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It’s scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours...sickening...
Michaelia Cash: Malcolm Turnbull's secret weapon is a woman on the rise
1 December 2016
Michaelia Cash's staffers are standing sheepishly in the corner of her office, looking at their watches.
Their boss is due to meet with the Governor-General to get royal assent for the Australian Building and Construction Bill which passed Parliament the night before. But she's high on victory, waxing lyrical about the benefits the bill.
The two young men are more resigned than perturbed. When Hurricane Michaelia is spinning there's no stopping her.
You could forgive Cash for being exhausted on the last sitting day of the year. "You do end up doing 18 hour days quite easily seven days a week," she says of her recent weeks negotiating to get the government's double dissolution trigger bills passed through the Senate.
Elected as a Senator for Western Australia in 2007, the former Freehills lawyer sits on the conservative side of the Liberal Party's broad church. After becoming a Malcolm Turnbull supporter late in the piece, his victory saw her shoot into cabinet as Minister for Workplace Relations and Employment.
Besides her computer sits a plaque, a replica of the one that sat on Ronald Reagan's desk throughout his presidency. "It can be done," it reads.
Former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher is another hero.
But while the Senator from Western Australia isn't for turning, she is for negotiating.
Following the election, Cash flew around the country to meet with crossbenchers on their home turf to discuss what they needed to support the bills.
Cash gave a lot away to get the bills passed - from new community forums for the ABC and SBS boards to new "buy Australian" procurement requirements. The ABCC's coercive powers have been softened and a two year transition period for existing contracts will slow its impact.
One conservative commentator described the final bill as an "appalling mishmash of inconsistent and unworkable provisions" that makes it all but worthless.