The apathy of the Australian people about politics is undeniable. Most people do not care about politics, it's 'I'm alright Jack'. Howard understand and exploits this beautifully. Just create a bit of fear and a feeling that he alone will keep us safe from interest rates and terrorists, and John is your uncle. Gives him a free hand to satisfy the wishes of those who really control things: big business.

Do any of our current political leaders, state or federal, Liberal or Labor, really want to make Australia fairer and more decent as well as prosperous? Would they know how to go about it?

Will any politician bring about a fair, decent Australia unless they bring about tax reform with an agenda for social justice? By introducing union-busting industrial laws? By allowing concentration of media ownership? And do the great Australian public really care about these issues as the ones that affect them most, and understand what should be done?

For all their faults, Latham & Keating gave glimmers of having the ability to know and do what it takes to make Australia fairer and more decent for all. Hard to think of anyone else who has shown something of that ability or desire.

Mr Latham is ill. I think that much is clear.What made him so ill is less clear.
Perhaps it was the realisation that he had misread the Australian electorate so badly.
He naively thought it was an electorate that valued truth,community,and a fair go for all.
Perhaps he had recently read ' Thier a Wierd Mob' and thought Australia and Australians were still like that.
To wake up the morning after the Oct. 05 election must have been a real shock.
To realise that the electorate,didnt mind that thier Leader was a habitual liar, so long as they had low intrest rates, makes many of us sick to the stomach. Unfortunately for Mark and his already troubled stomach, his head was affected as well. I hope he gets well soon. For all his faults, nobody will ever sustain an arguement that he was a bigger liar than our current PM.

The political / media fortress is a bastion against any truly new ideas or political philosophies. Together they hold debate within narrow confines that serve to maintain the so-called "correct" view of the world.

Latham (beaten and dispirited maybe), lit a fire against the bastion using the only thing he had for kindling. Himself.

For my money, it was an honourable thing to do.

Latham is by definition old news: while there remains a story about and behind his crash and burn demise it will require more forensic investigation than australian media is prepared to undertake; It is unlikely we will ever fully understand or know what really lies behind his bitterness or on going rage - one poster has suggested he is unwell and I suspect that is the case.

Lathan opened several old ALP wounds and to the ALPs shame they have largely been left open and weeping - but that could be the sum total of his contribution - for a brief moment showed signs of being a political visionary but he failed to translate into real politik some of the innovation he displayed in his writings - the machine men got in the way.

His optimism was cruelled paradoxically by the system that nurtured him - a party of favors, elephantine memories where revenge is food for many of their souls - if anything Latham was used and would continue be used by the machine that promoted him. He was destined to come to a sticky end one way or the other.

THe electorate took a shine to his brashness but at the end of the day he really only offered more of the same - his intenion was not so much as Stephens put it over come the effects of prolonged prosperity but to create more wheels for economic hamsters - that was his ladder of opportunity.

The point about Latham being "old news" is, of course, fairly obvious ... but in so dismissing Latham isn't there the temptation of succumbing all-too-quickly to the media's own determination of what is timely and what isn't? Noam Chomsky (ok, I'm not a big fan, but on this point he was accurate) commented some time ago that the very formal limitations that the media imposes on commentary (e.g., timeliness, brevity, and so on) shapes the character of the news. This was obvious the other day on ABC radio's AM programme, when Mark Colvin was interviewing a Middle East specialist who is conversant with the main players in Hamas: Colvin kept trying to reign in his articulate and well-informed analyses of the situation by trying to reduce the matter to Hamas' opposition to Israel's existence and other hackneyed lines. In our superficial and idiotic time, Nietzsche had it right: perhaps the most timely comments are those that are resolutely untimely!

THe point I tried to make - perhaps some what badly was that while there is more to Lathams demise than meets the eye the media will not pursue it - and the public will not clamour for it; the media still determine what is and what is not news.

The average punter, even if enlightened by facts gathered from trawling the internet for arguments sake will not on his or her own have much leverage on the populat press - so Latham remains unnoticed until he beats up another cameraman.

You may well be right about Latham being right and the electorate being wrong - but it sems to be an error we are collectively happy to live with. That is life on the run trying to sustain the prosperity you spoke of; hence detailed analysis of much other than property prices, the all ordinaries and the Dow Jones is really too hard and time consuming.
Rgds Kym Durance