THE MENACE OF MARK?

And like the first cuckoo of spring I have received my first e-mail accusing me of being a public relations mouthpiece for the Howard Government. The fact that John Howard refused to talk to me on radio even once during the last Federal election – or since -- seems to have been overlooked.

I breathlessly await the Liberal cuckoos accusing me of being a Labor lackey.

At the risk of sending people fervently to their typewriters I intend to look at political issues again today. As we will in the weeks ahead of this marathon election campaign which really started last year when Mark Latham narrowly defeated a comeback attempt by Kim Beazley.

Years ago it was not the Labor leadership in revolving door turmoil but the Liberals. Bob Hawke struck a clever note when he used that turmoil to repeatedly use the quote: “If you can’t run your party, you can’t run the country”.

Today, in newspapers around the country, the Treasurer, PM heir-apparent and Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party, Peter Costello, used a touch of the Hawkies to get stuck into Latham’s credentials and cred.

Rupert Murdoch’s Herald Sun featured the attack under a biased headline: The Menace of Mark.

Costello, who will write weekly for the Murdoch papers, during the election (and there will be a Labor counterpart) says:

“Would Victorians vote for Joan Kirner as Prime Minister after what she did to the Victorian economy? No way. After what Joan Kirner did to Victoria, no one would consider her for higher office.

“Yet Mark Latham had a record every bit as bad when he was the mayor of the Liverpool council. He went on a spending binge that couldn’t be paid for. He left the council after being warned that his deficits were unsustainable.

“He supported property developments that have now collapsed. The council has now collapsed. If you can’t run a council you can’t run a country.”

See. Shades of Hawkie.

And then Costello attacks Latham’s greenhorn record since. He points out that he has never held a full-time job in the private sector. He has never been a minister.

Dirty pool. But it could be effective. As I said the other day, the critical issue here, as people take those final steps into the polling booth, will be ill they stay with the devil they know or chance it with a possible devil they don’t.

Thursday, September 2, 2004

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2004