One of the great fascinations with politics is how it just keeps on changing. Mr Popular today can become Mr Dead Meat in a very short space of time. And vice versa.
Change so often comes about because of events outside the control of the political players. They can't engineer the events but we can see a lot more about them through their response to them.
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The work they have put in before, their track record, in effect, suddenly goes up in big lights for all to see.
The Tampa incident in 2001 is perhaps the best example. John Howard had a track record of strong border control and bang, in the election lead-up, the unforeseen event put that record up in lights, for days on end. Kim Beazley had been all over the shop, and up in lights it looked pathetic.
The catalyst for change needn't be something large or dramatic. Remember Mark Latham's weirdo handshake with Howard on the campaign trail? That image conveyed to Australians that there was something different about Latham and they didn't like it.
Bill Shorten may well be on the wrong end of just one of these events in 2018. I'm not a betting person but I think it's on the cards. He keeps telling us he's on the side of the workers, but he doesn't behave that way. It's been working for him … so far. Perhaps workers just can't accept that the guy that says he's out batting for them is doing the opposite. After all, it is somewhat incredible.
Nonetheless his track record of selling out workers is there for all to see. The worrying thing for him is whether one of these unpredictable events will come along and whack that record up in lights. If that happens you can expect a vicious backlash from workers around Australia. If it becomes accepted that he's not what he says he is, that he has a history of selling out workers, it won't only be the workers who've been sold out who will be unforgiving.
Two things will swell that pool of the unforgiving. Shorten will drown in it. First, there's unaffected workers who in solidarity with others will be both disgusted and enraged. Then there's all the Australians who are attached to our ethos of being up front and calling a spade a spade. A person professing to be the workers' mate who shows himself to quite the opposite will be seen as the antithesis of being Australian.
We believe in a fair go. When we decide someone is out to rip us off, we turn on them. When we see they've been trying to rip off the less fortunate to advantage themselves we are relentlessly unforgiving. And deservedly so. The history is there. If you haven't heard of the Cleanevent saga do a quick net search. You'll see the AWU, of which Shorten was secretary did a deal that was devastating to workers, especially those who work on casual shifts. Public holiday rates, shift rates and penalty pay rates all went under the knife.
Shorten says he's the friend of the worker, wants to look after casual workers and restore penalty rates. His track record, when he was secretary of the Australian Workers' Union, doesn't look good.
There was the deal Shorten oversaw under which Melbourne builder Winslow Constructions paid the union thousands of dollars for its employees' union dues, a practice frowned upon by many unions. Chiquita mushrooms sacked a lot of workers and re-engaged them as contractors on lower rates at the same time it was making payments to the AWU for what the union claimed was for health and safety training. And then there's the Unibuilt story … where Shorten miraculously got a research officer , paid for by Unibuilt, surprise, surprise, just as they were negotiating a new enterprise bargaining agreement.
One might say this is old news, and it is. John Howard's record on border control wasn't anything new either. Equally, there were plenty of views about Mark Latham appearing a little unsettled. In both these cases the story was already there but it needed some outside, unexpected event to act as the catalyst for putting the spotlight on it.
It's just that sort of event, coming out of the blue as we like to say, that Bill Shorten simply cannot afford. If it happens, it will open the floodgates. It will have an air not dissimilar to the "me too" social media campaign. Just as so many women who believe they had suffered abuse started to feel comfortable telling their stories so any worker who has been dudded will feel comfortable telling their story.
In fact, the unpredictable event might be just one or two of the workers deciding to tell their story. One might think, no big deal. Unless others get the same idea and the dam wall busts. I can just see a Sunday night exclusive. It might feature a family of migrants or refugees. They might have been doing OK as cleaners until the infamous AWU deal. The story could play out with lovely kids in the yard.
Then in nice big numbers the hourly rate of $50 would flash onto the screen. The voice-over would point out that this was the rate before the AWU deal slashed it down to $18. A 64 per cent cut. You might add in a visual of a "cartoon" Shorten, serrated scythe in hand, smiling like a rodent as he personally slashes the larger number to bits. All that stands between Shorten and oblivion is just one normal person to start the ball rolling and "me too" will do the rest. Imagine going to bed every night with that weight on your shoulders. Not a happy year.
Amanda Vanstone is a Fairfax Media columnist and a former Coalition minister.
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