Workchoices is dead. It was never popular with the Australian labour force. In the end, neither was it's champion, the former Prime Minister. While it may have been well-intended, everything is manipulable and stories abounded of workers coming off second best. No-one knows how truthful those stories were. I get a feeling that the current government, sniffing political mileage to be made, isn't asking.

While some of the Howard government's legislation may have been unappealing, to their credit they sought to eliminate opposite imbalances introduced by Labor administrations that among other things protected shirkers and made it virtually impossible to sack a worker no matter how they behaved. That ridiculous situation impacted negatively on honest, hard working employees as well as affecting profitability which is the very thing that jobs growth feeds upon. Mr Rudd will need to ensure that those abuses cannot be restored or he will have set Australia back many years.

If my memory serves me correctly, in the 1970's the now defunct Whyalla ship-building plant was once crippled by a demarcation strike over which union the tea-ladies should belong to. Let us not risk a return to those days.