On November 2, 1923, 636 members of the Victorian police force went on strike. All were sacked and replaced by volunteer strikebreakers.
Exactly five years later, on November 2, 1928, some of the same police strikebreakers shot and wounded four waterside workers during a maritime industrial dispute. One of them, Allan Whittaker, died three months later.
Despite many requests, no public inquiry was ever held into the shootings. Only an internal police inquiry was held. Its results were never released to the public.
The police named the ringleaders of an alleged riot. They said this forced them to shoot the workers. But not one waterside worker was ever questioned or charged with this mythical riot.
The then-Victorian police chief commissioner, Sir Thomas Blamey, was known for his links with secret right-wing military organisation and for his notoriously anti worker and anti-union views. He strongly defended the actions of police.
The coroners report into Whittaker's death said it was "Justifiable homicide — by gun". The name of the police officer that fired the fatal bullet has never been revealed.
The 1928 dispute was very similar to political attacks on waterfront unionists in 1998.
In both cases, ship-owners, the federal government, the arbitration court, and the state police, colluded to lockout unionists from their workplace.
During the 1928 lockout, the media was totally in the pockets of ship-owners and the establishment. The media constantly praised the "free volunteer labour" and criticised the locked-out workers.
In 1928, and again in 1998, Australian prime ministers (Stanley Bruce and John Howard) played similar roles. Both attempted to destroy the waterfront unions on behalf of employers.
It's interesting to note that Bruce was the first serving prime minister to lose his seat in an election. Howard was the second.
National unemployment in 1928 stood at 11%, but several historians have said levels were 70% in the Port Melbourne area because of the dispute.
Workers and their families were forced to live in degrading poverty. Barefoot and starving children were fed from soup kitchens at their schools.
On the waterfront, the brothers and fathers of the impoverished children were forced to stand and watch as armed police escorted "free volunteer labour" (who the unionists called "scabs") up the gangways of ships.
Most Port Melbourne workers were Catholics of Irish decent. The main intent of the authorities was to smash the union, but commissioner Blamey and other right-wingers also feared the Irish waterside worker's could spark a Fenian uprising. The Easter Rebellion against British rule in Ireland took place only 12 years before.
Many waterside workers involved in this dispute volunteered and served during World War I. Whittaker had two brothers, Percy and Cecil.
All three brothers served at Gallipoli. Percy returned and worked the Melbourne waterfront, as did Allan. Cecil was killed in the trenches of France.
Whittaker's military record shows that he was one of the first Australians to enlist. He was wounded on the first day of the landing at ANZAC Cove and he spent 80 days in a military hospital recovering from his wounds.
However, the print media of 1928 never mentioned that it was an ANZAC hero who, 14 years later, had been shot in the back of the neck in 1928 by a Victorian police officer.
What sort of a nation is it that would not protect the jobs of returned soldiers, deny them industrial or civil justice, and then shoot them and not hold a public inquiry?
No rights of appeal existed for workers in this era. The political system and media was under the total control of the rich and powerful. Is it too late to correct the history books about this injustice?
On November 1, the Maritime Union of Australia sponsored a ceremony close to where Whittaker was shot at Beacon Vista, halfway between Station and Princes Pier.
The ceremony included a walking tour of places of interest relating to the 1928 dispute. Later, a wake was held in Whittaker's honour.