Captain Wacky or 'The Latham Lessons'

The bulk of the mainstream media commentary on The Latham Diaries follows the pattern of reporting set down when he was a central player in public life. The focus has been on the rumours, personal vendettas and political manoeuvring that so consumes the majority of the political elite. Latham has done much to fuel this focus himself in his interviews since the release of the book.

But the value of The Diaries as an insight (albeit overwrought and self-centred at times) into our political culture is undeniable. Labor activists are reading it in droves and the majority verdict is in.

Call him sexist, brutish, self-delusional, disloyal, mad, whatever, his analysis of Labor culture specifically and political culture generally is spot on.

I have told people in the Party, players at all levels - sure, we can dismiss this guy as Captain Wacky, but he is right about the Party. And what are we doing about it? Very little.

There are two intriguing and unexpected aspects of The Diaries that deserve more attention than the pole dancers and profanity focused on by the commentariat.

The first relates to his repudiation of aspirational politics. This is a significant admission considering it formed the basis of so much of Latham's policy work and public comment. It was always something that grated on the nerves of his Left wing colleagues, who saw it as code for "downward envy", a mentality that viewed the disadvantaged as worthy of their plight. Latham argues in the introduction to The Diaries that advocating aspirational politics is fraught with danger when social capital is at a low ebb. People climb the ladder of opportunity but kick down at the bastards behind them.

The second insight relates to how the modern ALP formulates policy. It is of particular interest to me, as I was a member of the National Policy Committee (NPC) in 2003 and early 2004. When I became a member, the NPC consisted of nine people and was a new invention, replacing the various issues-based policy committees that existed before. These had been abolished on the basis they were full of factional appointees with minimum interest in policy and maximum interest in political resumé-padding.

It was costing the National Secretariat a fortune to fly committee members around the country and organise phone hook ups, for supposedly minimum policy development. The creation of the NPC was a tacit acknowledgement that it was shadow ministers, not party organs, which create the policy for conference and ultimately for government.

The new NPC had nine months to consult and prepare the platform for the 2004 National Conference. We first requested consultation plans from the various shadows. I was shocked with the results. Some shadows were doing great work but many were consulting with only a handful of the usual suspects. The quality of the consultation plans was evidence of either a disregard for consultation or a disregard for the NPC's processes - or both. As I looked through the plans on the train to the University of Wollongong to teach my communications tutorials, I resisted marking 4/10 on some of the submissions. It left me feeling disillusioned with the depth of talent on our front bench.

The NPC's own consultation plan for the platform involved meetings with state policy committees as well as a few sit-downs with interested shadows. I remember some of the committee members who were alive with policy interest and had worked hard on their submissions to the NPC - the True Believers. Their ranks are dwindling but they are still there. We weren't allowed any consultations with rank and file members, although within the Left, NPC members tried to instigate a limited discussion around key policy priorities.

With the various drafts of the chapters submitted, the NPC sat down to a weird and unstructured process of going through them one by one and trying to incorporate some of the suggestions from our consultations. Looking back it was a flawed and frustrating process, sitting in a drab room in party headquarters in Melbourne, under the gentle but ever present supervision of the National Secretariat and the Leader's office.

As shadow treasurer, Latham had gutted the chapters associated with his portfolio and rewritten them dramatically. Unlike any of the other shadows, he refused to submit himself to the NPC process of suggesting amendments and additions. He resisted attempts too, by Left union leaders, to modify the chapters. The NPC waited for Latham to get back to us about our suggestions. He never did. He fobbed us off, releasing his proposed policy ideas to the media before we ever got a chance to talk to him. We were all angry about the snub but what could we do? A few months later he was leader and more willing to engage in dialogue and compromise about the platform than he was as shadow treasurer.

Reading Latham's entry of July 23, 1997, I gained a better understanding of his attitude to the NPC in 2003:

I've just finished a long meeting with the ALP National Platform Committee in Melbourne to consider my draft document on education policy for next year's National Conference. It was surreal. The Committee hears all the submission from Party members, yet I do all the draft as Shadow … and then the factional hacks and union operatives on the Committee get to pick at it. So, effectively the Party consultation process was sidelined. … I was quickly jack of it and basically told them to nick off. Not exactly a productive day of ALP policy-making (p. 65.).

So Latham's "up yours" to the NPC in 2003 was a repeat performance. It was a petulant move but not without its grounds. Even taking into consideration the time constraints, the NPC was a farce in consultative policy making. Even worse, we missed the opportunity to put into place a genuine process for broad consultation that set up the next NPC with a clear structure, mandate and sense of direction.

I still think that Latham could have gone through the process regardless, but still provided us with a critique of the NPC's processes with suggested ideas for reform. Maybe it was just another blue in a series of endless battles he didn't really want to have.

The previous year to my appointment to the NPC, I bumped into Latham at the Holy Grail. He was drinking with a staffer and introduced me to her as a part of Albo's (Anthony Albanese's) new generation of Labor activists. He said to me, "I don't think it is my generation that will change things - it's really up to you and people younger than you". He sounded despondent.

In fact the most disappointing aspect of The Diaries is the complete and utter lack of hope that the system can be any different. Because he failed, we are all doomed to fail. This itself sets the cause for reform - which is still alive in party circles - back. It gives strength to the very people Latham hates so much, allowing them to dismiss him and his views as equally crazy.

I don't believe a system that was made by people can't be changed by people. But that's the key - and where I differ from the Latham approach. The emphasis is on people, a broad coalition of more than just the leader and a few of his confidants. He admits he was a loner in politics, not good at playing with others. The problems of Labor are too big for one man, even a big one.

A coalition determined to chip away at the insular and poisonous culture of the ALP would be very hard, but not impossible, to create. It would include people at all levels of the Party and, more importantly, people outside the Party - community activists, academics and sympathetic business leaders who don't put interest rates before social justice.

If The Diaries didn't burn so many bridges, Latham could have been a part of it.