Latham says US alliance makes Australia more of a terrorist...

Latham says US alliance makes Australia more of a terrorist target

AM - Monday, 19 September , 2005 08:00:00
Reporter: Catherine McGrath
TONY EASTLEY: I don't know about you, but it feels as though Mark Latham's tell-all book has been around for days, but it only goes on sale as of this morning.

Last week and over the weekend Labor suffered the ignominy of hearing and seeing its former leader attack his party and many of its personalities.

It's allowed Labor's opponents to publicly question what sort of leader Mark Latham would have made, had he become Prime Minister.

Mark Latham has given AM an insight into that by detailing his thoughts about Australia's relationship with the United States.

He believes Australia could get bogged down in the war against terror for the rest of his lifetime if the US maintains the policies of George W. Bush and Australia continues its partnership in the war in Iraq.

Chief Political Correspondent Catherine McGrath spoke to Mark Latham about his diaries, and began by asking him how he reached his conclusion that the US alliance needed to be renegotiated.

MARK LATHAM: Well, this is a diary observation, having had dinner with the then American ambassador. And so it's toward the end of 2004, and I was saying we should rethink the usefulness of it in the long-term and have an internal Labor Party debate about our policy, given the realities.

You see, the other you've got in Australian politics is a little American club, where your Kellys and Sheridans and journalists like that, and your American barrackers like Rudd and Beazley, they're in the junket club where they get all these free trips to the United States for this dialogue thing they have and other forms of largess.

And they start the policy debate by saying no matter the issue, no matter the circumstances, what they need to do is work out how do you support the United States of America?

When you look at party political research, political people don't say this openly, because the electorate thinks we need the United States 'cause they're worried about an invasion from Indonesia. And this is the last bastion of the white Australia mentality - we need a big brother to protect us from the Asian threat form the north.

CATHERINE MCGRATH: Well, given that you think… given that you thought back then that Australia should look at it again, you're not in politics now so you're free to talk. What stature should we give the Australian-US alliance?

MARK LATHAM: Well, I think we should have a look at how New Zealand has made itself the safest country in the world. There's no terrorist threat to New Zealand that's been identified, but one here, because if you go supporting bad American policy you make yourself a bigger target and you stir dissent in your own country.

If the Americans continue with Bush's policies they'll never win the war against terror. They're bogged down in this for the rest of our lifetime, and if Iraq's an example of how they're going about their work, they're never going to win that, they're just going to maximise dissent and aggression against them.

And nations that join in bad foreign policy as a neo-colonial partner of the United States are obviously going to run into a lot of strife, and that's the Australian dilemma, led by John Howard.

CATHERINE MCGRATH: Well, given that these are your views on the Australian-US alliance, did you lie when you said to the Australian public during the election campaign, in your defence policy plan launch, Labor values the alliance as a partnership between equal sovereign nations? What you're talking about are not equal sovereign nations then?

MARK LATHAM: That's the Labor Party policy document. My job was to articulate Labor policy.

CATHERINE MCGRATH: But you didn't believe it.

MARK LATHAM: The diary entry, Catherine, I repeat, is after the election towards the end of 2004, and of course you live and learn in politics, and that's the conclusion I reached, and happy to have written it up in the diary at the time and happy to talk about it now.

CATHERINE MCGRATH: You also said that you were wrong to talk about aspirational politics. Why was that?

MARK LATHAM: Well, I think what you've got in middle Australia now is a huge amount of apathy about the political system, in many aspects a sort of burning disregard or even hatred of organised politics. People have got no regard for the stuff that occupies so much activity in Parliament House, Canberra.

And a lot of that is fed through the media, the way the politics is disparaged in general, but also I think the feeling that this country unhappily, we've become so much more like the American pathway of the cult of the individual, that Australian values about mateship and passion and community are fading away. And it's been replaced by the cult of the individual and materialism.

CATHERINE MCGRATH: So the ladder of opportunity doesn't exist, or the ladder of opportunity is shallow, or the ladder of opportunity is a mistake?

MARK LATHAM: Well, the ladder of opportunity was about hard work and the education system and people bettering themselves with good values, and it was about community and family and the like, and I think the aspirational stuff was an error.

I don't think… I think it's a dead end for Labor to feed the materialism of middle Australia, and in the end, especially given the way Beazley gave away the economic legacy of the Hawke and Keating years, it's hard to see how you can win an election that way, and it's hard to see how it leads to a more just and caring society if you foster the cult of the individual.

CATHERINE MCGRATH: You talk about the problems with the Labor hierarchy and the party organisation, but you'd have to admit you profited from that, didn't you?

MARK LATHAM: Well I'm retired now, I don't know what you mean by that.

CATHERINE MCGRATH: On the way up, in pre-selection, entrance into federal politics.

MARK LATHAM: Oh, well look, you know, I lived in my community, still living here, worked hard in local government level, worked hard to do the right thing in terms of Labor Party branch activities, uh…

CATHERINE MCGRATH: But isn't it rank hypocrisy though, to attack a party that has supported you through your career and given you a chance of even running to be Prime Minister?

MARK LATHAM: Well these diaries, when you read them… if you read them they praise a lot of people in the Labor Party, praise them on merit, but also criticise those who deserve a bit of criticism. So, what's wrong with the truth?

CATHERINE MCGRATH: But if the book becomes too much full of your own negativity, your own upset, your own criticism of other people, isn't the message going to be lost about the points you make about the Labor Party?

MARK LATHAM: Oh, well, that's for readers to decide. I mean, in the end media coverage is marginal. Most books sell by word of mouth.

CATHERINE MCGRATH: Do you think it's a book you're going to be proud of in 10 years' time?

MARK LATHAM: Oh absolutely, absolutely, because it's my record of my time and the things I saw.

CATHERINE MCGRATH: Julia Gillard has said that she doesn't think it was the right thing to do, to publish them in this format. Have any of your close friends, family, your wife, any of your other close associates advised you not to do it?

MARK LATHAM: Well, you see, people who've read the book have got a different opinion to those who haven't, and while I admire and respect Julia Gillard, she hasn't read the book. But those who have - friends, relatives, former colleagues who've read the book - have rung me to say congratulations, well done
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2005/s1463058.htm