JOHN Howard and Julia Gillard have a lot to answer for.
If it wasn't for Mr Howard and some of his right-wing zealots, we would not have turned down that ridiculous dead-end track called Work Choices.
It effectively cost the Liberals government but also highlighted that twilight zone where politicians lose touch with reality after being in power too long.
Enter Ms Gillard and Labor's Fair Work Act - like something out of Kingswood Country and about as funny.
Unfair dismissal cases are now running at double the rate under Fair Work compared with the last year of Work Choices.
At a time when the world demands industrial flexibility, Australia has jumped to the polar opposite.
Toyota recently announced 350 redundancies at its Melbourne plant and the government went into meltdown.
Toyota Australia president and chief executive Max Yasuda told the Financial Review that the restructure was heavily influenced by Ms Gillard's inflexible Fair Work Act and ''a culture of absenteeism that could be as high as 30 per cent of the workforce,'' as apparently occurred on the Friday after the Australia Day holiday on a Thursday, January 26.
``They just don't come in and later on they ask for sick leave. For me this is difficult to understand - why is it allowed?'' Mr Yasuda asked.
The government quickly rolled out Workplace Relations Minister Bill Shorten, the man who elbowed fellow union official Paul Howes from in of front the cameras at the Beaconsfield mine rockfall.
Mr Shorten gave an extremely polished television performance on the 7.30 Report on Wednesday - enough to indicate that he is a serious part of the Gillard-Rudd leadership trifecta.
He is a bit like Tasmanian premier heir apparent David O'Byrne on speed.
Immigration Minister Kevin Rudd is clearly the preferred Labor leader, according to numerous polls.
A recent Galaxy poll had Mr Rudd on 52 per cent to Ms Gillard's 30 per cent, but when Mr Shorten was factored in Mr Rudd dropped to 44 per cent, with Ms Gillard 27 per cent with Mr Shorten on 14 per cent.
If Mr Rudd was reinstalled as prime minister, it would be a political disaster and probably cost the cabinet jobs of Ms Gillard and her numbers men like Wayne Swan, Simon Crean and Mr Shorten as part of the payback.
Ms Gillard's midnight knifing of Mr Rudd still irks many voters but a reverse blood-letting would destroy Labor for years.
There is an increasingly strong view that if Mr Shorten continues his meteoric O'Byrne-like rise up the ranks, he could be painlessly installed in the Lodge and save the parliamentary careers of Ms Gillard and her NSW-based faction.
Kevin Rudd ''quite frankly'' would drive Australians mad.
In the words of frontbench colleague Simon Crean, ''people will not elect as leaders those they don't perceive are team players ... part of the reason he lost the leadership was that he wasn't.''
- MARTIN GILMOUR, editor
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