Tuesday, May 15, 2007

flip flap flops

Noticed there are some Conservatives around preaching that Labor should backflip and accept AWAs or else (see Paul Kelly and Janet Albrechtson). But what if it did? Would these commentators accept it as calmly as they accepted Howard’s “mini-rollback” (as an Oz editorial so cutely branded Howard's IR cave-in) the other day?
If we can have “Costello’s own” education revolution, can we have “Rudd’s own individual workplace agreements“? If Labor were to find mass support for AWAs, as the Liberals are wont to claim, could we see Rudd given the space to turn around and say, “OK then, let’s be realistic, Labor wants to be flexible and pragmatic on this too. So perhaps there is a case for extreme ‘flexibility’ at the top end of the labour market; let‘s open it up to discussion whether we should do a Howard and have a mini-cave-in too.”
As if Kelly and Albrechtson and the rest would let them get away with it. But as long as the polls favour Labor, it’s pretty much moot.