Reith Aground
By Maritime Union of Australia
It was an irony that did not escape maritime workers. The day
Peter Reith announced he was retiring from politics a foreign
flagged vessel grounded in mud in Port Phillip Bay, Rye- the erstwhile
ministers electorate of Flinders..
The French bulk carrier Mirande ran aground on June 29 after its
steering failed, the same day that the Mr Reith, having done his
sums, realised that there was only one way to avoid the ultimate
indignity of losing his seat to a wharfie - retreat.
MUA member Wayne Finch only needed a 3 per cent swing to take
the formerly blue ribbon Liberal seat.
Like the ship off the coast, Peter Reith had hit rock bottom.
His prime ministerial ambitions had been sunk by the Telecard
Affair and his involvement in the murky conspiracy to sack 2,000
Patrick stevedoring workers is heading him for the dock as not
one but two court cases draw nearer.
So too Reith's mission to make Australian seafarers extinct. Deregulation
of the Australian coast, like deregulation of industrial relations
came back to haunt him on that eventful day.
And what of the French bulk carrier stuck in the mud? It too made
headlines some days later after a Melbourne Magistrates Court
heard that its captain was 'paralytic" on whisky, a breath test
showing a reading of 0.29. ("What to do with a drunken Sailor",
The Herald Sun, July 5)
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