"I think it will leave a bad taste in the mouths of a lot of people," Mr Howard observed of the plan to tinker with Anzac Day to suit a peak television timeslot.

That may be true, but the bad taste left in the mouths of Australians after eleven years of the Prime Minister's ethical turpitude is cause for major taste-bud replacements. The fact is that many Australians can no longer taste, let alone smell, the repulsive odour of deceit emanating from this government.

Just this morning the butcher's apprentice treated me to a parroting of Howard's perseverative "on message" haranguing of unions, as if their only reason for existence was to ruin businesses. The butcher and I tried to blast through his mental block, but to no avail. Howard has won his mind.

Apparently the minds of those polled are not so gullible. Kevin Rudd and the ALP continue to hold a commanding lead over Howard and the Illiberal Party.

And that's before they read this article in The Age: Workers' rights lost with AWAs.

Secret figures reveal that 45 per cent of Australian Workplace Agreements have stripped away all of the award conditions that the Federal Government promised would be "protected by law" under WorkChoices.

The figures, which the Government refuses to release, also show a third of the individual employment contracts lodged in the first six months of WorkChoices provided no wage rises during the life of the agreements.

And they show staff of the Office of the Employment Advocate believed 27.8 per cent of the agreements examined might have broken the law by undercutting one of the legislated minimum employment entitlements.

Conditions were stripped from the vast majority of agreements examined. These included shift loadings (removed in 76 per cent of agreements), annual leave loading (59 per cent), incentive payments and bonuses (70 per cent) and declared public holidays (22.5 per cent).

Talk about leaving a bad taste in the mouth!

It's looking more and more like a drover's dog election coming up. Our Prime Menteur will continue to read his morning faeces for stunning ideas on how to discredit Kevin Rudd, but his era for such grubby politics may be at an end. It seems Rudd can only beat himself, and he doesn't seem quite the type to self-destruct. What then, is left for the Howard Government to do? What do right wing governments usually resort to in times of crisis? ... the crisis here being one in which their power base is threatened. Well! They'll just have to manufacture a national crisis, a terrorist attack, for example, or even better, one that is immanent (before the election) but never eventuates (after the election). The best thing about a terrorist attack that was never going to happen is that, aside from PR such as Be alert! Be alarmed!, it doesn't cost much. But even then, the black magic that has served Howard for so long may be seen to be just another transparently threadbare parlour trick.

Indeed, John Howard may have to put aside Machiavelli's tome for now and get someone to find him a book on ethics, if he is to have any chance. But again, it may all be too late.

-- Olney Garkle

Addendum: Stupid me, I forgot. I hadn't yet read Waleed Aly's Mutual help group: the PM, the mufti and the shock jock. Of course. Little Johnny will play the race card if all else fails.