Senator O'BRIEN (3:03 PM) —I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Regional Services, Territories and Local Government (Senator Ian Macdonald) to questions without notice asked by Senators Mackay and O'Brien today, relating to stevedoring charges.

We saw yesterday in the House of Representatives Minister Reith misleading the House and causing uproar in question time over the alleged role of senators in relation to refusing to deal with legislation now before this chamber. But, frankly, one only has to look at the record of Mr Reith to see that he has been a serial misleader. In relation to the stevedoring levy, when Mr Reith held a press conference on 8 April 1998 to announce the levy and the benchmarks that he had set for reform in the waterfront industry, he was asked, `Mr Reith, can you say that stevedores won't pass on the costs of the levy?' Mr Reith said, `I've got it in writing from them.'

Of course, when we held the first hearing into the stevedoring levy bill, the bill that was subsequently passed by the Senate, both stevedores—Patrick and P&O—absolutely denied, categorically denied, that they had given Mr Reith any commitment in writing that they would absorb the stevedoring levy. But what did we find out at the hearing last Friday into the proposed amendment to the stevedoring levy bill? We found out that not only did he not get the undertaking from the stevedores that he said he had in writing in relation to the absorption of the levy but also he did not even seek, either written or even orally, an undertaking from those stevedores that they would—given the enormous support from the taxpayer through Mr Reith's discredited waterfront strategy and given the enormous pain that strategy had caused the whole of the community—pass on part of their cost savings to shippers.

The evidence that we had from Mr Corrigan last Friday and certainly from the department was not only have cost savings not being passed on; Mr Corrigan said absolutely and categorically that there had been no such request from Mr Reith. Given all the pain that the community went through, given the costs that were incurred by parts of the shipping industry, given the costs to the community of that discredited dispute, why wouldn't the minister seek from the stevedores, who are getting substantial benefits from this government and this government's strategy, some assurance that there would be some immediate benefit?

Indeed, Mr Reith said the benefits would be apparent within six months. We are now near enough to 18 months out from that strategy and there are no benefits in terms of financial ones. Whatever the so-called productivity benefits, there are no benefits to shippers. From what we have seen, the likelihood is that the costs of the shipping companies will rise, that their charges will rise, and that stevedoring charges are unlikely to fall in the next seven to eight years. That is the evidence from Mr Corrigan. What Mr Corrigan is saying now is that the dispute cost him $70 million and he wants to recover that and another $30 million in so-called `opportunity costs' before he will consider passing those cost savings on.

In relation to the question asked about the benefits flowing through in share prices, you have only to look at the Lang Corporation's share price and compare it with the share price before the reforms were announced to see just where the benefits are. Those benefits reflected in the Lang Corporation's share price were at $1.50 before the measures. Today, in the Financial Review, the share price of Lang Corporation is shown at $5.35. So all the benefit is going to the shareholders of the Lang Corporation.

Senator McGauran —Good!

Senator O'BRIEN —If Senator McGauran agrees with that, and that is the form of this government, then what he is saying is that they are happy that the only beneficiaries of this so-called reform will be shareholders of the Lang Corporation, not the shippers, the farmers or the manufacturers—no-one, unless they hold shares in the Lang Corporation. The government may think that is a good thing, but I will tell you that Mr Frank Beaufort said of Mr Corrigan that Nelson's arm would grow back before Corrigan lowered his prices. (Time expired)