Political Corrections

with Mungo MacCallum

Mad, bad and curious to watch

And once again, with one bound he was free.

Mark Latham's amazing escape from the carefully set trap of the Free Trade Agreement may well have been, as his many critics complained, a stunt; but what a stunt. Like all good tricks, it was completely unexpected; none of the aforementioned critics had a clue that it was coming. And like the very best stunts, its daring and panache produced as much bewildered head shaking as unstinting applause.

From being a ditherer, an equivocator, a compromiser and a dead set loser over the FTA, Latham suddenly emerged as its true champion: the only one who could give Australia the agreement it really wanted, acknowledging the economic advantages while setting in concrete the national interest in culture and pharmaceuticals. Firm but fair, constructive but determined. Or at least, that's the way it played, and in the end Howard had no choice but to grimace and bear it.

His first instinct, to tough out at least the amendment on pharmaceuticals, collapsed in the face of pressure from the big end of town, which just wanted the bloody thing signed and didn't give a damn who got the credit for it, and the stark realisation that if he refused to blink, he might end up fighting an election on Labor's own chosen arena of domestic policy in general and health in particular.

Howard tried to save face by claiming that Latham had actually changed his ground, which he hadn't, and that he didn't really care about making political advantage out of the deal, which he did - mightily: after all it had been the main point of the whole exercise. He went off to spend the weekend in a serious snit at the silly shirt competition known as the South Pacific Forum in Samoa. And then, when he got home, it was only to find 43 retired defence chiefs, diplomats and public service heads denouncing his deception and subservience over the Iraq war.

The group's spokesman, General Peter Gration, said rather naively that Howard could not just dismiss the collective knowledge and experience they represented. Oh yeah? In the mood he was in, Howard could have dismissed a deputation of saints and archangels led by Jesus Christ himself.

The Prime Minister said that, with all respect (another lie) all of the 43 had left office before September 11, 2001, when the world had changed (since that date deception and subservience were apparently not only acceptable, but positively de rigueur). This made them, well, irrelevant, especially as some of them had been (shock! horror!) critical of him in the past. At least he resisted the temptation to describe them as chardonnay-quaffing, latte-sipping, chattering elites.

Alexander Downer, still waving his cap and bells, pointed out gravely that all 43 were retired; well, yes. They could hardly have taken a public stance against the government if they were still in the public service. In the interests of free and frank discussion perhaps Downer might like to offer a public amnesty to all those employees of his Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade wishing to go public on government policy and indeed on his own performance as minister. Well, perhaps not.

By sheer coincidence, shadow minister Craig Emerson announced at the weekend Labor's plans for the public service, which would go at least some way towards restoring the independence and accountability Howard has sacrificed in the name of reform.

As with the promise to appoint an independent speaker to parliament, we'll believe it when we see it: oppositions often make such promises in good faith, but governments are notoriously unwilling to relinquish any advantages their predecessors bequeath to them. But at least we can hope: Mark Latham has once again proved that whatever else he might turn out to be, predictable he is not. If anyone can break the mould, Latham is the man.

Another small sign that the slaves might finally be getting ready to revolt came last week with the report of a joint parliamentary committee into the government's latest anti-terrorism legislation, in which Liberal members joined their Labor colleagues in warning that the measures covering guilt by association went too far; better safeguards were needed.

The government's response was to summon Attorney-General Phillip Ruddock from his vault: technicians administered the injections and the jolt of electricity needed to restore a semblance of life and the grey faced automaton muttered grimly about the need for total submission to authority in these troubled times before being returned to the darkness whence he came.

But for once not all the Libs were cowed: some, at least, of the backbench are still openly restless. For the moment the threat of an election will shut them up, but afterwards, win or lose, there will be changes made.

But amid all this turmoil, Howard remains a rock. When Emerson also announced Labor's general industrial relations policy with its predictable aim of improving the lot of the workers vis a vis their employers, the Prime Minister fumed that this would signal the end of industry as we knew it, the economy would collapse and Australia would become a mendicant society. After all his wondrous reforms, Labor just wanted to wind the clock back.

Yes, that's really what he said. John Howard, the only living fan of the 1950s, complained about somebody else wanting to wind the clock back. That in the same week as he had accused his ageing critics (some even older than him) of being out of touch with reality. Say what you like, the old chap's still got chutzpah.