The skill of being heard but not seen  Updated June 21, 2011
12:23:00  Lobbyists are periodically wheeled out to centre stage
to play the villain in our national political music hall.  The
audience can be relied on to hoot and jeer as, for example, Karl
Bitar turns a working lifetime as an insider for the Labor Party
into a nice little earner with James Packer's casino.  The
conflict of interest seems so blatant in the spotlight of the
moment that it's hard to imagine how the former national
secretary could ever be of any use as a door opener in Canberra.
But while James Packer may demonstrate, periodically, that he
knows how to lose money, he also knows how to make it, and he
sees Karl Bitar as a good buy.  Generally lobbyists, when they
are an issue themselves, become a political scapegoat. They have
the contradictions of the connection between government and
business in our mixed economy loaded onto their well-tailored
backs and they are sent out into the wilderness for a time. New
rules are brought in to