Christian
Kerr writes:

Parliament’s
back for an odd sitting week – just four short days between now and the May 9
Budget. Four short but significant days.

The new
workplace relations system comes into force,
the Cole Inquiry continues and, of course, British Prime Minister Tony Blair is
addressing both Houses of Parliament.

John
Howard has lost no time exploiting Blair’s visit to try to embarrass Opposition
Leader Kim Beazley over Iraq.
The British Labour leader has told The Australian that the struggle in Iraq is pivotal to the defeat of
global terrorism and that it would be “unthinkable” to walk away,
a direct rejection of Kim Beazley’s policy.

Greg
Combet and the ALP are promising to make enough noise on IR, but what about
Cole and terror? Here are some questions some brave journo might care to ask
our Prime Minister in front of his Pommy pal today.

Cole
appears to show a remarkable government failure to joint up the dots – or
recognise the pointillist picture they formed.

If the
Howard Government want us to believe that they genuinely didn’t know what was going
on, then we also should ask how they are able to join the dots together to see
the security picture.

John
Howard and his Ministers can’t have it both ways. They can’t expect us to
believe them on the AWB and still have faith in them in the fight against
terror.