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Mark Latham

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Opposition Leader Mark Latham

Mark William Latham (born 28 February 1961), Australian politician, is leader of the federal parliamentary Australian Labor Party and Leader of the Opposition in Australia. He succeeded Simon Crean as leader in December 2003, defeating former leader Kim Beazley in a close vote. Since becoming leader, Latham has introduced an unusual campaign style, choosing to focus on "values" issues, such as reading to children. Early in his leadership, Latham sparked some controversy with a critical opinion of Australia's involvement in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which he has since attempted to moderate. He is now campaigning against Prime Minister John Howard in the 9 October federal election. If successful, he will become Australia's 26th Prime Minister.

Early career

Latham was born in a working-class suburb of south-western Sydney, New South Wales, and was educated at Hurlstone Agricultural High School and at the University of Sydney, where he graduated with a degree in economics. He worked as a research assistant to the former Labor Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, publishing a comprehensive book on Whitlam's government. In 1987 he was elected to the city council of Liverpool, a south-western suburb of Sydney, and was Mayor 1991–94. Latham resigned from the Council due to testicular cancer, which was successfully treated.

Latham's term as Mayor saw radical changes introduced to the council, with large spending on public works, to be paid for by a combination of loans and efficiencies achieved from "outsourcing" many council services. The public works, including libraries, a pedestrian mall, and public art, have been highly praised in accounts of the period. The council's financial management, however, has been the subject of extensive debate, with claims by political opponents that Latham's term left the council nearly bankrupt.

In an article in Quarterly Essay (issue 15), journalist Margaret Simons, who conducted an extensive investigation of the period, concluded that there were real issues in the financial management of the council. These were mostly relating to the drafting of the outsourcing agreements. Simons also notes that most of the allegations come from council members who were sacked for incompetence by the state government.

On June 1 2004 Latham told Parliament that during his time as Mayor he had reduced Liverpool's debt-servicing ratio from 17 percent to 10 percent, which he said was less than half of western Sydney's average. He also said that Liverpool had adopted a debt-retirement strategy that he claimed would have made them debt free by 2005, but which was not implemented by his successors. Councillor Colin Harrington, who Latham defeated during the mayoral elections of 1991, later claimed that these figures were not accurate. The average debt-servicing ratio for western Sydney was 12.1 percent and he said the council's financial staff could find no significant reference to the debt-retirement strategy.

Path to leadership

In January 1994 Latham was elected to the Australian House of Representatives for the Sydney seat of Werriwa, which had been Whitlam's seat 1952–78. He was elected to the Opposition front bench after Labor went into opposition at the 1996 elections, and became shadow Education Minister. After the 1998 elections he resigned from the front bench after a policy dispute with Opposition Leader Kim Beazley. The two remained political enemies after this incident, but have recently made up their differences.

On the backbench, Latham published Civilising Global Capital: New Thinking for Australian Labor (Allen and Unwin, 1998), in which he argued that Labor needed to abandon many of its traditional policies and embrace the aspirational values (home ownership, higher education) of the upwardly-mobile skilled working class and small business class. These views alienated him from many Labor traditionalists, but his aggressive Parliamentary style won him many admirers. He once referred to Prime Minister John Howard as an "arselicker", and as the Liberal Party front bench as a "conga-line of suckholes". [1] He also once characterised George W. Bush as "the most incompetent and dangerous President in living memory". [2]

Latham summed up his approach to politics in a 2002 interview: "I'm a hater. Part of the tribalness of politics is to really dislike the other side with intensity. And the more I see of them the more I hate them. I hate their negativity. I hate their narrowness. I hate the way, for instance, John Howard tries to appeal to suburban values when I know that he hasn't got any real answers to the problems and challenges we face. I hate the phoniness of that." [3]

After Labor's defeat in the 2001 elections, the new Opposition Leader, Simon Crean, brought Latham back to the front bench as Shadow Minister for Economic Ownership. Latham remained loyal to Crean during the leadership challenge from Beazley in June 2003, and in July Crean promoted him to Shadow Treasurer and Manager of Opposition Business in the House of Representatives. This made Latham the heir apparent to the Labor leadership.

In November 2003 Crean experienced a second leadership crisis when senior Labor members told him that he had lost the support of the party and must resign. On 28 November Crean announced his resignation, endorsing Latham to succeed him. On 29 November Latham announced that he would contest the Labor leadership against Beazley.

Party leader

On 2 December 2003, less than ten years after entering Parliament, Latham won the vote for the leadership by 47 votes to 45. At the age of 42, he became the youngest leader of the federal parliamentary Labor Party since its first leader Chris Watson, who became leader in 1901 aged 33.

The government organised quickly to attack Latham, believing that his brash personality and his colourful past made him a broad target. Howard characterised Latham as "Mr Flip-Flop", refering to a character in a children's book. The Treasurer, Peter Costello, attempted to damage Latham's economic credentials by refering to the experimental economic ideas that he had put forward as Shadow Treasurer, such as abolishing negative gearing and replacing the GST with a PET (Progressive Expenditure Tax). Frequent references were made to Latham's temper: he once broke a taxi-driver's arm in a scuffle arising from a fare dispute [4].

