Oz Politics Blog

Latham may want to cite that other Mark – Twain, that is – “The rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” The rumours may be exaggerated, but they are unceasing and they appear to have the tinge of prophecy about them.

I love this end of the political life cycle. The journalists excel themselves with hyperbole high in bitch factor. What follows are some of the more charming quotes from the last few days in the media.

According to Michael Costello, Latham is a dead parrot.

The thing about political dead parrots is that their supporters stoutly maintain that they are not dead at all. In the words of the immortal Monty Python television sketch, their parrot is not dead — just “resting”, or “pining” or “stunned”. The rest of the world, however, knows that in the words of the purchaser of the parrot in that sketch: “He’s not pining! He’s passed on! This parrot is no more! This is an ex-parrot!!”

For Costello, Latham’s fundamental post election problem is that he “cannot bring himself to say without qualification that he accepts responsibility.” Costello asserts that Latham blames others for the electoral defeat - the Labor premiers, a Liberal scare campaign, trade union leaders in Tasmania - because “he doesn’t believe that he is responsible. He believes he did extremely well.” Now that sounds like a textbook definition of hubris.

Gregory Hywood’s analysis of Latham’s failings is much the same, even if Hywood is among the few who argue the rumours of Latham’s death are exaggerated.

Latham’s name is now barely mentioned at senior party gatherings and then only in scathing terms. His perceived arrogance, lack of consultative skills, and tactical mismanagement of the election campaign have, after a net loss of seats, left him swinging in the vicious winds of ALP politics.

Michelle Grattan is in the same territory. “Mark Latham is a dead leader walking, burning in a fire of his own making.”

Latham is not stupid. He must know a few basic facts as well as anyone. One: a large section of caucus sees him as the man warming the seat until the next leader emerges. Two: his chances of welding this Opposition into a united team are minimal. Three: even if he could, the prospects of winning the next election are very limited. Four: caucus, which is already jack of him, would not tolerate him around for six years.

Dennis Shanahan said “Mark Latham is damaged goods, and most of the damage is self-inflicted. Ever since the election loss, Latham’s behaviour has antagonised those who didn’t support him for the leadership, and disappointed those who did.”

David Broadbent had this gem,

One senior member of the Bracks Government declared the Latham-Beazley contest had been an IQ test for the federal party. It remains a matter of wonderment that 51 per cent of our federal MPs failed… Never mind all that stuff about the so-called roosters; when they chose Latham, the turkeys voted for Christmas.

In what can only be described as understatement, Bob Carr said Latham will still be in the job come Christmas.

I have been in Townsville for the last few days, so there have been no blogs.

Antony Green emailed me to say his Western Australia Election site is up and running.

You have got to wonder about all the Latham coverage in today’s papers. Is this the beginning of the end for Mark?

The Australian has the latest Newspoll results.

The poll found the Coalition’s primary vote was at 46 per cent, compared with 38 per cent for Labor.

Overall, the Coalition held a 53 per cent to 47 per cent lead over Labor, the Newspoll found.

Some good news for the Prime Minister and some bad news for the Leader of the Opposition:

The poll shows that almost as many voters are dissatisfied with Mr Latham’s performance as satisfied.

Forty-two per cent of voters questioned said they were satisfied with his performance - a drop of eight percentage points since just before the October 9 election.

The number of dissatisfied voters rose in the same period from 31 per cent to 39 per cent.

Prime Minister John Howard also increased his lead over Mr Latham as preferred prime minister, 57 per cent to 27 per cent.

The number of voters satisfied with Mr Howard’s performance rose four percentage points since just before the election, to 57 per cent, while the number of dissatisfied voters dropped from 41 per cent to 33 per cent.

Over at the mother ship I will update the poll graphs later this week.

Courtesy of the Australian Federal Police, we now have the benefit of the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions’ opinion:

none of the versions of the conversations related by any of the witnesses can amount to an ‘offer to give or confer’ a benefit. Further there is no evidence in this material of Mr Maguire having conspired with any other person to make an offer to Mr Windsor.

These are pretty strong words really. This is not a case of something dodgy may have happened but we just cannot pin it. Rather, it is a case of no matter who you talk to, no crime was committed. None of the versions of the story from any of the witnesses amounted to a crime.

I said yesterday the jury should still be out on this one. Well I think it’s now time to return a “not guilty” verdict for Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson and Senator Sandy Macdonald.

