analysis
What did John Howard know about the actions leading up to the 1998 waterfront dispute?
The bitter waterfront dispute up-ended many lives in 1998, but questions around who knew what remain unanswered. (Reuters)
On May 7, 1998, hundreds of wharfies joyously marched back to work on Patrick Stevedores' docks across the country, one month after their lives had been up-ended.
More than 1,400 workers, who were members of the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA), had been locked out of their workplaces on April 7, 1998, by port operator Patricks, and they'd been fighting to get back to work ever since.
After a legal challenge that went all the way to the High Court, they were back through the gates.
Months of negotiating followed and the final settlement struck between the MUA and Patrick Stevedores was complex. It saw the union agree to drop its case alleging Patricks and the Howard government had conspired to unlawfully sack the workforce.
The then-Coalition government, led by Prime Minister John Howard, has always downplayed its role in the dispute.
Prime Minister John Howard has always denied knowing details of the waterfront dispute. (Reuters)
But now, new evidence uncovered by ABC Rewind points in the direction of Howard knowing about Patrick Stevedores' plans to train a workforce offshore, months before it was exposed in parliament. And while it's long been suspected, it's clear the government was more involved than has been previously thought.
'Like a dog with a bone'
Sitting at opposite ends of the political and ideological spectrum, the animosity between the Coalition and the MUA, an industrially militant and socially progressive union, ran deep. And when the Howard government was elected in March 1996, it made no secret of its desire for waterfront reform.
Howard had promised industry that it would take on the MUA, change work practices and "clean up" the wharves, which he described as "notoriously inefficient".
Looking back now, Howard tells ABC Rewind: "I remember saying at the time, I'm like a dog at a bone … Because it [waterfront reform] was one of the most long-lasting pieces of unfinished industrial relations business in Australia."
The government found a kindred spirit in Chris Corrigan, the managing director of Patrick Stevedores. At the time, Patricks' share price was tanking and Corrigan was desperate to turn things around.
Chris Corrigan denied knowledge of the Dubai operation, but he was revealed to be behind it. (Reuters)
Throughout 1997, Corrigan and the two ministers in charge of waterfront reform, Peter Reith and John Sharp, were in regular contact. They were discussing options for taking on the MUA and replacing union workers with a non-union workforce.
Leaked cabinet documents show that on April 21, 1997, Howard signed off on an "interventionist" strategy for the waterfront. This involved provoking the union into a dispute, and then sacking the workforce.
Yet Howard and his ministers have always insisted their role was to simply provide a friendly legislative environment, and support Corrigan's business decisions.
"I said to (Corrigan), I admire your determination, but what you do is a matter for your free and commercial judgement. All I ask of you is that anything you do is within the law," Howard tells ABC Rewind.
Industrial mercenaries
On December 3, 1997, during the last sitting week of parliament, opposition leader Kim Beazley and the Shadow Minister for Transport Lindsay Tanner caused a stir in Question Time when they asked Minister Reith what knowledge he had of a "covert operation to recruit a force of industrial mercenaries from the ranks of the military" to be trained in Dubai to strike break on the waterfront?
And what did he know about Fynwest, the company set up to train these "mercenaries"?
The Coalition side of the house was outraged, insisting it was the first they'd heard of any of this. "I am not aware of it at all … it is, quite frankly, news to me," Reith claimed.
Minister Peter Reith has been linked to the actions leading up to the waterfront dispute. (Reuters)
It certainly was news, and the media went into overdrive. The revelation of the Dubai operation had the makings of a major political scandal.
This was partly because of what and who was involved.
Months earlier, former SAS soldiers Peter Kilfoyle and Mike Wells had been approached to recruit and train a replacement workforce for the docks.
They had distinctive skills: Kilfoyle's resume included professional training in the use of batons, small arms and electronic surveillance, while Wells' existing recruiting and consulting business promised security operatives with "first-class weapon handling".
They set up a small company Container Terminal Management Services (CTMS) and advertised jobs in the Army newspaper, promising an "excellent career opportunity" and a "competitive salary".
When the union cottoned on to CTMS, Wells and Kilfoyle quickly bought a $20 shelf company. Seventy-six current and former Australian Defence Force personnel signed up to this new company, Fynwest Ltd.
The 1998 waterfront conflict is remembered as one of the harshest industrial disputes in Australian history. (Photographer: Chris Gosfield, from the collection of the Noel Butlin Archives Centre)
Despite denying his involvement for months, it would later become clear that Chris Corrigan was behind the Dubai operation. In May 1998, confidential documents were leaked to the media, including a signed contract between Patrick Stevedores and Wells and Kilfoyle.
These documents also included a signed affidavit from Wells that revealed government consultant and Reith's waterfront advisor, Stephen Webster, had introduced Wells and Kilfoyle to Corrigan.
Reith always denied Webster's part in the Dubai affair and maintained that he himself knew nothing about the Dubai training exercise.
But Kilfoyle today is unequivocal. He says Webster introduced them to Corrigan and that Webster played a role in setting up the Dubai operation.
"That [Dubai] was already planned. Webster, it was all planned for us. We just carried it out. Webster told us that. You just don't go over to Dubai and say we're going to do a bloody training package on your wharves," Kilfoyle says.
Stephen Webster faded from public view following the dispute and he was not reachable for comment.
