AWB Scandal Unlikely to Help Labor (Much)

I'm finding it hard to get too excited by the AWB 'Bribes to Saddam' scandal. Not that it isn't important, it is, and the government should take a caning for it.

It's just that it's a bit like the 'Children Overboard' episode. There's the foul odour but no hard evidence that the government unequivocally knew what was going on. I don't think this issue will make much of an impression with the 20% or so of voters who decide elections.

My feelings are summed up, much more eloquently than I could, by Mr Lefty.

Of course, for a smoking gun to be found, an expanded inquiry would have to find either a suicidal government MP or a public service whistleblower. And the public service is well aware of just what happens to whistleblowers.

So, sadly, I can't get too excited about this - we all know that John Howard could be found next to a bloody corpse with the bloody knife in his bloody hands, and voters would still have completely forgotten it by 2007. And if they hadn't, he'd co-opt it into the campaign (like the "trust" line in 2004) - "Labor will brutally stab your mortgage to death with higher interest rates!"

Swinging voters only get irritated when government actions start to directly effect them, or when a series of scandals occur that are so obviously attributable to government ineptitude. Howard's much too clever to trip up like this.

Even the IR issue is unlikely to get Labor over the line. High Court challenges are going to hold up its implementation for much of this year, and many workers are covered by enterprise agreements that expire after the next election.

So, in my opinion, the only thing that's likely to bring the government down sooner rather than later is an international financial recession. It's not impossible, a large spike in oil prices could do it, but I'd rather live with the miserable Federal conservatives than wish this on the nation.