Your opponent walks to centre ring with his gloves by his side and his chin thrust firmly forward.

It's a properly sanctioned bout and the bell's gone.

You might be tempted to take a shot or two, mightn't you?

Not if you're Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, you're not.

Resources Minister Martin Ferguson, the spirited author of a letter thoroughly bagging the centrepiece of his own government's position on the biggest issue of the day, was allowed to sit quietly in his corner for the 15 rounds that constituted Question Time yesterday.

True it was that the Opposition moved to censure the Government five questions shy of the allotted 20. And true it was that they used Ferguson's dynamite letter to their advantage in the debate on that censure, and in other questions, to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

But why wouldn't you make the elephant in the room lumber up to the dispatch box and quote his own letter at him?

Can the minister confirm that ''the biggest losers'' under his own government's FuelWatch scheme would, in his own words, ''again be working families in places like western Sydney?''

The Ferguson letter bears an eerie similarity to a question asked on Monday by Louise Markus, the Liberal Member for Greenway, western Sydney. ''Does the Prime Minister agree that, even if the arguments in favour of FuelWatch had some validity, working families such as those in western Sydney would receive the least benefit?''

While Brendan Nelson and Co might not have taken the most obvious shot, they landed plenty of scoring punches, with the Opposition Leader running a tightly structured censure motion. There were Rudd's pre-election promises on petrol prices; there was his refusal to cut fuel excise; his prevarication about the GST on excise; his adherence to the supposed effectiveness (a whole 2c a litre, at absolute best) of FuelWatch.

And then there was the killer one-two: Rudd's ''Adelaide declaration'' that he has already done all that was physically possible to help working families, and the stinging assessment, revealed in public, that at least one of his cabinet colleagues thinks his plan stinks.

Perhaps when the titleholder is losing rounds so comprehensively, you don't need to throw leather at the undercard.