Scuttled
The Dubai operation fell apart when the International Transport Federation, the federation representing transport workers unions around the world, threatened to blockade the port of Dubai if the training continued.
The trainees' visas were cancelled by the UAE government, and the recruits returned home, left in limbo.
The workers were caught up in a bitter dispute. (Reuters)
But Mark*, one of the recruits, recalls receiving reassurance that everything would work out. "There was hints that the Commonwealth was behind this. So there shouldn't be a problem," he says.
This wasn't the first time Mark got the impression that the government was involved.
He remembers that, in the lead-up to his departure to Dubai, when he discovered his passport was expired, its renewal happened swiftly after he was given a particular contact's name.
"[I] went into the passport office, dropped this name, and within two hours, I had a new passport ready for me — and that name was from Canberra," he says.
Journalists have long suspected that both the public and the parliament were misled when the Howard government denied all knowledge of the Dubai scheme.
The High Court found against Patrick Stevedores for sacking their workforce. (Photographer: Chris Gosfield, from the collection of the Noel Butlin Archives Centre)
Journalist Anne Davies, who co-authored the book Waterfront: The Battle that Changed Australia, is "convinced that the government knew everything about this, even though Peter Reith went on the public record in parliament and said he did not know".
Yet no senior member of cabinet has admitted knowing about the Dubai training exercise before the public found out about it.
Until now.
In 1997, John Sharp was the Minister for Transport and Regional Development. He shared the waterfront reform portfolio with Peter Reith, until his resignation on September 24 in the aftermath of the travel rorts scandal.
Sharp describes a meeting in late September 1997, in Reith's Melbourne office, where Reith, Sharp and their advisors met with key stakeholders to discuss their plans for waterfront reform.
"The NFF (National Farmers Federation) and Chris Corrigan came forward with this plan to train an alternative workforce in Dubai," Sharp says.
He explains the idea just "made sense" because "Dubai had an excellent port, very efficient".
He remembers details about a private company that had been set up to undertake the employment and training of this alternative workforce.
And he remembers being happy with the outcome of the meeting. "I remember thinking to myself, Chris Corrigan is the man who will do this. Chris Corrigan has got the intestinal fortitude to withstand what will be a very difficult time."
This is the first time a member of Howard's government has publicly placed himself and others in the room as details of the training exercise were discussed.
And this meeting happened months before the story broke in parliament.
So what?
While the Dubai scheme was clandestine, there was nothing unlawful about Corrigan's plan to train people offshore to work on the Australian waterfront.
However, what was illegal in 1997, under Reith's own Workplace Relations Act introduced in 1996, was firing workers because they were union members.
Questions have long remained unanswered around Howard and Reith's level of involvement in the waterfront dispute. (AAP: Alan Porritt)
At the time, Federal Court judge Anthony North found there was an arguable case that the MUA members were fired for being union members.
He also found there was an arguable case that the government's involvement might amount to an unlawful conspiracy. Upon appeal, this was upheld by both the federal and the High Court.
The conspiracy case never went to a full trial, it was dropped after a settlement between the MUA and the company that was finalised in September 1998.
The training of an alternative workforce was central to Corrigan's plan to replace his MUA workforce on the waterfront.
This is why Dubai matters, and why who knew what about Dubai matters even more.
It opens up questions around the level of collaboration between the Howard government and Corrigan in the plan to fire 1,400 union wharfies across the country.
The go-ahead?
Prime Minister John Howard has always denied knowledge of Corrigan's plan to train Australians offshore.
But ABC Rewind has found correspondence files in the National Archives of Australia from Howard's chief of staff Arthur Sinodinos to the Prime Minister that show otherwise.
In the letter dated September 22, 1997, Sinodinos explains that ministers Reith and Sharp had spoken to a "major stevedore" who was heading to Europe on October 1, 1997.
Separate correspondence between Sharp and Webster shows that the stevedore with a European trip booked for that date was Chris Corrigan.
Sinodinos noted that the stevedore wanted to meet with Howard.
The letter says: "This major stevedore wants to see you … and needs to know whether he should reactivate the training of Australians offshore to cope with a waterfront dispute."
The only reasonable interpretation of this letter is that Howard not only knew about Corrigan's plan to train a non-union workforce overseas but was being asked to give the go-ahead.
In her Australian Financial Review series War on the Docks, journalist Pamela Williams cited documents that showed Howard "at the apex of a chain of command on the federal government's docks strategy".
A 1998 AFR article by Pamela Williams identified Prime Minister John Howard in the waterfront strategy. (ABC )
It was Howard who gave the final sign off on the 1997 interventionist strategy, and now the Sinodinos letter points to Corrigan also looking to him for a lead before he set his offshore training plan in motion.
Howard was asked by ABC Rewind for comment about this correspondence, but he declined a further interview.
He confirmed in writing that he had read the letter and had signed it to indicate receipt.
He declined to answer any further questions regarding his knowledge of offshore training, or whether Corrigan sought direction from him on a plan to train a workforce offshore.
Twenty-seven years later, the waterfront dispute remains the most significant industrial dispute in Australia in living memory.
How much the Howard government knew and its level of involvement in the cascade of actions and decisions that led to the lockout of 1,400 Patricks workers in April 1998 are all questions still to be fully answered.
*Names have been changed
Dr Geraldine Fela is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of Humanities at Macquarie University. She was a producer and the series historian with ABC Rewind's Conspiracy? War on the Waterfront.