Poker face

With the sky not falling in, but in fact rather expanding rapidly skywards following the electoral victory of Rudd Labor, surprising admissions continue to emerge from employer unions groups.

Employers attacked the former [Howard] government for keeping secret its analysis of Australian Workplace Agreements, declaring the Coalition’s lack of transparency had made it difficult for business to defend the workplace laws.

Gee guys, there’s nothing there that hasn’t been said for a long time by the then Labor Opposition, labour unions, academics and others in the general community. Neither is the following any great revelation to most Australians:

Business said it struggled to sell Work Choices to apprehensive workers and that the laws had become cumbersome and overly bureaucratic, particularly since the introduction of the Fairness Test in May.

Such admissions from employer unions groups may lead one to speculate around at least two possibilities. Either...

1. Employer unions groups really didn’t know, prior to the election, that the Howard Government was “keeping secret its analysis of Australian Workplace Agreements”, and weren’t aware of “the Coalition’s lack of transparency” on IR policy. This forced them unwittingly to “defend the workplace laws” and with “difficulty” to plough millions of their dollars, at the Government’s behest, into the anti-Labor advertising blitz.

Or

2. Employer unions groups really did know all that, but were playing their cards close to their chest in the hope that their man would pull that rabbit out of the hat and, upon re-election, pay out some more on their wishlist.

Call me a cynic, but I’d tend to go with (2) above as the more likely scenario.

Clearly, the gambit failed, but their reserve gambit of courting the “incredibly positive” Rudd Labor Government is surely unfolding, even as we ordinary peons, with bleary eyes, adjust to the brave new post-Howard world.

By the way, it would seem Mr Howard and his gang were so right with their dire predictions that the unions would rampantly exercise undue influence over a Rudd Labor Government. Mr Rudd hasn’t even been sworn in, and yet the business unions groups are already falling over themselves to get in for their chop.