Chris Corrigan won’t want another waterfront war: Peter Reith

Friction with wharfies can’t be ruled out when Chris Corrigan returns to the waterfront, Peter Reith says.

Chris Corrigan at his office in Sydney.

Friction with wharfies can’t be ruled out when “master capitalist” Chris Corrigan returns to the waterfront, former workplace ­relations minister Peter Reith says.

Mr Reith described Mr Corrigan as a business strategist first and foremost, and said it was unlikely the former stevedoring boss, who this week took a stake in port operator Asciano, would seek to wage another war with the Maritime Union of Australia.

But MUA sources yesterday said Mr Corrigan was already on shaky ground with the union, with early negotiations between his logistics firm Qube and the union over an enterprise bargaining agreement off to a “bad start”.

Mr Corrigan, former head of Patricks Stevedores, famously joined forces with the Howard government and Mr Reith as then workplace relations minister in an attempt to break the MUA’s stranglehold on the waterfront.

In April 1998, Mr Corrigan sacked his workforce, locked them out and set up new companies to employ a non-unionised workforce, trained in Dubai.

Mr Reith yesterday told The Weekend Australian it was not possible to discount tensions with wharfies as Mr Corrigan looked for “opportunities to significantly improve the financial strength of the company”.

However, he stressed the “regulatory environment” was now less favourable to Mr Corrigan. “You don’t have individual agreements in the armoury which we had to use at the waterfront,” he said. “The legislative arrangements are a lot worse today.

“I’d be surprised if there’s a real contest, I think it’s quite unlikely this is anything other than a master capitalist at work.”

Reframing the waterfront war from Mr Corrigan’s point of view, Mr Reith said: “While the government had an objective for the broader public interest, it was worth doing in itself to increase the value of the company’s shares.”

Mr Corrigan’s raid on Asciano comes as struggling ports operator Hutch­ison stands poised to sign a deal with the MUA. Hutchison, which clashed with the union earlier this year over its use of text messages to carry out redundancies, has struggled with an “inferior” EBA compared with those of rivals Asciano and DP World. It is understood an agreement between Hutchison and the MUA will include a revamped voluntary redundancy program.