It looks very much like it was all an over-reaction and poor political judgment from Tony Windsor in the face of some very frank advice from Greg McGuire. Some might say Windsor had a case of, “if you don’t like the message shoot the messenger.”

Perhaps it is now time for Windsor to say, “Opps, sorry”.

Don’t you just hate it when commentators add the word ‘gate’ (as in Watergate) to the end of a word to connote a political crisis. Even some in the blogsphere have used this cheapie. From my reading of the tea leaves we are a long way off a political crisis.

On Friday, Greg McGuire (the so called intermediary) made his statement. He sided with John Anderson and Sandy Macdonald against Tony Windsor. This was not surprising. If he had sided with Windsor, McGuire would have admitted his part in a bribery scandal. The worst case scenario for such an admission would be two years gaol and a $5000 fine. With these disincentives, we cannot take McGuire’s word as conclusive proof. He may well be telling the truth (I do not know); but if the scandal was on, he sure has an incentive to lie.

In my view, the jury of public opinion should still be out. Calls for Windsor to apologise to Anderson are premature. Critically, we have not heard from the two witnesses who were with Windsor when McGuire spoke to him. However, the police have heard them. It will be enlightening to see what the police and the Director of Public Prosecutions recommend when they finish their investigations.

While the jury might be out, it can be instructive to consider the possible explanations for the events as we know them.

I find it hard to believe that Windsor has completely concocted his story. Why would he lie to Parliament? If we accept Windsor’s story as a reasonably accurate account of a conversation with McGuire, I can think of three possible scenarios to explain the event.

My first scenario: it is simply as Windsor has called it. Anderson and Macdonald have been scheming to rid themselves of Windsor and have the seat of New England return to the National Party fold. They decided to offer Windsor a diplomatic posting. It would need to be somewhere nice and inconsequential, perhaps Ireland, Denmark or Canada. To protect themselves, they found a hapless intermediary: enter Greg McGuire.

The second scenario is the rhetorical question misinterpreted for a direct request. There can be no doubt that Anderson and Macdonald coveted the seat of New England for the National Party. It is entirely possible they spoke their frustrations, “What can we do to be rid of Windsor?” It is also possible that McGuire acted on such vague rhetorical statements of frustration as if they where more substantial direct requests.

The parallel from history is Henry II, who in 1170 was fed up with the actions of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket. Henry allegedly shouted in rage at his nobles, “What sluggards, what cowards have I brought up in my court, who care nothing for their allegiance to their lord. Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?” Soon after, four of Henry’s knights went to Canterbury with a band of armed men and murdered Becket.

The third scenario is that the conversation between McGuire and Windsor occurred much as Windsor recalled, but that McGuire was lying about being an emissary of Anderson and Macdonald. It was McGuire who wanted Windsor to resign and he embellished the request to give it gravitas.

Of these three options I find the first the least plausible. While I cannot rule out this scenario, I do not think Anderson is by nature corrupt. After all, he has mused about leaving the Parliament to become an Anglican priest. Yet, I do not have enough information to form a view as to which of my second and third scenarios is the better explanation (or indeed, if there is some other scenario I have not considered).

Having considered the possible explanations, its time to consider the lessons in this story.

Windsor has been the most damaged by the story to date. I am not surprised. His statements have shown a distinct lack of political judgement. He went out on a limb without ensuring the key witness in his story would back him up. Without backup, this story was always going to end in a version of “he said” versus “she said”. This is a political loser. While you might be outraged by duplicity (as you see it), if you haven’t got the witnesses lined up before you go public, it could easily backfire. Unfortunately, in the real world, truth and justice are separable.

Some have suggested that Windsor’s statements were clever in another context. The real target was not Anderson and Macdonald, but the NSW parliamentary seat of Dubbo, which had a by-election on the weekend. The by-election contest was between the National Party and an independent candidate. As it happens, the independent won. The conspiracy theorists would assert that it was helped with a little mud being thrown by Windsor.

Given the choice between conspiracy theory and a cock-up theory, I will almost always chose cock-up before conspiracy. My suspicion is that Windsor allowed his heart to over-rule his head. His enmity and loathing for Anderson, Macdonald and all things National Party fooled his better judgement. He launched into a political challenge without holding the trump card. He breached the maxim: You don’t start a process unless you know where it will end.

Although we still do not know who is lying, Windsor’s bad judgement has left him with some of the egg on his face (at least for the moment).