiting to come in on numerous nights. And having to make sure that there was nothing illegal happening, anything from illegal fires to bad behaviour to fights, trying to keep behaviours regulated is really hard. And from
19:08 Speaker 05 day one, we banned alcohol from the site, and I think that was one of the best things we could have done.
19:15 Speaker 04 Historian Dr Geraldine Feller has spoken to many of the people who were on the pickets. You can imagine for people who are directly affected by the dispute as well, like the wives of the wharfies are waiting for, when are the husband's wages going to come back? When are they going to be able to put a proper dinner on the table, pay their mortgage? You've got businesses waiting because, you know, things aren't getting through the ports. The pickets are incredibly effective. So the whole country is waiting for the outcome of this dispute in the courts. Including those on the other side of the pickets, the replacement non-union workforce. They've been doing the work of the union wharfies since the lockout. Every day, these
19:56 Speaker 04 two groups face off. And for some employees, like Glenn, there's also a growing unease about the job they're doing. Just the moral, like, the feeling within yourself of knowing how somebody else has been kicked out of that seat, that I was sitting on the crane, you know, I was a crane operator.
20:16 Speaker 06 The feeling of somebody else was sitting there and they were kicked out, it was a hollow feeling of, yeah, this isn't right, this is wrong. I had four kids at school at that stage, one in high school and three in primary, and they were all targeted.
20:32 Speaker 04 This is another PCS employee, James, who's working on the Brisbane docks.
20:37 Speaker 06 Because even in my own group, I had people who were waterfront workers, my own social circle. And when I found out that I'd taken their job off those guys, I mean, this is ugly. This is your football team. And all of a sudden, you've got people turning their back on you and walking away. Your kids are targeted in school. You're a senior...
20:54 Speaker 04 You receive hate mail, you receive phone calls that people just hang up. There's that implied threat all the way through and you're thinking, good, this isn't, this isn't pretty. No, it wasn't pretty for anyone. And look, not that I have much sympathy for any politician at any time ever, but the blokes in charge aren't having a great time either. Here's Ian Hankey, who worked for Peter Rees.
21:18 Speaker 04 The stress came from worrying about his family and the threats that they sometimes received, you know, even just in passing, sort of walking down the street or something like that. Greg Comby is constantly flying back and forth between Sydney and Melbourne, always cutting it fine.
21:34 Speaker 06 I had shared custody with my daughter and she was at childcare at the time and the childcare centre closes at 6pm and I needed to get a 4pm flight to Melbourne and I could make it by around 5 to 6. Everything needed to go on time. Sitting on the plane and then this announcement comes through, you know, we're, we're missing a passenger. And first I said, for God's sake, like, you've just got to shut the door and let's get going. And while we sat there for about 10 minutes during which, like, I was so tense, oh, my whole body was aching with the tension of it, thinking, you know, I'm not going to get there in time to pick up my daughter.
22:18 Speaker 06 And eventually this man gets on the plane and I was so tense and angry, I leapt out of my chair and I said, where the fuck were you, you know? He said, oh mate, I'm from Queensland, we're on daylight savings time. Oh, Jesus.
22:35 Speaker 06 Things like that, just, yeah, it's, it's, it's hard.
22:40 Speaker 04 Just a side note for all the working parents listening to this who've had to rush to a daycare to pick up their child, you'll be very pleased to know Greg Comby makes it on time.
22:50 Speaker 04 By the second half of April, the waterfront dispute is starting to impact industry. Toyota has warned that it may have to cease operation at its Altona plant where Of Melbourne because 45 containers full of car components have been stranded by the dock dispute. And not just big business, small business too.
23:11 Speaker 06 The New South Wales Chamber of Commerce says up to 40% of Australian businesses are directly involved with trade and some of the smaller companies will go to the wall in the next few days. It doesn't take actually a week or so for many small businesses with very tight cash flows, it can be just a matter of days. We know of businesses that have got goods tied up on the docks that they actually can't pay their staff until they've got those goods, until they've been sold. The ACTU blames the government and Patrick for looming crisis for many businesses.
23:42 Speaker 04 Anyone relying on product getting through Patrick's docks is worried as goods are held up around the country, blocked by the MUAs picket. Those pushing for reform, they're taking a lot of hits, economically, legally and politically. But Prime Minister John Howard remains solidly behind Peter Rees. I remember on one occasion, he came to me at Curragh Billy House and he said,
24:05 Speaker 03 "John, this has not gone quite as I predicted. Do you want my resignation?" And I said, "Heavens, no." I said to him, "Look, John, it's, you know, it wasn't going too well at that stage." He was incredibly supportive. I'll tell you what he said to me, he said, "Oh, my kids think you're great." You know, which is a sort of a more emotional way of saying, you know, "I'm still supporting you" because when John Howard says his kids support you, well, you know, you've got Jeanette as well. I mean, that's pretty good. John and I were as thick as thieves through the whole thing.
