Jolly Hockey Sticks

This week's oh-to-be-a-fly-on-the-wall Coalition Cabinet Meeting certainly seems to have come up with the goods. I would suggest with some certainty that WorkChoices popped up in conversation at some point or another. Apparently, The People Out There just aren't cottoning on to the fact that it's far nicer to hand over your bargaining rights and work longer hours for less pay. Thus, a bigger stick is being employed from which to dangle the unappetizing carrot - Human Services Minister Joe Hockey.

This is being seen as a blow to Workplace Relations Minister Kevin Andrews' credibility - which it is. But forgive me - does it all sound a little familiar?

Think back to less than a year ago - late September 2005, if I remember rightly. $20m had already been spent to extinguish the mere spot fire that the 100,000-strong protests against the legislation represented, but - stop me if you've heard it - The People Out there just weren't cottoning on ... and yadda yadda yadda. The eminently formidable Andrew Robb was appointed as Carrot Stick Holder Elect.

Now, whatever happened to that, one wonders? After one spectacularly ordinary interview on `Meet the Press', and a handful of nine second grabs, the man who was supposed to save WorkChoices disappeared faster than a poorly-skilled immigrant with poor English from a newly AWAed workplace.

There's an old saying in Hollywood: `Try as you might, but you can't polish a turd'. This particular turd has already been drop kicked to two Ministers after a third failed to buff it to its requisite shimmer. Could it be that people just don't like it and never will?

Never.