Right on cue:
The Prime Minister, John Howard, has vowed to take whatever legitimate action he can to stop Australia's cricket team touring Zimbabwe.
The Federal Government is investigating legal ways to cancel the tour without Australia incurring a $US2 million fine from international cricket authorities, amid fears the money would end up with dictator Robert Mugabe's cronies.
Mr Howard said the law was not entirely clear on whether the Government could direct the team not to tour the African nation, where life expectancy has plunged and inflation has soared under the brutal Mugabe regime.
Mr Howard said he did not like the idea of the Australian government banning the cricketers from going.
"I am jammed between my distaste for the Government getting involved in something like this and my even greater distaste for giving a propaganda victory to Robert Mugabe," he told Southern Cross Broadcasting.
"Obviously if there is a way legitimately that the tour can be cancelled and there not be an exposure by Cricket Australia to any fine, then we'll go down that path."
Mr Howard called on the international cricket community to stop giving comfort to Mugabe's regime by allowing teams to tour.
"I think the International Cricket Council has responsibilities, yes," Mr Howard said.
"But they're like any other body - they're answerable to their constituent members.
"Now, I think there is some evidence emerging that even in those countries that would be very reluctant to see the ICC do anything, that something ought to happen.
"How long can the international cricket community - not just Australia - go on doing things that give aid and comfort to somebody who has thus far been totally impervious to any entreaties?"
The Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, met Cricket Australia in Melbourne last night to discuss ways the tour could be cancelled.
Mr Howard said he raised the issue with the Australian captain, Ricky Ponting, at a welcome home breakfast for the victorious World Cup team in Sydney last week.
Mr Howard said Mr Mugabe was a grubby dictator who used his police force to persecute and torture dissenters.
"The stories of torture and brutality - the names of 600 members of the opposition party being taken from a computer by the secret police and every one of those homes visited, the people tortured and bashed up and then told to go to South Africa and not come back, and checks now being made subsequent to that outrage on those homes - not that's the sort of thing the Gestapo did," Mr Howard said.
But he refused to compare Mr Mugabe with Adolf Hitler, saying the repression in Zimbabwe could not be equated with the Holocaust.
The Treasurer, Peter Costello, also backed calls today for the Australian cricket team to abandon its tour of Zimbabwe.
Mr Costello said Zimbabwe had a terrible human rights and economic record and should not be given any credibility by the tour proceeding.
"Look, I think Zimbabwe is in a shocking state where you have a government which is trampling over the rights of people, where the economy is in a terrible situation and I wouldn't want to give any prestige to Zimbabwe and its government," Mr Costello told reporters in Melbourne.
"I feel sorry for the Zimbabwe cricketers but I have no sympathy at all for the dictatorship of Robert Mugabe.
"I wouldn't want to give him any credibility at all."