Latham, Labor and the FTA
Sean Carney’s column offers an accurate account of what happened in the Labor caucus last week:
On Thursday of last week, after canvassing widely across the party and the broader Labor movement, [Mark Latham's] inclination was to go with his initial assessment of the FTA, which was that it was not a good enough deal for Australia and should be opposed by Labor.
But the following day, senior colleagues from the pro-American segment of his front bench [that is, Kim Beazley and Stephen Conroy] told him they could not — and perhaps would not — follow him if he went down that road.
Meanwhile, some parts of what might be called the non-Coalition constituency across the national electorate got ready to do what they have done reliably for the past eight years: express outrage that Labor is not anti-Howard enough and bemoan the ALP as an unsupportable pale imitation of the Liberal Party. This was evident in the avalanche of phone calls and emails to the offices of Labor MPs late last week, many of which were threats to withdraw support if Latham came down in favour of the FTA.
[...]
The Labor leader is one unpredictable political creature. At the shadow cabinet meeting on Tuesday morning where Labor’s position was finalised, Latham let rip. In language he has ruled out using in public, he told his frontbenchers that in public life you had to be able to live with yourself, that your view of what was right and what was wrong had to guide your decisions.
This week, he bounced back into contention. In taking a course of action that could lead to the FTA not going through before the election, Latham – who has never really liked the agreement – seems to have at least half-listened to himself.
