Waterfront `smoking Gun' A `smokescreen'

Illawarra Mercury

Saturday July 4, 1998

The Federal Opposition did not have a ``smoking gun" over the Government's role in the waterfront dispute, Workplace Relations Minister Peter Reith said yesterday.

Mr Reith said the Government had been involved closely in the waterfront row but denied it had been implicated in a conspiracy with Patrick stevedores to sack the company's unionised workers.

Labor has released a document which outlines a government strategy to engineer a dispute on the docks as early as April 1997, with $2million in taxpayers' money spent on a team to manage the plan.

``The Labor Party doesn't have a smoking gun," Mr Reith said. ``It has a smokescreen. We were involved closely in reforming the Australian waterfront, which is exactly what we said we'd do."

The document, sent to Prime Minister John Howard, then Transport Minister John Sharp and Mr Reith, said an interventionist strategy was the ``only way" to get reform.

The document also said the Maritime Union of Australia should be caught by surprise by the action. ``We need to further develop plans to involve the MUA in a dispute, on an issue and at a time of our choosing," the document said.

But Mr Reith played down the release of the document, saying the Government had considered the matter in subsequent cabinets since that time.

``This document that they had was a discussion about how you might approach the issue," Mr Reith said. ``So what?"

Mr Howard and Mr Reith have admitted to holding talks on the docks, but claim to have been unaware of Patrick's plans until April 7, the day the company sacked its workers.

They also denied the workers had been sacked because they belonged to the MUA - something which would breach the Government's own laws.

Mr Reith has been named as a party in the MUA's conspiracy case, which will be abandoned as part of a peace deal struck between the MUA and Patrick, which the uni is yet to sign off on.