David declines to comment on what this sad episode tells us about the ALP as an institution. Surely, David, it's time to say, as Mark Latham concluded a few years ago, that Labor is now "beyond reform, beyond repair". It is nothing but a stepping stone to careers for people like Bitar. There is nothing else there.

It would be good to hear more people from the Labor camp come clean, like Latham, and acknowledge that it is a dead institution.

Vern Hughes