Political Corrections

with Mungo MacCallum

Leader needs time to crash through

Although Mark Latham has faced down the immediate rumblings about his leadership, there is still a theory around that he retains the job less because of his own talents and qualities than because of the lack of a realistic challenger.

The perennial Kim Beazley is both older and more reluctant. The so-called young Turks - Wayne Swan, Stephen Smith and Kevin Rudd - are, for the moment at least, inside the Latham tent and in any case would cancel each other out; they remain rivals to each other rather than a concerted threat.

Craig Emerson has retired to the backbench and the only candidate with sufficient political gravitas to present as a real alternative to Latham, Lindsay Tanner, has done likewise and, being of the minority left faction, would probably never be able to raise the numbers under the current system.

So Latham has at least a bit of breathing space, which he needs; but it is more to allow the nervous nellies, the has-beens and the never-will-bes to calm down than to remake himself in a form more acceptable to his fair weather friends in both party and media.

The fact is that Latham remains not merely the only contender, but by far the best contender. He has both genuine substance and genuine passion. He is smart, tough and above all interesting. He may not be the safest choice, but caucus knew that a year ago when it decided to take the risk and vote for real change.

Obviously, the gamble did not pay off in terms of the 2004 election, but in retrospect winning in the prevailing circumstances was always something close to mission impossible. Quite apart from the booming economy and the ruthless professionalism of the incumbents, the new boy was always going to need a reasonable time to sell himself to the electorate, and to do so in the heat of an election year was never a possibility.

What the polls showed was that the voters were intrigued but confused, and ultimately decided they weren't prepared to leap into the unknown. Latham now has three years to convince them that he is, in fact, a good bet. And he has a head start: he has already gained their attention. This alone gives him a major advantage over any potential challenger except perhaps Beazley, and the support for Beazley is more nostalgic than realistic.

It is true than Latham remains controversial, even divisive: as his critics point out, there is a portion of the electorate that will never, ever vote for him. But the same applies to all serious politicians: it certainly applies to both John Howard and Peter Costello. The real question is whether Latham can pull his own party together as an alternative government and, having done so, win back the disaffected who have deserted Labor since 1996 or else inspire a new and younger set to desert the cynical materialism of the Libs for something more exciting.

He is obviously capable of doing both, given a spot of self discipline and a willingness to listen, occasionally at least, to cooler heads. But coolness should not be confused with management, spin and technical expertise. One of the more depressing aspects of Labor's recent post mortems was the concentration on what could be done to improve the polling, and whether there was a need for more negative advertising. Polling and advertising have become important campaign tools, but they are only that - tools. Those who suggest that they can offer the solution to the party's problems are themselves at the heart of the problems.

Latham understands this and it is one of his strengths. His critics accuse him of being too impetuous during the campaign, of ignoring advice and relying on his own instinct, and they are quite right. But they should also admit that if Latham's instinct was not always correct, nor was some of the strategy painfully distilled by head office.

Latham was at his best when he was let off the leash and allowed to connect directly with the punters. At the set-up photo opportunities and eight second grabs he was never really convincing - just another politician and a not very comfortable one at that. Latham's forest policy was an utter disaster, for which he must take most of the blame. But then, the carefully-crafted tax and family policy, the education policy and even Medicare Gold were all fizzers in their own way.

There is always tension between the leader's office and the party campaign office at election time, and on occasions it reaches full-blown paranoia. Latham is not the first leader to be scapegoated by head office: in 1996 Paul Keating was stigmatised as Cap'n Wacky. But the faults are never all on one side. If Latham had a tendency to shoot from the hip, head office was often too mesmerised by theory and analysis to cut to the chase. With any luck, by the next campaign both will have learned more about each others strengths and weaknesses.

But in the meantime, the task is regaining the support of both party and public. Less than a year ago, Latham showed that he could do it. He deserves the chance to do so again - not just because there is no obvious alternative, but because he has suffered an honourable defeat and will be a far better leader for it. Of course, he may still crash. But if he crashes through, it will have been well worth the wait.