Folding one hand as the jester bites off the other

Ethan Switch - Friday, 15 September 2006 - 13:56:50 - print it raw

Switch a kick up on the closure front as one company swipes the loss right from under another's bellows. Two hands, three fingers, and the entire slab of carrot cake done and down before the fat lady from human resources reaches the elevators.

Speculation across the weeks at the Mitsubishi plant in Adelaide rifles the stress balls and tests the resolve of the working force. Those in the production line most likely to lose out and on their jobs and livelihoods. Constant and reckless like the horse found rummaging through the back issues of a seedy adult book store.

With rumour milling more than the little women making hats, notion and motions force the hand of Robert McEniry, CEO of Mitsubishi in Australia, to outright deny any plans to shut operations and shift toward lands of the cheap labour force. Project Phoenix, set to burn on the inside of twelve months following the dismal sales of the 380 Sedan quashed.

Safe are the people who make the cars. And the people who wash the skid marks?

Not so on the comfortable side of the dinner table, and where the whole sleight of hand comes in, are those banging away at one of the Electrolux factories in Adelaide. Eighteen months and counting down before the doors lock up with an angry dog starving on the inside with the busy hands flying offshore.

One state. One result. Two players and the nation's focus on the wrong finger.