Thursday, September 15, 2005
INJUNCTED! (UPDATE: UNINJUNCTIMATED!)
Planned broadcast tonight of Andrew Denton’s interview with Mark Latham was abandoned following a legal injunction. More details soon. (*UPDATE* The program ran from 10.30pm. No transcript available as yet. Hit comments for News Ltd. injunction information.) Meanwhile, in earlier Crazy Mark developments ...
“Since his last days at school,” wrote Gough Whitlam in January, “I have known Mark Latham as a person of outstanding character and capacity with a zest for public service ... Margaret and I shall always regard Mark and Janine and their children with great affection and admiration.”
That regard is no longer shared:
Former Labor leader Mark Latham says he doesn’t plan to ever speak again to his political mentor Gough Whitlam.
A bitter Mr Latham on Thursday night spoke of his disappointment at the end of his close personal relationship with Mr Whitlam, the former prime minister.
Both men represented the Sydney seat of Werriwa, Mr Latham named his son Isaac Gough, and Mr Whitlam stood in place of Mr Latham’s father at his wedding.
But Mr Latham said he had discovered Mr Whitlam, who had been a “father figure” to him from the time he entered political life, had wanted him out of politics altogether before he resigned the Labor leadership early this year.
He said Mr Whitlam had done "mean things" to him.
Now Latham knows how the Australian economy felt between the years 1972-75. Kim Beazley continues to take Latham heat:
I wouldn’t make him the toilet cleaner in Parliament House, let alone the leader of the Opposition.
Actually, according to Kevin Rudd, Latham himself might not qualify for the toilet-cleaning job—unless it was ALP-sponsored:
In Mark’s whole career, I don’t think there is a single job that he held from the time he left university, which wasn’t in some way connected with or supported by the Australian Labor Party.
Nice to discover, by the way, Latham’s low opinion of hygiene maintenance staff. At least Rudd can’t complain that Latham concealed his loathing for the elfin foreign affairs spokesman:
"Rudd is a terrible piece of work,” Mr Latham wrote on April 20 of the potential future leader. “Addicted to the media and leaking. A junior minister in government at best."
Mr Latham wrote that he would make Mr Rudd the minister for the Pacific islands.
Sure enough, Latham said so publicly in this April 2004 speech:
A Labor Government will restore the pre-1996 responsibilities of an Assistant Minister for the Pacific Islands (in this case, assisting Kevin Rudd).
Among others, Latham’s book denounces the following: Kim Beazley, Simon Crean, Paul Keating, Gough Whitlam, Bob Carr, Tim Gartrell, Kevin Rudd, Jenny Macklin, Lindsay Tanner, Bob McMullan, Robert Ray, Stephen Conroy, Anthony Albanese, Wayne Swan and Stephen Smith. I don’t think this blog has hit that particular group of Labor targets in four whole years.
UPDATE. The Age’s Michelle Grattan: “Perhaps the most damaging question for Labor, as Mark Latham’s bile sweeps over the party, is not about specific allegations, but how it could ever have seen him as a credible leader ... Latham is behaving like a crazy man.”
UPDATE II. Mark Latham admitted “he had set up frontbencher Kevin Rudd in a ‘sting’ - leaking him false information about Labor Party polling that then appeared in journalist Laurie Oakes’ column.”
UPDATE III. Margo Kingston: “As Webdiarists know, I’ve always liked Mark, and I’ve always liked the fact that he was a thinker, a dreamer.” Really? Margo wrote this in 2002:
Mark Latham’s views hold sway. Here’s what he said in Saturday’s Australian: ‘Working families working hard want to be rewarded for effort. On the flip side of that they have zero tolerance for illegality. They don’t support illegal migration ... I’ve got to say I haven’t got much sympathy for people who pay people smugglers and arrive in boats that are funded by corruption.’
What Latham is really saying is that the aspirationals care concerned only with self-interest - ie more money in their pockets - and eschew empathy for people in different circumstances. Us and them. We and Other. This is the antithesis of the progressive vision.
