Ah pale why do I bother? do you understand from my past posts that once I thought Latham was the very future of the ALP?
I lived on his Webb page and re posted his every word in a newsletter I did for workers at home.
I thought I had found the answer to Labors factionalism and its future directions.
I feared his early gaining of the leadership, and his alliance with that dreadful man Simon Crean.
And just maybe I was right.
In any event he was at best a shadow of the man he told us he was.
His talk of brave new plans and directions , a fog, a nothing ness, he at the end took his advice from those he always said hurt the party more than they helped.
Months before he destroyed my party and my country's IR system with his gift to Howard it was clear to those who do not just dream but understand politics he had zero plans for us and zero chance of victory.
Hiding during the tsunami was not as a result of illness it was standard practice for this man who had his whole life in politics handed to him and remains bitter still that he was unable to do anything with it.
I however agree Queensland is facing what other states did long ago, less councils driven by personal needs of builders, real estate people and developers a good thing less councils and less crimes against rate payers.
The day my council is taken over will be a victory for rate payers and a loss for self interested councilors.

Belly,

Your cases both against Mark Latham and in favour of forced amalgamations remain unconvincing. You have not addressed any of the points I have made in my posts about either.

The fact that you once actively supported Mark Latham holds little weight IMHO. There are plenty of people in politics, with shallow levels of commitment, who are willing to climb aboard political bandwagons, only to make themselves scarce once the going gets rough.

If you were so actively involved with Mark Latham's camapaign, why won't you show where anything he has written in his book was wrong? Presumably you have a copy of "The Latham Diaries" and it would be take little effort on your part to show where he was factually wrong if you are correct in what you write.

Why hold Latham solely responsible for the defeat of 2004, when so many others within the Labor Party clearly acted against the interests of the Labor Party prior to the 2004 elections?

What of his account of his attempt to get Steve Bracks to honour his promise to build the Scoresby Freeway?

Tuesday 27 April 2004 (The Latham Diaries, page 238)

"Nothing to cheer me up in Melbourne, least of all our meeting with Bracks this morning accompanied by Faulkner, Crean and McMullan. We tried to get him to reverse his broken promise on the Scoresby Freeway. He went to the last state election promising a freeway and, as soon as he won, announced a tollway. No wonder people hate politics and politicians. Bracks has broken his promise hoping that the odium will wear off by the next state election.

"But we're copping the fallout electorally - disastrous polling right through the eastern suburbs. We can kiss goodby to any hope of winning La Trobe, Deakin, Aston or Dunkley, and Anna Burke will be lucky to hang on in Chisholm. I may as well not bother campaigning in the marginal seat belt of Melbourne.

(tobecontinued)

(continuedfromabove)

"Bracks, however, was unmoved, even when Faulkner put it right on him: 'The stakes are high in what we are talking about. You need to know Steve, this could mean the difference between forming a forming a Federal Labor Government and falling a few seats short. You need to think about how history will see that'. Yes, a day of deep and abiding Labor history as Bracks refused to help, not budging an inch. Sat there like a statue, that silly grin on his face."

Note that Latham's predictions were sadly borne out. He and Federal Labor paid the consequences for Bracks' dishonesty with the Victorian public, whilst Bracks was re-elected in 2006 largely as a consequences of the revulsion against the outrages of the Howard Government that he helped to get re-elected in 2004. I believe that Beattie is playing the same cynical game in 2007, although, this time, obviously in an more overt and spectacular fashion.

---

On the forced amalgamations, if you are convinced that the councillors, who are opposed to the amalgamations are only motivated by the needs of 'builders, real estate people and developers and real estate people', then why can't they trust the people in these shires to decide for themselves, by allowing them to vote in a referendum to coincide with the next federal election? Surely Peter Beattie, who we all know to be a resolute opponent of developers, real estate sharks an land speculators, would have no difficulty in convincing the majority of people in these shires of the merits of his case?

In reality, the situation is the complete opposite. It is Beattie and his government who are for the developers and against the interests of local residents and it is those councillors who most resolutely oppose the amalgamations who are defending their communities.

The Big Engine That Could - A Tale of the Days of Steam, continued 2.

Not only did Gordy have feelings, he had a quiet pride in what he did. He pulled himself, and seven carriages, every night around a new rail loop servicing the Kurnell Peninsula and the giant seawater desalination plant that was already abuilding at its distal extremity. Gordy was a heavy, powerful Pacifier class 4-6-2 locomotive. Which was not to say he was any dummy. He had been designed and built in Australia, by Australians, in the days before political correctness had engendered national self-doubt, and rampant OH&S disease had gripped the country. He knew his limitations, few that they were. All of which combined to make so much of what had happened recently so unbearable.

Gordy had been censored! And he knew it! Two of the first class carriages of his train of thoughts had been decoupled on the Beautiful Tears spur line only the other day, to the utter confusion of the surfing public! This was no way to run an online service, and attract users, thought Gordy, ever one to be looking for the reasoning behind decision-making in the public arena. He was at a complete loss to understand why the information, first class information, carried in those carriages was a matter of such sensitivity: it was effectively a verbatim replication of information available from the Fat Controllers' website. It was of interest to everybody. And it was of great importance to Gordy, too, for it provided visible justification for his dedicated adherence to the timetabling and standing operating procedures of the online service he helped provide.

Gordy looked fixedly across the roundhouse at Graham, a sleek, blue, diesel-electric mainliner fitted with all the latest digital controls, whom he suspected of being quite friendly with some of the Fat Controllers. "You're a count.., you're a count..., you're a count..." said Gordy, who had recently contracted the affliction of stuttering at the most inopportune of times from another engine, Stevie. "You're a country express, ...

TBC

The Big Engine That Could - A Tale of the Days of Steam, continued 3.

... Graham, can you see that I did anything wrong in embarking the passengers I did in those two first class carriages?" Graham, the modern mainliner, however, was unable to point to anything that had happened on the Perfect Tears spur, except, perhaps, for Gordy's rather aggressive tailgaiting of a small rail motor carrying a lone single mum on a visit from the USA. Even in that, however, Gordy had proceeded in accordance with all the signals, and had been personally polite to the tourist, refraining from blowing the whistle right next to her ears.

The time had come for Gordy to leave Wally Heights for the long downhill commute to the new loop line. The lights of the polyethnic megalopolis lay stretched out before him, and he just let gravity do its work and listened to the sybillant musical jinkling of the tender coupling beneath his footplate as he rolled to work: "Mugincoble, libel, litigate, lugubrious, lubricate..." and words like that the coupling seemed to half ring, half mutter, and, before he knew it, he was standing at the first of the new platforms on the loop line.

"Far Kurnell" sang out the turbaned platform attendant. Instinctively, Gordy looked around to see what had gone wrong (so far as a rigid locomotive could 'look around', that is), then sheepishly realizing his mistake, let out a big puff of steam. He still hadn't got used to the new station names, and this one caught him out every time. Then "stenkleerdorsclosing", and he was under way again, staff in hand, on the single track line to the next station, Towkesville. Chuff. Chuff chuff. Chuff chuff chuff chuff, chuff chuff chuff chuff, Gordy repeated to himself, ever faster and faster. He was revelling in being able to use a word that was not an anthropomorphic simile and yet described exactly what he was doing. At work, doing what he did best, Gordy was definitely chuffed!

But what Gordy really wanted was his two carriages back on line.

Be careful Forrest only the letter T separates a Wit from a Twit