Word: whitlam
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...Lorraine Latham's four children. In one respect, there's no mystery to the man. He's simply the first of the post-baby boom generation to get this close to Australia's top job. He hit his teens as Countdown began defining youth culture, as Gough Whitlam's Labor project was on the skids and as Kerry Packer busted apart the cricket and media establishments. Next came university - a two-hour commute - and, after hours, the throbbing, beery era of Sydney's pub rock: Midnight Oil, INXS, the Angels, the Radiators. Latham and his cohorts first faced...
...nation's major experiments in public housing - the Green Valley estate on the city's southwestern fringe. The area was settled before basic services - sewerage, hospitals, child care, transport and leisure facilities - were established. The self-proclaimed champion of the urban sprawl was Labor leader Whitlam, federal member for Werriwa (1952-78). He put suburban issues into the mainstream of politics. "I was always interested in why Green Valley didn't have the sort of facilities that other parts of Sydney took for granted," Latham told biographer Craig McGregor. "What is it that causes advantage and disadvantage...
...person who joined the Labor Party on the same night as Latham in 1979 recalls the teenager boasting how he would be prime minister one day. Latham has spent his entire adult life making his way up from the grass roots: working as an aide to the retired Whitlam, then in the office of New South Wales Labor Opposition leader Bob Carr (now Premier), as a Liverpool City councillor and, since 1994, as the local M.P. for Werriwa. He's diligent, serious and bookish - and a seeker of political tutors. His Labor contemporaries never doubted he'd attain the leadership...
...legacy of the profligate Whitlam era (1972-75) and the wild ride of the Hawke-Keating years is that Latham will be forced to eat up much of this campaign pleading the case that Labor can be trusted with managing the money. Howard and Costello can continue spending taxpayer funds - outbidding Labor on health spending or tax cuts - and not carry the stain of profligacy. Appearing as a pale imitation of his former self, Latham signed a low-interest-rate guarantee a few days into the campaign. The stunt reeked of the forlorn Crean years and brought gleeful ridicule from...
...winning an election. He can visit the marginal seats; show himself to be a listener and look beyond the opinion polls into the eyes of voters. For all the resources of incumbency, the public won't tolerate a government it thinks is faulty or outdated. Just think of Gough Whitlam, Malcolm Fraser and Paul Keating, and the awesome tide of voters that one day showed them the exit...