The Australian Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, moved into election mode yesterday on a regional tour, promising not to back down on his tough stance on Aboriginal land rights and industrial reform.
Mr Howard said he genuinely felt he was on the right policy track and would not be swayed by vocal minorities. But he would not be drawn on whether he would call an early election despite having the necessary triggers.
In a campaign-style speech at Rockhampton in the tropical north, he accused the Maritime Union of Australia of holding the country to ransom in its bitter docks dispute, sparked by the government's moves to break its monopoly on labour. "I know the heartache of many farmers who've seen their produce rot on the waterfront," Mr Howard said to loud applause from the 500-strong luncheon crowd.
"And those in the Australian community who criticise the attempt of the government and others to bring about reform in the name of fairness and justice - I ask those people to contemplate the long years of unfairness and injustice to those Australians in the past who have suffered at the hands of the bullying, bludgeoning, unfair tactics of the Maritime Union of Australia."
Mr Howard also said his government would not buckle to "minority interests" on its so-called Wik bill, designed to water down a High Court ruling on the land rights of indigenous Australians.
An Aboriginal activist and lawyer, Mr Noel Pearson, warned yesterday that racial hysteria would erupt if the government called an election based on land rights.
The Wik bill was last week rejected for the second time by the upper house Senate, giving the government the constitutional tool to call elections well before they are due next year.
Mr Howard has the option of calling an early election until October 29th at the latest. He has indicated he will wait until after the May budget and the introduction of taxation reform.
On the dockside industrial dispute, Australia's second-biggest stevedoring company shut down its operations at one of the country's busiest ports yesterday.
Patrick Stevedores, which last week sacked 1,400 union dockers, suspended operations at Newcastle on the east coast citing fears for the safety of its new non-union workforce. A bus carrying non-union workers on to Patrick's dock drove through a union picket line yesterday and was attacked. Windows were smashed, injuring one passenger, Patrick said.
Christopher Zinn adds: A very public family rift has come to symbolise the bitterness caused by Australia's escalating waterfront dispute. Mr Chris Corrigan, the controversial businessman who last week sacked 1,400 dock workers in an attempt to break the Maritime Union's stranglehold on the docks, has found his trade-unionist brother attacking him from almost every front page.
Mr Derek Corrigan went public to condemn his older brother's action in launching the union-breaking exercise which he claimed would make Australians work for Third World wages.
"This is an extremely black day for the working class. You can't crack a walnut with a sledgehammer," said Mr Derek Corrigan a member of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union.
His brother is the executive chairman of the major stevedoring company, Patrick, which appears to have been planning the waterfront showdown, in association with the federal government, for months.