Word: laborities
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...intimate. It means he's comfortable talking about himself - and he's not shy about trying to appeal to voters on emotional grounds or on the basis of shared values. Latham says his "ladder of opportunity" slogan "comes from who I am and where I've been." At Labor's national conference in January, he sketched his climb out of Green Valley: "When I was young, my mum used to tell me there were two types of people in our street - the slackers and the hard workers. We had our troubles at home, sure, but we were hard workers...
...politicians listen or lead? Some of his enthusiasms flare only to disappear. Whatever happened to Latham's Lifelong Learning Accounts, a national insurance scheme to provide individual choice in education? There's been no progress on the ownership agenda Latham once trumpeted. A couple of years ago, says a Labor colleague, "he was into matched savings accounts, nest egg accounts, employee share ownership and corporate social responsibility. And where has all that gone? Nowhere." Prolific Latham can also appear flaky and insincere, with some of the weaknesses of an autodidact...
...dwell on the abstract. He's more of an analyst and problem solver: as Americans say, a policy wonk. Still, several themes have endured. First, there's enormous self-belief; Latham "backs himself" and would like others to aspire to better things. Second, he believes in Labor - not just as a political party, but as a movement - "a movement that needs to energize its base and create new causes and constituencies," as he wrote in From the Suburbs. These two streams come together in his desire to take Labor, and the nation, on his ladder of opportunity. "Economic aspiration...
...Labor's education, health, tax and welfare policies - the rungs of the ladder, as Latham would say - where his influence has taken hold. Education is the cornerstone of Latham's world: cradle-to-grave learning, the reform of tertiary institutions and teacher training, more resources, school funding based on need. As in Latham's own life, government schools provide the foundation, especially in disadvantaged areas. Universal health care forms another rung in Latham's social-equalization scheme. Reward for effort is his aim in tax and family policy: a "learn or earn" ultimatum for young people, the removal of high...
...Revolutionary Outsider This "new social democracy," as Latham calls it - rather than British P.M. Tony Blair's "Third Way" - makes a great deal of sense in Labor's evolution. But there's a radical, even revolutionary, core to the mission: a devolution of power. Today, Latham argues, Australians are divided not so much on economic lines as by their access to information and influence. Latham identifies with the pragmatists of the suburbs rather than the detached, latte-sipping cosmopolitans. In Lathamland, "what matters is what works," not dogma or ideology. Latham has said he wants to put power back...