from Alan Ramsay …..

‘A colleague emailed last night: "When it comes to John Howard one has to look through the smoke and beyond the mirrors. And we all know the Work Choices 'safety net' he has now cobbled together is aimed at saving the neck of one person and one person alone. But if you look away from the safety net you will see a rolled-gold key Howard has just delivered himself. It is not only a get-out-of-jail key, but a key to fit a treasure chest that holds many millions of dollars.

"Over past weeks it's clear Howard has been frothing at the prospect of a heavy artillery ACTU advertising blitz at election time that the Coalition did not have the party funds to match. And anyone who can smell a rodent a mile off would have smelt it a week or two back when Howard said it would be illegitimate for the Coalition to use taxpayer funds to promote the Government's Work Choices laws. Good heavens no!

"'Finetuning' of Work Choices now offers the pretext of another of those mother-of-all 'public information' campaigns, the nearer the election the better. Similarly, watch how they explain the far-reaching effects of renaming the Office of the Employment Advocate as the Workplace Authority and changing the Office of Workplace Services to become the Workplace Ombudsman. We only need think back to the obscene Medicare-Plus campaign three years ago to get an idea of what is about to descend on us. As you might say, thank you once again, taxpayers."

Indeed. Voters are always the mugs.’

Tit-For-Tat Week With Labor The Winner