According to today’s Oz, the Leader of the Opposition has joined the rest of us in seeing that the R-G-R government was a hopeless mess.

BILL Shorten has attacked the governments of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, highlighting their flaws, mistakes and misjudgments, arguing that he has learned the lessons of Labor’s election defeat and declaring the party must accept them too.

That’s a start, but where to from there? Will it be balanced budgets, no more wasted money, no longer jumping onto every PC bandwagon such as global warming. Will it be pulling unions off the back of business, reducing regulation, telling the truth before elections and then doing what you said you’d do? Well actually, nothing as specific as that. This is the list of six vapid principles, as content free as it is possible to imagine.

The first is to “treat people with courtesy and respect”.

The second is not to “launch a thousand ships, a thousand ideas (and) a thousand thought bubbles”.

The third is to focus on policy implementation.

The fourth lesson is to build a good relationship with business..

Fifth is to be a “no surprises” government.

The final lesson was to communicate with voters more effectively. “You have got to explain what you’re solving. Don’t go straight to the solution.”

And then there’s a seventh:

“Having a formal relationship with unions” which he said “is a strength, not a weakness.”

In other words, nothing new. Just hoping that the present government irritates just enough voters in doing what needs to be done to get Labor back over the line at the next election. A Shorten-Palmer Government should be quite an experience.