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Mark Latham

Posted by: Michael Smith | 11 June, 2009 - 12:06 PM

Remember the movie To Catch a Thief?

John Robie is a one-time cat burglar, now reformed and living a blameless life. When a fresh set of burglaries rocks the Riviera all bearing the hallmark of Robie's own robberies, he is the natural suspect. Robie sets out to catch the new burglar himself, mainly to prove his innocence. The title of the movie is derived from the proverb "Set a thief to catch a thief".

Mark Latham once led the Parliamentary Labor Party. Now his main public activity is to deliver a weekly essay on politics in the Australian Financial Review newspaper. I think it’s amongst the best political commentary in the country.

Latham’s columns have the ring of unadorned truth about them. He’s probably settling a few scores publicly - but his stuff is nonetheless compelling.

His effort today in the AFR explains a lot about him and other politicians.

I’ll quote a bit of it.

"When I worked for Gough Whitlam in the 1980s he explained to me that one of the purposes of his office was to 'milk the system' - that is, to make the most of his publicly funded entitlements as a former prime minister, of which there were many.

"Regrettably, milking the system has become a regular part of Labor’s culture. Long gone are the frugal living conditions and working-class values of John Curtin and Ben Chifley. Labor Party prime minsters are now multi-millionaires who accept gifts from used car salesmen. Labor talks a lot about working families but most of its MPs are working hard on the high life. Their favoured form of infrastructure is the gravy train.

Latham asks "why else would members of the executive government with high salaries and generous entitlements fail to purchase their own vehicles, accommodation, sport-tickets and other entertainment tidbits, and instead, rely on handouts from the corporate sector?"

As Latham makes clear - Labor has lost its way. The Labor Party of old was a party of working people who looked out for each other. It’s been perverted by power and sound-byte politics to suit modern mass media.

No wonder we lose faith in our leaders.

Blog comments

Mark, you must fell as if you are pushing it uphill, but you are the hope of the side. Keep it up!

James Brown Monday 2 January, 2012 - 4:11 PM
Hey Big Fellah, hows it going this week; If I may indulge and say a few words re former Labour Party Leader, Mark Latham and tender some quotes - from himself and Smithy "When I worked for Gough Whitlam in the 1980's one of the purposes of his office was to milk the system, i.e. to make the most of the publicly funded entitlements; further milking the system has become a regular part of Labours culture and gone are the frugal living conditions of the likes of Curtin and Chifley etc. etc. etc.

Then yourself in "Your Say".
"I think its best if we just ignored Mark Latham and hope that he goes away. Why media outlets (especially supposedly reputedly ones like the Financial Review) continue to give him oxygen is beyond me".
And finally Phil - Springwood
(on the Bligh Government). Not what the Labour Party can do for the People of Queensland but what the People can do for it (the Labour Party M's P.).

That ole Gravy Train just keeps on rollin, rollin, rollin.

As I said previously I have no doubt that there are some honest men and women, tried and true, within the Labour Party, but unfortunately they will not be heard; Please name me one of this current crop of "elitist members" of Parliament, Local, State or Federal who are in it for the People - the electorate -
and not for themselves. The silence is deafening, the Labour Party has lost its way and is now headed in a new direction - its called implosion.

Phil - Springwood Monday 15 June, 2009 - 5:26 AM
Mark who? Who cares! I am not a laborite but I have a healthy cynicism of both sides of Politics. For Labor to walk away from one their key ideals in relation to the "Fire Sale" all Anna Bligh has proven is that a female can be just as dishonest and manipulative as a male policitician. Can someone please admit to voting for her!

Rob Friday 12 June, 2009 - 4:55 PM
Latham"s self destructing was the reason he left politics, if there were more Politicians that showed their true faces all the time not just when they couldn't get their hairdryers or the right coloured meals we wouldn't be in the mess that we are in now. I really can't see much difference between Latham and Rudd other than the fact that Rudd hides his true colours more successfully

Gayle Thursday 11 June, 2009 - 6:02 PM
The Premiers recently planned then cancelled trip to Russia, Spain and UAE to find jobs for Queenslanders is a perfect example of what you are saying Smithy. The Premier was asked on many occasions for the itinerary, she said repeatedly she would give us the details then when it was becoming obvious that there was no legitimate reason for the trip, swine flu came to the rescue and the trip was cancelled. If this trip was so important to jobs, why do we hear nothing further, we have excellent staff in our foreign embassies and we hear nothing. The Premier can not blame us for our judgement of her. I would prefer that our politicians got paid a lot more and we had a lot less of them. I would also like a better system so politicians do not have to resort to scamming the public purse, then give us lame reasons for doing so. We recognize honesty and we know when politicians are lying. After the last period of flood the Premier said that we will now need to have a fire sale of Qld assets. I assume private insurance would have paid for most of the damage. We knew the deficit, 75billion, going into the election, the fire sale was obvious from the announcement of that date to all those people who believe 2 plus 2 equals 4, for all the others who believe 2 plus 2 equals 7, well we know who they voted for.

Albert Thursday 11 June, 2009 - 1:48 PM
The Irony of Mark Latham's comments are they come from one that worked within the same boundaries, whether he is now saying them to settle a score is immaterial , they will only be seen by a minority of the voters and as such will not really effect the Labor party one jot.
It would be interesting to know how many labor voters read the financial review, until comments such as Latham's are broadly publicized we could be going through the same hassles in four years time, hopefully Smithy your blog will get it further out in the public domain than the financial review can.

Gayle Thursday 11 June, 2009 - 1:27 PM