it's a hard (right) rain's gonna fall

Des Moore, Director of the Institute for Private Enterprise, is on TV rabbitting on in the background in support of Nick Minchin's (inadvertent?) disclosure that the Federal Government, popularly known as the Howard Government (for all of us!!!) should be pursuing further labour market 'reform' in pursuit of labour market 'flexibility'. Moore's CV on the IPE's website reads:

"Director Des Moore has had considerable experience and training in analysing economic issues. After graduating in law from Melbourne University, Australia, and in economics from the London School of Economics, he worked for 28 years in the Commonwealth Treasury, including five years as one of three Deputy Secretaries.
During his time in Treasury, Des headed most of the main policy areas. In 1987 he resigned from Treasury because of his concern that the macro-economic policies being pursued by the Federal Labor Government would likely lead to recession. During the following nine years spent as Senior Fellow of the Economic Policy Unit at the Institute of Public Affairs he published and commented on a wide range of economic policy issues. A list of all publications by Des since he left Treasury is included on this site."

There's not a lot in that CV to indicate that Mr Moore has the slightest clue what an unskilled or semi-skilled worker would do to negotiate, on his or her own, greater ' flexibility' with the boss. He could probably claim a win on the recession forecast, though (without going into cause and effect, external factors, etc).

Quite possibly Mr Moore has other life experience that helps to fill in such an....obvious?....gap. Particularly for someone presumably paid quite handsomely to provide advice to people who have no greater aim in life than than to run unions into the ground and maximise the opportunities for capital to extract greater returns.

Now the stainless steel rodent has denied that this is the Plan, so we know what weight to give that.

The current (is new) IR legislation is barely in place and so is quite untested. No data to indicate that any further changes are needed or what any unintended consequences of WorkChoices might be (oh, stone the flamin' crows, of course they're intended...I must be losing it!). So it's now plain...to all of us?????? .. that it's ideological?

So what is Labor doing? We're doomed, I tells ya.

Update: "We won't be taking further major proposals in that area to the next election". Given Howard's propensity to speak 'carefully', I would interpret this to mean that they'll be doing it before the next election - or after, without making it a specific 'promise' - whatever that might mean. We don't need no stinkin' mandate no more.