Mr. Mark Latham and the labor party.(The Latham Diaries)(Book review)

• Author: Stone, John
• Position: 143722961
• Pages: 40(9)

Although only published last September, The Latham Diaries, by former Labor leader Mark Latham, has sunk almost entirely from public mention. Yet the book remains one of the most significant works published in Australia this year, and a "must read" for anyone interested in the future (or the recent past) of Australian politics.

 "To adapt Dr. Johnson's famous--though, in these politically correct

days, no longer frequently quoted--dictum about a woman preaching,

it is not so much that Mr. Mark Latham's book is well done, as that one is surprised to see it done at all."

You might think that this quote refers to The Latham Diaries. (1) In fact, it represents the opening paragraph of my Adelaide Review article, more than seven years ago, reviewing an earlier book of Mr. Latham's, Civilising Global Capital. (2) In preparing to review Mr. Latham's recent book, I turned up that earlier appraisal.

"The increasingly well-known Labor member for Werriwa appears, at the [then] age of 37, to have been in politics all his adult life. After an Economics Honours degree at Sydney University in 1982, he served on ex-Prime Minister Gough Whitlam's staff for five years before becoming, in turn, a Councillor and then Mayor of Liverpool Council (1987-94), and was then pre-selected for his safe Labor seat (held earlier by Mr. Whitlam) in the January, 1994 by-election after the resignation of Mr. Whitlam's successor, Mr. John Kerin ... Mr. Latham is thus an example of that increasingly common phenomenon on both sides of Australian politics today--young men, and increasingly women, who enter Parliament without ever having engaged in anything much else than politics. With respect to all concerned, that is not a good training for presiding over the lives of ordinary Australians; and in this book, that shows." (3)

If there is one lesson above all from The Latham Diaries, it is encapsulated in that last sentence. Whatever else Mr. Latham's career may have demonstrated, his diaries make it clear beyond all doubt that it was "not a good training for presiding over the lives of ordinary Australians". And "in this book, it shows" over and over again. Yet this was the man whom, in December 2003, the Australian Labor Party elected to lead it; the man who thereby became overnight the darling of almost all our media; and the man who, but for the grace of God and John Howard, might well have become our Prime Minister in the 2004 federal election.

I should acknowledge, however, that that earlier review did not divine --because we had not then been given the evidence for it, now so abundantly available--the wholly unsavoury nature of the man.

When The Latham Diaries first appeared (foreshadowed by first a trickle, then a torrent, of "teaser" leaks from either Mr. Latham himself or his publishers, Melbourne University Press), a frisson of horror ran through Australia's commentariat, for two reasons.

First, politically Left-leaning almost to a man or woman, they were appalled that "their" Labor Party should be under such savage attack by the man who, until eight months previously, had been its leader. After all, only a year earlier they had done their damnedest to press upon the electorate his claims to become Prime Minister.

Second, as further details became available, the even more horrifying truth dawned that Latham's attack was directed not only at his Party and almost everyone in it, but also (and to the commentariat even more importantly) at them! How could this be? How could loyalty be so bitterly--and worse still, in many respects so truthfully--rewarded?

These, then, were the two aspects that concerned the commentariat. They rapidly led to the emergence of its more or less common "line" that the book was repellent (which in many respects it is), overtly dishonourable (again, true) and not worthy of serious attention (quite untrue, for reasons I shall come to). But while there is much in both aspects which is truly unsavoury, and which has opened its author to easily available attack by his former supporters in the Canberra Press Gallery, there is nevertheless a further aspect of the book. Encompassing a view shared by few among the commentariat, it is summed up in the title of that 1998 review, A Curate's Egg.

When I first read the more or less sensational press reports arising from The Latham Diaries, my first instinct was to feel that this was a book I would not bother to read. However, as it became apparent that so many of the critics were principally motivated (though this was never admitted) by their desire to protect "their" Labor...