I WAS holidaying in Margaret River when Kevin Rudd announced elements of Labor's industrial relations platform during his speech to the National Press Club.
Depending on your view of Rudd, the coverage pretty much summed up the genius/cunning/opportunism of the Labor leader.
The Australian's front page screamed of Rudd defying unions by limiting industrial action, demanding secret ballots and banning strike pay.
The Financial Review lamented Rudd had angered business by scrapping most of the Howard Government's WorkChoices reforms and affirming his intention to abolish workplace agreements.
The local paper adeptly summed up the important speech by declaring Rudd was determined to have a bet both ways.
This disparate coverage wouldn't have fazed Rudd as he jetted to Washington on his first overseas trip as alternative PM.
Indeed, Rudd soon made a virtue of the criticisms from unions and business.
You can't please everybody when it comes to industrial laws, he said. We believe we got the balance right.
There is no friendly consensus on workplace reform, but Rudd is kidding himself that muted, probably concocted moaning from a handful of union leaders amounts to serious criticism of Labor's election policy.
The looming poll shapes as a de facto referendum on the survival of the trade union movement. A fifth term for John Howard would cement WorkChoices and drastically reduce the already sagging influence of the organised labour movement.
A win for Rudd would hand the unions a respirator. Listening to union leaders such as Doug Cameron moaning about secret ballots is akin to hearing a drowning man grizzle about the colour of the life bouy being tossed from a rescue craft.
The complaints of Cameron and comrades are both hollow and predictable, yet Rudd has been almost comical in his determination to draw attention to union critics of Labor's industrial manifesto.
He pretended to get tough with Cameron, but sounded as convincing as John Cleese in the infamous Waldorf salad episode of Fawlty Towers, in which Basil pretends to dress down the non-existent chef over a series of restaurant cock-ups caused by Basil's incompetence.
Go in and bust his ass, demands the disgruntled American tourist. I'm going to break your bottom, prudish and disingenuous Basil yells to himself.
That a Rudd victory will save the labour movement's bottom dilutes all union criticism of Labor policy.
And while Rudd's strike reforms are both modern and sensible, they're being introduced at a time when industrial action in Australia is flatlining at a pre-World War I low.
The Government's economic credentials may be the envy of the industrialised world, but Howard faces two potentially fatal domestic problems -- WorkChoices is seriously unpopular and Kevin Rudd isn't.
It seems no amount of steady reassurance or beautiful economic figures will settle the concerns of many Australians that the PM's reforms have undermined workers' rights.
Finance Minister Nick Minchin was correct when he bemoaned a majority of people violently disagree with the Government on WorkChoices.
Labor's resurgence in the polls occurred long before Rudd's ascension.
Howard's decision to employ his surprise Senate majority to pursue unflagged reforms instantly played the demoralised Opposition back into the political contest.
If Rudd has the balance right on workplace reform -- and I suspect he has -- he'll likely save the union movement's bottom while delivering the Howard Government an unholy and painful kick in the pants.
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