Change of plea -- but not of heart

I don't know how much a royal commission inquiry costs. I do know that the government has spent untolled personhours preparing, attending, defending, posturing for it. How many silks does AWB have going, at what daily rate?

And wouldn't it have all gone a bit quicker, too, if anyone had had half a memory?

Anyway, I'm sure the whole cost and kerfuffle with the AWB Oil-for-Food bribery scandal could have been significantly attenuated if they hadn't made a change of plea.

This is the plea they initially had in mind:

"As a result of the Volker inquiry into the OFF program AWB accepts that in paying money for inland transportation and after sales service it paid money to the Iraq government in contravention of UN sanctions."

Why the bloody hell didn't they just say that in the first place? Now everyone knows not only did AWB make a bad judgment once, they know that AWB will go to the mat to try to deny it and drag every one else even remotely connected with their sordid affair down with them.

What a truly swell bunch of gentlemen. And what jolly good sports are all those worthy politicians who so readily lent their own reputations to them. They've just been handed back those reputations, tattered, soiled and rightfully so.