24:35 Speaker 04 Huh. Well, good to know Rees was in with the Howard kids. But the government's not being so supportive of Chris Corrigan, the head of Patrick's Davidors. The PM calls him to a meeting in Canberra.
24:48 Speaker 06 When we lost the North case and then we lost the case in the Court of Appeal, John Howard called me down to Canberra to basically ask me, "Why did we think we were going to win this case?" And we explained to Howard that Justice North had it wrong and that the Court of Appeal had it wrong and that we were reasonably confident that the High Court would uphold our position.
25:17 Speaker 04 It's the 4th of May, Judgment Day. The High Court hands down its decision.
25:23 Speaker 01 We all filed in that morning. It's such a regal court.
25:29 Speaker 04 Journalist Anne Davies is there.
25:31 Speaker 01 And everybody just went, you know, like it was just this silence as everybody waited to find out how it would unfold.
25:41 Speaker 03 In a six to one decision, the High Court upheld the earlier federal court orders restraining Patrick from sacking its MUA workforce. Nothing could stop union celebrations as the High Court handed down its judgment. We've just had news.
25:56 Speaker 03 We got the decision.
26:01 Speaker 04 It's a great day for the Heiden Clark of this country.
26:06 Speaker 04 Third time's a charm for the union. Remember, there are no more courts after this. This judgment is final. This isn't a fighting moment. This is a moment for the true believers. On the face of it, the highest court in the land had backed what the maritime union has been saying for a month. There was an arguable case that Patrick Stevedores had sacked 1,400 union workers unlawfully and that they should have their jobs back. When you chose to take on the organised labour in this country, you failed.
26:39 Speaker 06 I need to say to you, and we'll be saying it at Putney and saying it right around the country, that we are not going back on their terms and if we have to stay out a bit longer to get back on our terms, we'll stay out a bit longer.
26:51 Speaker 06 When the High Court decided in the union's favour, I just remember the jubilation. Most of the Wharfies were three times my age and just, you know, the tears on these old guys' faces. And at least for the time being, you know, gave them sort of some sense of hope. Josh Bornstein, what won it for the MUA, do you think?
27:09 Speaker 00 Look, it always has been a strong case. We've been vindicated today.
27:13 Speaker 04 Have they been fully vindicated though?
27:19 Speaker 03 Welcome to the 7.30 report. Tonight, peace on the waterfront still a long way off after today's High Court decision. This morning's victory dance by the trade union movement immediately after the High Court ruling was handed down did not last through the afternoon.
27:34 Speaker 06 We're very pleased today that the High Court has upheld the substance of our appeal and it is now over to John Coombs and the MUA to make these companies viable or face the consequences.
27:49 Speaker 04 Wait, hang on a second. The union didn't win? And Chris Corrigan is claiming victory? But just hours earlier, union lawyer Josh Bornstein had walked out of court claiming the union had won.
28:03 Speaker 00 We always thought the workers will be able to go back to work. It's a victory and that's what we told the union. And by the time we got back to Melbourne, John Coombs was on the phone saying, "How dare you mislead me? I've just made an idiot of myself." Because he announced a victory to all the assembled unionists in Sydney, I think where he was. I was on the receiving end of a long and slightly unpleasant tirade because while we were in the air, not having access to the internet in those days, Peter Wreth and Chris Corrigan had declared victory publicly.
28:41 Speaker 04 Oh dear. Nothing worse than a premature celebration. Geraldine Feller, what is going on here? So it all comes back to that sneaky restructure that Patrick's did in the year before. So they had restructured the company to basically make the sections of the company that hired the workforce bankrupt. So they'd stripped all of the assets, all of the capital out of those parts of the company. So the entities that the workers were working for without their knowledge were insolvent. Now, to rehire the MUA work-
29:22 Speaker 05 Would mean that these insolvent companies would basically have to be brought back from the dead. And it was highly unusual for a court to order an insolvent company to do that and to continue trading. So the High Court just wants this dispute over. Now, there are seven judges on the High Court, and the decision that the majority come to is to essentially hand the decision of whether or not to resuscitate these companies, and in doing so, rehire the MUA workforce, over to the people who've been put in charge of these insolvent companies, the administrators.
29:54 Speaker 04 So this just feels like the High Court is just throwing a hot potato to some business administrator somewhere. Is that, am I correct in assuming that?
30:05 Speaker 05 Yeah, pretty much, Jan. And it's a really kind of, ultimately quite a middle-of-the-road decision. So Justice North's decision essentially orders the rehiring of those workers. So it is more like, you know, putting Humpty Dumpty back together again and resuscitating those insolvent companies, whereas the High Court kind of handballs it off.
30:28 Speaker 04 Okay, can we just take stock of what is happening here? Three court cases and 11 judges later, the person appointed to make the biggest call of all, in one of Australia's largest industrial showdowns, that is, whether or not to reinstate the sacked workers, is a random, mild-mannered administrator from Sydney's leafy North Shore, who, by the way, has zero experience in stevedoring and/or its finer points. Right. Peter Rees, he doesn't hate this outcome. He reckons this gives him a little bit of leverage.