On winning the leadership, Latham moved swiftly to heal the rifts in the Labor Party and to moderate his abrasive image. [5] He appointed his predecessor, Simon Crean, as shadow Treasurer. and retained a number of Beazley's supporters in senior positions. In July 2004 Beazely himself was re-elected to the ALP front bench as Shadow Minister for Defence. [6] Latham gave a promise not to use the kind of "crude" language he had employed in the past. He and the party's foreign affairs spokesperson, Kevin Rudd, met the United States Ambassador, Tom Schieffer, to stress Labor's continuing support for the Australian-American alliance [7].

Mark Latham with former Prime Minister Bob Hawke, unveiling a plaque to commemorate the centenary of the first Australian federal Labor government, Melbourne, April 2004

In February 2004 the Australian Labor Party national conference was held in Sydney. During the conference Mark Latham received very positive media coverage [8] and introduced his plans for early childhood literacy. He also put forward plans to reform the Australian education and medical systems. [9] By March Labor had taken the lead over the Coalition in the opinion polls, and Latham had a higher personal approval rating than any Opposition Leader since Bob Hawke in 1983. Commentators began to discuss the serious possibility that Latham could be Prime Minister by the end of the year.

In March, following the Spanish elections, at which the pro-American government was defeated, Latham sparked a new controversy by committing a Labor government to withdrawing Australian troops from Iraq by Christmas. [10] Australia has about 850 troops in Iraq, mostly involved in patrol work and in training members of the new Iraqi defence forces. Prime Minister Howard accused Latham of a "cut and run" approach and of taking an "un-Australian" position. [11] [12]

Towards the 2004 election

Until March 2004 Labor under Latham's leadership held a strong lead in national opinion polls. Latham's commitment to withdraw from Iraq caused a sharp drop in Labor's lead, reflecting continuing support in Australia for the involvement in Iraq. Following the revelations of prisoner abuse in the Abu Ghraib prison, however, Labor's lead increased again, suggesting that support for involvement in Iraq had declined, undermining Howard's position.

In June 2004, Labor's "troops home by Christmas" policy came under fire from U.S. President George W. Bush who at a White House press conference during Howard's visit to Washington described it as "disastrous." [13] Bush's comments raised controversy in Australia over whether Bush was interfering in Australia's domestic political affairs, whether the election of a Latham government would endanger the U.S. alliance, and whether the comments were made with or without Howard's prior knowledge. [14]

Shortly after, Latham announced the recruitment of Peter Garrett, president of the Australian Conservation Foundation and former lead singer with the rock band Midnight Oil, as a Labor candidate in a safe Sydney electorate being vacated by the retiring former minister Laurie Brereton. [15] Most commentators regarded this as a high-risk tactic, seeing the potential advantage to Labor of Garrett's popularity among young people as being offset by the possibility that his record of radical and anti-American statements in the past would offend moderate voters. [16] The second coup scored by Latham was the announcement that he would abolish the generous superannuation schemes available to Members of Parliament: a plan that was quickly adopted by the Howard government. [17]

In July Latham again became the centre of controversy when it was alleged on a commercial television network that he had punched a political rival during his time on Liverpool Council. [18] Latham strongly denied the accusation [19]. On 6 July he called a press conference [20] and denounced the government for maintaining what he called a "dirt unit," which he said was gathering personal material about him, including details of his failed first marriage. The government denied that any such unit existed, [21] but some observers have speculated that Liberal Party researchers have accumulated more potentially embarrassing material about Latham, which will be used during the election campaign, in addition to its claims that Latham is an inexperienced economic manager [22].

From March to August Latham's position in the opinion polls gradually declined, leading to renewed speculation that Howard would call an election. During August Labor had a tactical victory over the government on the issue of the U.S.-Australia Free Trade Agreement, [23], and there were renewed allegations that Howard had lied during about the "children overboard" affair during the 2001 election campaign. By mid-August Labor was again ahead in all three national opinion polls. [24] On 18 August, however, Latham was admitted to a Sydney hospital, where he was diagnosed with pancreatitis [25].

On August 29 Howard announced that the elections would be held on October 9. The first major poll published after the announcement, in The Australian, showed Labor leading the government by 52 percent to 48 percent, but Howard retained his lead over Latham as "prefered Prime Minister."

A televised election debate occured on September 12, with Howard against Latham. Channel Nine, the televisor, provided a "worm" as part of the post-debate analysis (Nine was requested not to show the worm during the screening of the event - Channel Seven had planned to telecast the debate with a worm, but later backed down), showing a win to Latham by 67 percent, to Howard's 33 percent. The outcome of the debate may not be significant — in the previous election, an identical post-debate outcome occured with Kim Beazley against Howard, and Beazley subsequently lost the next election. The effect of the win may also not be significant given that it was held four weeks before the election and that more Australians preferred to watch a musical head to head on Australian Idol [26].

References

Preceded by:
Simon Crean 		Leaders of the
Australian Labor Party 		Followed by:
(still in office)
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