What a shame that the media has only recently discovered that people die in workplaces affected by Federal Government.  One can only wonder what might have been if we’d had similar levels of media confected fury in previous years.

Here’s an example.  The Howard Government’s response to the Cole Royal Commission into the building industry had been stymied by the Senate, but in September 2005 the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Act, which tightly curtailed union activities and rights of workers to take industrial action in the construction sector, was passed by the Government's new majority.  The Government also extended its National Code of Practice for the Construction Industry so that any firm wishing to tender for Commonwealth contracts had to apply the code across all their operations and to any sub-contractors they employed.