Australian Financial Review Corrigan: police talk to witnesses By Stephen Long 2000-08-21 02:53:47 Two years after the last big waterfront dispute, Australian Federal Police officers are still pursuing evidence for possible perjury charges against Patrick Stevedores chief executive, Mr Chris Corrigan. Lawyers and trade union officials have confirmed that an AFP officer interviewed them during the past month in relation to sworn evidence Mr Corrigan gave to the Australian Industrial Relations Commission about the extent of his involvement in the so-called "Dubai affair". Mr Corrigan has consistently maintained he did nothing improper, unethical or illegal during the docks dispute. He has denied any perjury and maintained that his evidence to the AIRC did not deny he had a financial involvement in the training of a non-union stevedoring workforce in the United Arab Emirates port of Dubai. However, his evidence on oath to the AIRC appears to contradict material in documents setting out the terms of agreements between Patrick Stevedores and a company that trained stevedoring employees in Dubai. The Dubai trainees were later used as a strike-breaking labour force at Webb dock in Melbourne. Mr Corrigan's evidence to the commission also seems to be at odds with claims in a sworn affidavit by Mr Mike Wells, a former army major and a key organiser of the Dubai training scheme. According to witnesses who spoke to The Australian Financial Review, police said they had been instructed by the office of the Federal Director of Public Prosecutions to interview people present in the court when Mr Corrigan gave evidence on oath, in order to corroborate a transcript of the proceedings before the AIRC. Tape recordings of the hearing have been lost or destroyed. Some witnesses who spoke to the AFR said police had told them the DPP argued that it needed witness statements from people present in the court to bolster the transcript evidence. Others said they had been told that the transcript of evidence was inadmissable. =A9 This material is subject to copyright and any unauthorised use, copying or mirroring is prohibited. This story was found at: http://afr.com.au/news/20000821/A16726-2000Aug20.html ************************************************************************* This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use." -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.alexia.net.au/~www/mhutton/index.html Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
