The Big Ask Read Online Free Page B

union cronies will react to attempts to slug their members. Not to mention the big wheels of the Transport Industry Association. Somebody should warn the minister that you tangle with the truckies at your peril.’
    This was a complete beat-up.
    Okay, it was true that a Treasury proposal had recently crossed Angelo’s desk, arguing for a tonnage levy on heavy trucks to help defray the damage these multi-wheeled behemoths inflicted on the public highway. It was also true that the last time the government tried to make the private transport industry pay its way, irate truck-owners had blockaded the state’s milk supplies, forcing a humiliating backdown. Angelo’s response to the Treasury proposal had been to bin it. Our administration might have been terminal but it wasn’t suicidal.
    â€˜Nev here has issued a press release denying any planned increase in motor registration charges,’ I said, throwing a bridge over Angelo’s troubled waters. ‘And, if you want, I’ll interrogate the girls in the Treasury typing pool.’
    Angelo nodded, tossed the newspaper aside and sat down, as though content that his clumsy minions were now showing some evidence of competence. But we both knew that the real cause of his agitation wasn’t the piece in the paper. Nor the possibility of a leak. The entire government administration, after all, leaked like a prostate patient with a prolapsed bladder. No, the gossip column item had merely triggered an inevitable event, one that Angelo had been dreading.
    â€˜Howard Sharpe’s got a damned nerve, turning up on my doorstep like this,’ he said. ‘If the state secretary of the United Haulage Workers has something to talk about, he can make an appointment like anyone else.’
    Nev Lowry unfolded his legs and began edging towards the door. Not that he wasn’t interested in relations between the government and the unions. As a young journalist Nev had often dreamed of covering first-hand the horrors of war and pestilence. He just didn’t want to be around when the Haulers arrived. Who could blame him? Angelo flapped his wrist, dismissing his press secretary.
    â€˜Just tell Sharpe it’s a typical piece of Herald mischief,’ I said. ‘A minor variation on their usual union-bashing theme. Or a bureaucratic cock-up. Disavow all knowledge. Better still, I’ll go out and tell him you’re not available. Like you said, he should’ve made an appointment.’
    â€˜Might as well front him now, get it over with,’ said Angelo. ‘If it isn’t this, it’ll be something else. Soon as I got this job, I knew that Sharpe’d be looking for a pretext to ambush me, to let me know what a tough customer he is. This job’s difficult enough already. It’ll be impossible if Sharpe thinks he can just waltz in here and throw his weight around any time the mood takes him.’
    Howard Sharpe’s weight was considerable. The United Haulage Workers was bigger than some of the government departments that Angelo had headed. Its twenty-five thousand truck and tanker drivers, aircraft refuellers, baggage handlers and forklift operators moved everything from beer to bricks. Or not, if Howard said so. As well as buildings and cash assets totalling at least twenty million dollars, the Haulers controlled a pension fund in the region of five hundred million. And, not least, a sizeable block of votes on the Labor Party’s central administrative panel.
    But the Haulers were more than an association of honest toilers, more than just a power base for the right wing of the party, more than just Howard Sharpe’s personal fiefdom. They were a law unto themselves. Judge, jury and, it was whispered, executioner.
    â€˜Perhaps this is an opportunity to mend some fences, get a bit of dialogue happening,’ I suggested, not altogether facetiously.
    â€˜Too late for that,’ said Angelo. ‘Sharpe’s got a