MUA members celebrate court ruling on 2nd anniversary of the Patrick dispute. National Secretary John Coombs has applauded the Federal Court decision rejecting a government application to withhold secret waterfront documents from public scrutiny.
The timing could not be better,
said Mr Coombs. The decision
comes on the eve of the second anniversary of the Patrick dispute
(April 7, 1998). We are now one step closer to learning what role
Peter Reith played behind the scenes of the Dubai training debacle and
the waterfront dispute. The people behind the balaclavas may yet be
revealed.
Federal Labor MP Lindsay Tanner, filed affidavits in the Federal Court last year for the release of government consultancy reports denied under two Freedom of Information applications.
Justice Marshall who is sitting in judgement of the case, yesterday
rejected an application by departmental head Peter Shergold, as
delegate of Peter Reith, that disclosure of the documents would be
contrary to the public interest
. If successful this would have
prevented Mr Tanner’s Freedom of Information appeal proceedin g.
The secret reports, which cost taxpayers more than $1 million, were provided to Mr Reith and the then Minister for Transport John Sharp in 1997 by Dr Stephen Webster, ACIL Economics, Minter Ellison and others. They are believed to contain strategic advice to the ministers and the government on how to provoke a waterfront dispute and the mass sackings of MUA members.
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