The independent senator, Nick Xenophon, who agreed to provide an essential vote for Direct Action on the understanding that the safeguards mechanism would be given "teeth", said recently that the final form of the "safeguards" showed Direct Action had been "neutered" and could not guarantee the emission reductions it had promised.
It's a good film that I probably won't ever watch again, because the thrills it summons have all been neutered by its guffy legacy.
Policing remains a touchstone issue for nationalists who were embittered by the former Northern Ireland secretary Peter Mandelson's policing legislation, believing it neutered the drive to try to make the 90% Protestant RUC more acceptable to the Catholic community.
Among Republicans, there is fear and resentment about the process that has neutered the IRA, destroyed the arms and set a course towards final recognition of the state by accepting the police.
For instance, a law requiring plaintiffs to surrender to the state 75% of their punitive-damage awards has been cleverly neutered, depriving the budget of around $450m.
Moreover, if Mr Mugabe retained executive power as president, the MDC would almost certainly be neutered and outmanoeuvred in a so-called unity government.
Like so many of his predecessors, Mr Koizumi seems to be gently subsiding into Japan's familiar political quicksand.Central reforms are being abandoned, say his critics, or neutered.
Elected but autocratic presidents have neutered judiciaries and other democratic institutions.
But under George Bush Congress has been marginalised and neutered, with its leaders judging that their most important job is to push through the president's agenda.
A new ordinance decreed that all domestic cats be neutered; they were also given distinctive collars.
The share issue to Mr Ecclestone, however, reduced FOH's holding to exactly 50% and so neutered its power.The share issue to Mr Ecclestone also potentially undermines the preferred strategy of the banks: to gain control of the FOA board by persuading a court to invalidate a change to the firm's articles of association made by Bambino when it wrested board control in 2002.