31:04 Speaker 03 What this does is give very wide powers to the administrator. What it means in a practical effect is that there is no guarantee of reinstatement of the 1,400 employees within those Labor hire companies. And I'll spell out in clear terms the government's position, which is no reform, no money.
31:23 Speaker 04 Well, I'll spell it out in clearer terms. Do what we want, or there'll be no redundancy pay from us.
31:33 Speaker 04 But just days after the High Court decision, another bombshell.
31:41 Speaker 02 Well, FinWest, the company which recruited and hired serving and former soldiers to replace Unionists on the waterfront, has made good on its threat and released over 150 pages of documents, documents which it claims prove government involvement in Dubai.
31:55 Speaker 04 Remember Mike Wells and Peter Kielfoyle, the ex-SAS guys who recruited the Dubai trainees through their company FinWest? You didn't think that they were just gonna go away, did you? For months, they've been trying to sell incriminating documents, and on the 8th of May 1998, these documents are leaked to the media. There's nowhere left to hide for Chris Corrigan. He's officially outed as the mastermind of Dubai. There's a signed contract between Patrick's Dividors and Wells and Kielfoyle. There are faxes from the Dubai Port Authority to Chris Corrigan confirming trainee numbers. There are bank
32:35 Speaker 04 statements showing payments from Patrick's to FinWest. But there's one document in particular that looks really bad. Mike Wells has written a sworn affidavit, which has serious implications for Chris Corrigan.
32:51 Speaker 07 He also claims Patrick Chairman Chris Corrigan lied under oath when he told the Industrial Relations Commission earlier this year his company had not bankrolled the exercise. Mr. Corrigan denies he lied.
33:03 Speaker 04 It also has serious implications for the government, because Wells says Stephen Webster, the consultant working on waterfront reform in Peter Reap's office, contacted him in July 1997 about a "special job for John Howard."
33:22 Speaker 02 And today, the allegations are leading all the way to the Prime Minister's office.
33:26 Speaker 03 There's nothing there, quite frankly, that in any way would or should alter anything I've ever said about it. We didn't know about it, but so what? I hotly dispute, totally repudiate the claims. I never knew about Dubai.
33:41 Speaker 00 I think the whole idea that there was something sinister about that is a bit far-fetched. There's nothing...
33:46 Speaker 03 It doesn't matter whether the Dubai operation was sinister, illegal, or just plain stupid. What matters is that the union is alleging a conspiracy between the government and Patrick. That's why Dubai matters. But what is the truth?
34:02 Speaker 04 Good question, Barry Cassidy. We are asking ourselves the same thing.
34:08 Speaker 03 The key to the truth is held by Dr Stephen Webster, who took up a consultancy with the government last July.
34:15 Speaker 04 Ah, the mysterious Stephen Webster.
34:18 Speaker 03 Mike Wells says that on July 30 last year, Stephen Webster, now works for you, rang and asked him to contact Chris Corrigan. He says Webster claimed, quote, "he was doing a special job for John Howard." That was at about the time, as I understand it, that Dr Stephen Webster clocked on as a consultant with you at a thousand dollars a day. What's not public knowledge is what his report said.
34:42 Speaker 04 Well, not public knowledge... until now.
34:49 Speaker 04 Next time, in the final episode of Conspiracy: War on the Waterfront, we go digging. We take a peek into Peter Reed's personal diaries. And guess what we find? Stephen Webster's top-secret report. And some, let's say, unusual observations about the dispute. What the report also shows is that there are other parts of this saga that the government was involved in, far more than it's let on. And I've come to the view that it had a hand in every stage of this. We also find highly confidential correspondence between Prime Minister John Howard and his chief of staff.
35:28 Speaker 03 One side or other is lying, though. Well, I just don't know, Matt. I mean, it was none of my business. He certainly, no one ever told us what they were doing. As far as Dubai is concerned, we didn't know about it, but it wasn't illegal, and so what? Minister, thanks for joining us. Thank you.
35:42 Speaker 04 We'll put forward the evidence we have and let you decide just how much the government knew.
35:48 Speaker 03 But at the end of the day, it'll come down to a question of whom you believe: the war veteran Mike Wells, or Mr Corrigan and the government?
35:56 Speaker 04 I'm Jan Fran. This has been an ABC Rewind production. Catch you next time.
36:27 Speaker 00 You ever watch the news and think, whoa, this seems... Unprecedented? Unprecedented? It's unprecedented. This has never happened before. This is unprecedented. Well, that's not always quite true. I'm Matt Benham and my show, if you're listening, is about finding times that what's happening now has happened before and figuring out what we can learn from it. Learning from history. I mean, who could imagine? Find new episodes on ABC Listen every Thursday.
36:56 Speaker 00 You've been listening to an ABC Podcast. Discover more great ABC Podcasts, live radio and exclusives on the ABC Listen app.
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