Agreed, and I strongly suspect it would have been a lot worse under a coalition government.
I'm not sure if it could have been worse under them. They had no law to intervene the way Lance Gillard did. Maybe they could have used the "National interest" section. Either way it would have been off to FWA. The Govt. of the day can't really tell the Commissioners to order an EBA to be weighted either way. I reckon FWA got your one about right. They gave nothing to either party apart from what appears to be the normal 3% pa rises.
As Fed Sec will point out, signing the deal does not end the pain. For some it is only the beginning.
As I said, what we really had taken from us by the government was opportunity. Another one however will always arise.