Political Corrections

with Mungo MacCallum

You want garbage? You can't handle the garbage!

At least we know now why Mark Latham appeared to go over the top about inquiries into his past; just because you're paranoid it doesn't mean that you're not being persecuted.

Last week so-called political journalism in Australia hit a new low in its investigations into the Labor leader. To be precise, it hit two new lows. The first, predictably, came from the man the Liberals call their greatest asset, Alan Jones, who asked Latham for an interview about his policy. The request was a lie; when Latham turned up all Jones wanted to talk about was the rumours about his past, using disinformation based on an anonymous phone call and the collected works of the Daily Telegraph's resident hatchet man Piers Akerman - works which Latham claims (and Akerman and Jones do not deny) largely originated in the bowels of the Liberal Party.

Nasty as this was, it was pretty much par for the course; by going anywhere near the Jones-Akerman axis of innuendo Latham must have known the risks he ran. But what followed, as they say in the ads, was totally unexpected.

On Saturday The Sydney Morning Herald emerged with what was billed as a profile of Latham. It was nothing of the kind. It did not deal with his ideas, achievements, policies or vision at all and it barely touched on his career in parliament. Instead, it regurgitated every rumour it could find relating to what the Americans call "character" - by which they mean a kind of puritan morality, especially in regard to sex.

The piece was both grubby and impertinent. It was the sort of journalism you'd prefer to handle with tongs; Akerman would have been proud of it. It was also grossly unbalanced - unless we're going to see a similar muck-raking exercise on the life and times of John Winston Howard next week, which is not very likely. However, just in case, may I suggest a few lines of inquiry the intrepid investigators Damien Murphy and Deborah Hope might like to follow, along the same pattern they employed while digging the dirt on Latham.

For starters, Howard's brief legal career included stints with Stephen Jacques and Stephen and with Truman, Nelson and Howard. Let's talk to his bosses: how competent was he? Was he involved in any serious cases or was he just a nondescript little clerk? Did they entrust him with the keys to the safe? How did his fellow employees feel about him? Did the women find him a bit creepy? Did he ever try and trap them by the water cooler?

Then there are his political colleagues. Why do all - not some, but all - of the Liberal leaders under whom he served loathe him? Why do they call him, variously, treacherous, untrustworthy, racist, pig-headed, short-sighted, dishonest, stupid and vicious? And that's just the people on his own side. What are the fatal flaws that bring him into such contempt among his own peer group?

Then there are the parties he used to throw in his office on the old Parliament House, events which gained some notoriety as "Howard's meat markets." Numbers of young female staffers were lured to these functions for the delectation of lonely members. Howard was effectively acting as a procurer, as a pimp. How does he feel about promoting promiscuity, adultery, marriage break up, unintended pregnancies and abortions?

And what of his own activities? For a time he shared a flat with Warwick Parer, a minister he unconscionably and inexplicably forgave for a blatant conflict of interest. Did Parer witness something he shouldn't have during those years? Were there overnight visitors? Did Howard ever suggest that one of his Treasury staffers might like to get a feel of the private sector?

And can he explain the rumours that the real reason the Howards stayed in Kirribilli House rather than move to The Lodge was that Janette did not trust him alone in Canberra? So: has Howard ever had sex with anyone other than his wife? And while we're at it, could he explain the precise nature of his relationship with Barbara Williams?

Confronted with such an interrogation our beloved Prime Minister would undoubtedly say that he would not dignify it with acknowledgement, let alone answers, and he would be perfectly within his rights to do so. But this was just the kind of sludge the Herald expected Latham to wade through to justify his credentials as a political leader. A garbage proposition, and garbage journalism to match.

And while we're on the subject of garbage, last week Howard returned to the concept of the headland speech, the idea he employed to avoid discussing policies for his first term in 1996. The term for the oration in which he avoided discussing policy for his fourth term was "over the horizon;" it could equally have been called "round the bend," or perhaps "off the planet."

Its theme was that Howard was looking to create in Australia an enterprise culture, a sustainable continent, and a fair and decent society - well, after eight and a half years it's about time. Just why he had not attempted these laudable ideals to date, or how he was going to move on them in the future was not part of the speech. He did, however, deplore the "coarsening" of our culture, which included road rage, misconduct on football clubs and death of cricketer David Hookes.

Curiously, the breakdown of all traditional standards of political ethics over which he has lovingly presided did not get a mention. But that, of course, is something for his successors to clean up. Over the horizon indeed - just not on Howard's radar.