What a weasel. The self-serving manoeuvrings of Bill Shorten have become excruciating in their transparency.

Shorten, the Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation, is one of the Labor Right factional powerbrokers who removed his own prime minister, Kevin Rudd. He has become the most ardent cheerleader for the beneficiary of his knife-work, Julia Gillard, even as her poll numbers remain mired in unelectable territory, lower than Rudd's poll numbers when he was deposed.

The worse it gets for Gillard, the more overtly loyal Shorten becomes. He argues that Gillard, given time, can recover much of her lost political ground before the next election. What he does not say is that he wants to prevent his colleagues from bringing Rudd back as prime minister as an election-saving tactic, even if it means Labor will lose the next election.

Rudd is no stranger to bile or vengeance. Having him back as prime minister would not be good for Shorten. A victory at the next federal election by Lazarus Rudd would be even worse. A Labor defeat, however, would finish off both Gillard and Rudd, clearing the field for generational change. Shorten is 44. His ambition is not hidden.

Shorten is a metaphor for what is ailing this federal government even more than the deeply unpopular carbon tax and the deeply dysfunctional asylum-seeker policies. Both issues are election-losers. But I don't think they represent the worst damage the Gillard government is inflicting on the economy.

Since becoming Prime Minister, Gillard has been busy repaying her political debts to her factional bankers. It is no coincidence that her government has re-empowered the unions.

Her government also rests on the continued survival of a political zombie, Craig Thomson, the man who accidentally opened a window into the inner workings of the Health Services Union.

The union has a lot to answer for. So does Thomson.

An audit by his own union found his credit card had been used for tens of thousands of dollars in private transactions, including escort services (he claims his signature was forged on those receipts) and election campaign funding.

The body set up by the Labor government to oversee such matters, Fair Work Australia, has taken years to investigate if anything is amiss at the Health Services Union and has still not reported back, even though the media has exposed multiple rorts in the meantime.

The most blatant debt repayment by Gillard is her decision to abolish the Australian Building and Construction Commission. The ABCC was set up as the result of two royal commissions into the systemic corruption and intimidation in the construction industry. It proved to be truly effective. Too effective, apparently.

Last week the government and the Greens used their numbers in the Senate to vote down a motion which stated: ''That the Senate (a) recognises the positive contribution to productivity, inflation, GDP and days lost through industrial action of the Australian Building and Construction Commission; and (b) affirms the need for a tough cop on the beat with power to compel information in order to keep the building and construction industry free of thuggery, intimidation and illegality.''

The motion, moved by the opposition workplace relations spokesman, Senator Eric Abetz, sought to impose no obligations and yet the government would have none of it.

The most relentless critic of the commission has been the main construction union, the CFMEU, which for decades was plagued by elements involved in corruption, blackmail and industrial violence. Ever since Labor won office in 2007, the union has agitated for the abolition of the commission, with the support of the Greens (which says a great deal about the real priorities of the Greens).

The union has been spending millions on a court case, Ballard versus Multiplex and the CFMEU, which has turned into a surrogate royal commission into corruption and collusion in the construction industry and the hidden cost of industrial peace.

The inconvenient litigant is David Ballard (known as Charkey Ramon when he was a champion boxer), who has produced witness after witness stating the CFMEU destroyed his business because he refused to bow to union demands.

A former finance director of Multiplex, Ian Widdup, has given a sworn statement that he received $750,000 from Multiplex in return for his silence over kickbacks to the CFMEU, and he has testified that he made secret cash payments of hundreds of thousands of dollars to the CFMEU on behalf of Multiplex.

Pulling back and surveying the industrial landscape with a wide lens, union militancy is increasing, productivity growth is slumping, administrative burdens are rising, and industrial combat is becoming rampant in the energy sector, where huge premiums are being extracted for workers and industrial disputes are slowing some major projects.

A classic example of the increased mood of industrial bastardry, and the toothless irrelevance of Fair Work Australia, is the war of attrition being waged by several unions using Qantas passengers as cannon fodder. In an industrial campaign pitting staff against management, real damage is being done to the reputation of Australia's de facto flag carrier.

Then there is the metaphor called Bill Shorten. This morning, Shorten will attend a round-table in Sydney with superannuation experts to discuss the government's intention to legislate an increase in the rate of the compulsory super paid by employers, from 9 per cent to 12 per cent. No sector is more affected by this policy than small business and one of those invited on the panel was Ken Phillips, executive director of the Independent Contractors of Australia.

Phillips has displeased Shorten. He has argued in public that unions have excessive influence over industry super funds, and these funds have inadequate disclosure requirements. They need much greater transparency, he believes, given the compulsory nature of employer super contributions.

On Thursday, Phillips was told he was no longer on the round-table with the minister. He surmises he was removed because he represents an excess of transparency and scepticism about the biggest money pot Labor has ever invented.

Unions shorten odds on failure of Labor rule