Political Corrections

with Mungo MacCallum

As clear as mud

John Howard by-passed his first real election deadline at the weekend, with much giggling and sniggering about how much he enjoyed keeping us all guessing.

Actually the more perceptive among us weren't at all surprised: apart from the obvious fact that the polls still aren't really running for the government. Howard had the Prime Minister of Thailand in town for a major photo op, and, far more importantly, Alan Jones is still away on holiday. The merely cynical would take this as a sign that Howard had tipped his great asset off that his talents would not be needed this week; the more conspiratorial may believe that the Parrot had told the PM that he would just have to wait upon his convenience.

Whatever, August 7 was never really a goer. The nervous are now talking of August 23 (which would mean campaigning through the Olympic Games) or perhaps September 4, or maybe September 18. I'm still backing October 30. But undeniably, we are now in full election mode and will remain so until D Day.

Last week in Wollongong an earnest young reporter asked Mark Latham when he was going to start campaigning. It is to the opposition leader's credit that he did not eviscerate the impudent youth on the spot. Instead, he murmured that he thought that's just what he had been doing for six months and moved towards yet another scenic spot to better showcase the enticing visage of Peter Garrett, Labor's new symbol of peace and love.

As readers of the Murdoch press and viewers of Channel Nine will have noticed, the government is stepping up its mud-slinging over Latham's past, hoping to portray him as some kind of psychotic thug. Since most of this was publicised at boring length when Latham became leader last year the feigned expressions of shock and horror are looking a bit shop-worn, but the chief muck raker Ian Hanke, who used to be on the staff of Peter Reith but now works for the terribly Christian Kevin Andrews, continues to trawl the gutters for any dirt that has escaped the media.

The latest selection on Channel Nine at the weekend was largely a rehash, but also contained the well-promoted allegation that Latham has once hit a drunk during an after hours session at the Liverpool campaign office. Latham says that in fact the drunk hit him, but in either case it appears a bit of a beat up, no pun intended. Many of us would like to see Latham becoming a little more aggressive: a list of those he could contemplate king-hitting would include Peter Costello, Tony Abbott, Alexander Downer, Phillip Ruddock and of course John Howard, although it might be sporting to let the old chap take off his glasses first.

Even if Latham doesn't want to go to quite that extent, it is definitely time he got back into the public arena. The rather snide treatment his record received on the Nine program was at least partly because he had refused to talk to the reporter involved; hell hath no fury like a TV tart scorned. After a very free and easy start during which he derided the stage-management that has stultified politics in recent years, Latham is now in danger of falling into the same pattern himself.

To do so would be disastrous: much of his appeal is based on his availability, directness and all round lack of bullshit. He does not need to respond to every bizarre request from the self-important pundits of the media, but at the very least he should avoid being compared unfavourably with the ultra-cosseted Howard, as is starting to happen. It's time to get out there and give them heaps.

And it's not as if there aren't heaps to give them. The fiasco over the payment of the child allowance, with the absurd double standard of allowing some lucky winners to keep their loot while persecuting others for its return, is simply part of a far wider abandonment of elementary financial responsibility.

Independent analysts are now predicting that the government's pre-election profligacy will probably lead to serious economic problems no matter who wins the election; 2005 is shaping as a year of severe belt-tightening, possibly even involving tax hikes to claw back the bribes which are being distributed so lavishly at present. This doesn't make it any easier for Labor to shape its own tax cuts, but at least it should blunt government attacks when the product finally emerges.

Then again, it probably won't. The paranoia of ministers against those they perceive as their enemies is now totally out of control. Last week Downer was once more hacking into the ABC for running a program about Bali he didn't like while Amanda Vanstone whaled into children's author Morrie Gleitzman for writing a book that was unkind about her detention camps. Be alert and alarmed: their jackboots are everywhere.

But not, it would appear, on Guantanamo Bay. Now the US Supreme Court has found that "illegal combatants" David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib actually have rights, one might expect Howard to take long overdue action to protect the Australian citizens. Now even the British have declared that they do not want their citizens tried by military commissions, which they say will not provide a fair hearing. The Americans themselves won't have a bar of them.

But Howard, alone in the world, still trusts the Pentagon. No matter what the courts may find, no matter what dishonesty and mistreatment are uncovered, America remains his country, right or wrong. No wonder Bush wants you to vote for him.