Friends 4EVA!
UPDATE IV. Mark Latham: “I still belong to the Labor Party and wouldn’t ever join any other organisation.” Hmmm. Reports in January claimed Latham had ceased paying party dues.
UPDATE V. Barry Jones: “In 12 months’ time I think he’ll come to bitterly regret what he has written.”
UPDATE VI. Labor pollster Rod Cameron: “I think the thing the community will latch onto is that this is a sick man ... It’s what’s going on inside his head. He’s a sick man.”
UPDATE VII. An anonymous Labor MP: “There is nothing wrong with his state of mind.”
UPDATE VIII. The SMH’s Peter Hartcher: “One of the striking features of Latham’s career is that he has consistently fallen out with every major figure with whom he has worked closely, with the exception of Gough Whitlam and Paul Keating. In his new book he corrects this omission by criticising these men, too.”
UPDATE IX. Robert McClelland: “I think it’s fair to say the potential leader I voted for didn’t materialise.”
UPDATE X. Political scientist and Beazley pal John O’Callaghan: “In my 30 years observing Canberra, I’ve never seen anything as grossly outrageous as this. The suggestion that Kim would go around smearing Mark Latham on a sexual matter is gross, unfathomable, unconscionable and just wrong.”
UPDATE XI. The Age: “It was learned last night that Mr Latham is threatening to sue Bernard Lagan, author of The Loner, the story of Mr Latham’s year as leader.”
UPDATE XII: Enough Rope executive producer Anita Jacoby: “He [Latham] breached our agreement, so all bets are off.”
UPDATE XIII. The SMH’s Mike Seccombe:
Until mid-afternoon yesterday, the Australian Labor Party website was offering a bargain for those who don’t mind being a bit behind the fashion. Quality cotton printed T-shirts, sizes from S to XXL, for just $15.
That’s 50 per cent off! They used to be $30.
The only thing wrong was that the shirts bore two words that are now anathema in Labor circles: Mark Latham.
At 2.43pm the sale offer disappeared from the site.
UPDATE XIV. Bob McMullan: “When someone looks through a window and thinks they see a lot of vipers and snakes, it’s nearly always the case they’re looking in a mirror and seeing a reflection.”
UPDATE XV. Mark Latham on Paul Keating: “He’s the most brilliant, talented person I met in my time in Australian politics, but his one flaw is he needs to get over what happened nine years ago and get on with the rest of his life.”
UPDATE XVI. Craig McGregor in the SMH two days before last year’s election: “Latham has confirmed his position as the alternative prime minister of the nation. He has unified the ALP, he has given it heart, and even more importantly he has given it direction.”
UPDATE XVII. Mark Latham: “If you ever wondered was Jeff Kennett an idiot, the confirmation is the answer is ‘yes’.”
UPDATE XVIII. Margaret Simons, before the election: “Latham’s arrival on the political scene has brought an end to the fictions that have dominated politics for the past 10 years. Whatever lies ahead and whether or not Mark Latham wins government, we have at last arrived in our present.”
UPDATE XIX. Mark Latham on his marriage to first wife Gabrielle Gwyther: “Huge error, huge error. Obviously the worst thing I ever did in my life.”
UPDATE XX. The Australian: “Mark Latham’s vicious comments on two of his former colleagues, Kim Beazley and Kevin Rudd, are distasteful and wrong.”
UPDATE XXI. Mark Latham: “All those sick puppies in the Labor Party, I’m happy to leave them behind.”
UPDATE XXII. Chris Sheil: “The story about Gough strikes me as remarkably precious, and his response outright spiteful.”
UPDATE XXIII. Mark Latham: “I think Labor would have a good chance at the next election with say Julia Gillard as the Labor leader.”
UPDATE XXIV. Mark Bahnisch: “Latham should have written his book to get it out of his system and not published it ... Who would ever give him a job now seeing how he treats colleagues?”