Act's backers have placed a giant short under Richard Prebble.
Too political. Too into gutter politics. And too forgetful of pushing the party's high-minded policies.
But anyone watching the political bovver boy in full flight last week encouraging Auckland bosses into a little civil disobedience against the Employment Relations Bill (ERB) would have to question: Why kill the winning act? Particularly, when the official opposition - National - appears to have had its collective brain and vocal cords surgically removed since the election.
Before any of the loyal Nats among Business Herald readers decide to orchestrate a spam attack on my e-mail address today, ask yourselves: What memorable initiative, speech, press release - or even one-liner - has the party of free enterprise made on this or any other anti-business policy instituted by the Labour/Alliance Coalition?
If there have been any at all, they've obviously been too subtle to come up on the O'Sullivan radar screen. What has come up, however, has been the Prebble attack on the ERB - and it's refreshing.
Since the Government promised to hose down some of the bill's "hotspots" when it is reported back to Parliament, business organisations have been ploughing an appeasement line: "Business and Government must pull together" ... "Business should benchmark the effects of the ERB once it becomes law" ... "Ask the Government to make changes if the level of industrial disruption has serious impacts on both the economy and business alike."
You've all heard it.
Calming stuff - a bit like the current "snap out of it" spin that the Government and its flunkies are peddling to business on the collapse of confidence.
What you haven't all heard is the contrary Prebble view: Don't roll over and die. Don't get mad, get organised.
That message was buried by some well-orchestrated Beehive spin suggesting the Act leader wouldn't survive his party's three-day caucus last week - he did.
But the substantive point he makes is that stripped of any technical amendments to douse the hotspots, the bill still remains an attack on business, the sanctity of contract and free enterprise.
It's also payback time - time for the Government to pay its trade union supporters for the financial backing they gave Labour and the Alliance at the election. And it's also a mechanism by which Labour can effectively increase its financial support for the next election - as unions go on a legislatively backed enrolment spree once the bill becomes law.
As Prebble pointed out: Some of those unions, like the Post-Primary Teachers Association, were substantial contributors to Labour's bagmen.
But as Finance Minister Michael Cullen ruefully alluded a fortnight back, they are also state employees.
The Government as employer will find itself on the fag-end of the same treatment private sector employers face with the legislation. Which poses an interesting dilemma for the Government.
In my view, the key reason the bill is being amended is not because this Government has discovered some late affinity with business. It hasn't. It's still a bunch of former academics, teachers, unionists and lawyers. But it employs a huge raft of contractors who would have gone straight on to the Government's books as permanent employees - before the hotspot was identified.
But just how does the Government "communicate responsibly" to its employees during bargaining? The clause preventing communication has been softened.
Will responsible communication mean one thing for the private sector and another for the public sector. In other words, will politicians be able to cavil all over the news media if teachers and nurses go on strike?
Or will they have to watch their words like the private sector?
And just how much confidential information will hospital authorities and teaching institutions make available to their unions during negotiations?
There are plenty of other delightful conundrums, but the most appealing is the prospect of the Government having to open its own books to employees to substantiate a "can't afford" response to wage demands. Then it would spin a justification to taxpayers at the next election if resultant settlements mean other spending areas have to be trimmed to accommodate the pay hikes.
In Prebble's case, he has yet to provide a compelling gameplan for defeating the bill. His suggestion that businesspeople mount a mass fax attack on the Green Party MPs - particularly in the Coromandel seat of their leader - was good theatrics.
A more fruitful avenue is for businesses to follow the leadership of The Warehouse's Stephen Tindall and support the establishment of inhouse unions before the bill becomes law.
If the Government tries to ram the bill through under urgency - with retrospective clauses banning this move - then take it straight to the Court of Appeal arguing abuse of human rights.
As Jimmy Carter once said: "Aggression unopposed is a contagious disease."
* Fran O'Sullivan welcomes robust comment at fran_o'sullivan@wilsonandhorton.co.nz
<i>O'Sullivan:</i> Nats could learn from Act's bovver boy
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