Political Corrections

with Mungo MacCallum

Chasing Latham loses sight of big picture

An old and wise friend whose political instinct I trust insists that I note down April 1 as a key date in the political year - the date the Iraq issue went sour on John Howard. "From now on," he said confidently, "lines about how we must finish the job in Iraq will only make it worse for the government."

If he is right - and he has a pretty good record - this is truly diabolical news for the Coalition. Howard has made our participation in Iraq the centrepiece in our part in the war against terrorism which, linked to the fading campaign on border protection, is the whole basis of his appeal to national security. If he loses that, he has lost his political trousers. All that is left is the economy - seldom a winner in its own right. If it doesn't translate into attractive social policy - and in Howard's case it demonstrably doesn't - the voters tend to take it for granted.

Howard is now preparing a last minute spending splurge (leak to The Sydney Morning Herald) combined with huge ongoing tax cuts (leak to The Australian.) But whether this will be enough to change direction after three years of telling the electorate that security is the only thing that matters is a very open question.

Once again, he has only himself to blame. Having seized on Latham's impetuous pledge to have the troops home by Christmas, he was doing quite nicely along the lines that the policy was populist, ill-thought out, selfish, short term and (of course) UnAustralian. It was a simple message, and one that resonated with the voters, even as they winced at the pictures of the scenes of slaughter and mutilation at Fallujah.

Even the revelation that the Australian contingent was so limited that it had to be supplemented with mercenaries to guard Australian civilians involved in the reconciliation was, in a way, comforting; if our contribution was on the smaller side of token, then there probably wasn't much risk in keeping it there.

But last week Howard's obsession with destroying Latham on the floor of parliament may well have swung opinion the other way. The Prime Minister was so desperate to discredit his nemesis that he effectively dropped his bundle. The entire parliamentary week was devoted to an increasingly shoddy "Get Latham" exercise which, in the end, failed.

In the process Howard, the self-styled political conservative, broke convention after convention and at the very least compromised the integrity of the nation's intelligence services. In terms of Australia's national interest, it was unforgivable. In terms of political strategy, it was just bloody silly. Even for his supporters, it was a week that added to the doubts about whether he was still up to the job. For less charitable observers, it was simply further proof that the man is losing his marbles. Howard's rush of blood was probably triggered by the opening lines of Latham's speech in response to Howard's motion to oppose the withdrawal of troops:

"It is always sad to see a politician in the twilight of his career thrashing about for an issue," Latham said. From then on the issue was not the troops, but Latham himself; and when Howard thought he saw a loophole in Latham's credibility, he jumped right into it. A week earlier Howard's rotten, lousy disgrace of a foreign minister, Alexander Downer, had said that Latham had refused a briefing on Iraq from the Department of Foreign Affairs. Now Howard repeated the line; Latham said in fact he had had two briefings, from Foreign Affairs and from Defence. Howard said triumphantly there was no record; Latham gave dates and said intelligence officers from the two departments were involved.

Howard then sent for the files, demanding to know not only who had conducted the briefings, but what was said - an unprecedented breach of what has always been a confidential process. He then revealed the organisations involved (ASIS and DSD) and the officers who had briefed Latham (David Irvine and Ron Bonighton). He even read their summaries of the briefings out to parliament, something which is never, ever done - all questions about intelligence are traditionally met with a brick wall of "we will neither confirm nor deny." Howard then said Latham was lying because the briefings weren't about Iraq. With ASIS and DSD now well and truly outed, Latham replied that there had been enough in the briefings to make him understand a fair bit about what had been said about Weapons of Mass Destruction, and that the government's Iraq policy was a fiasco, and the sooner we were out the better. For good measure he produced documents to prove the policy of withdrawal was a year old and not made up on the spot, as Howard had claimed.

Howard produced more letters from the hapless Bonighton, rapidly becoming the best known spy since James Bond, which said yes, Iraq was mentioned, but not much. Latham said it was enough. The ABC unearthed a spook friend of Bonighton who said Bonighton was indeed highly sceptical about the WMDs and the way the government had used them, and he might well have told Latham. Bonighton wrote yet another letter to say that he wasn't and he hadn't.

In the confusion most of the original argument was lost: what remained was the image of a prime minister prepared to do and say anything, no matter how mad, bad and dangerous, in order to damage an opponent. Perhaps the last word should go not to Latham, freed from the tricky position as much by Howard's ineptitude as his own bravado, but to a child quoted in Column 8. The perceptive infant allegedly wrote a prayer which began: "Dear God John Houwerrd was very noty to send our soljers to war he dosent think abowt eny body itsept his self ..." Says it all, really.