The dispute began in 2013 but roared into life in 2014 and two years later it remains mired in the acrimony, division and bitterness that prevailed in much of Australia's national public discourse at that time.

But if the Coalition government and Labor opposition can find some common ground and co-operate to pass much-needed legislation as they did in Parliament this week, then surely the warring parties to the public service dispute might follow suit, for the good of the country.

The election has been won and lost, dashing any faint hopes of a Labor government riding to the rescue of the 100,000 or so government officials still holding out against the Coalition's bargaining policy.

There are real signs that the political deadlock and inertia that has bedevilled public administration for several years is beginning to shift and to accommodate that process, departments need to function, a tough task when they are beset with bitter workplace strife.

The bargaining policy imposed on departments and agencies, retains the ideological fingerprints of Tony Abbott's ill-fated regime and of his Employment Minister Eric Abetz.

Other Abbott-era stances, policies and preoccupations have been dumped, modified or changed after Malcolm Turnbull's ascendancy and there would be no shame in a little softening of this one, particularly if it would deliver his government's apparatus of the massive distraction that has dogged it for 1000 days.

The Liberal Party of Australia will likely outlast the union movement as a force in Australian public life and does not need to prevail in every little scrap and skirmish along the way.

Likewise, the goal of reshaping the Australian Public Service in the image of an idealised private sector outfit where "flexibility" rules, was never going to be achieved in one fell swoop or indeed in one bargaining round.

The government has never backed away from its central claim that union self-interest is driving resistance to its industrial policy and it is certainly true that anti-union provisions in offers made at agency level have pushed the Community and Public Sector Union into a corner, leaving it fighting for its long-term survival and with little room to manoeuvre.

The union has complained long and loud that Public Service Minister Michaelia Cash will not negotiate, but the CPSU has failed to state publicly what, if anything, it is prepared to put on the table to get the stalled talks moving again.

For the good of the country both sides now need to show a willingness to compromise, if only to allow their adversary to save a little face.

A settlement the CPSU could sell to its members might get the union out of a sticky situation it never asked to be in, while Senator Cash would be able to claim a settlement in the longest running dispute in APS history as a much-needed political win.

A truce, leading to a treaty might just be in the nascent spirit of the times.