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mickymac's review against another edition
5.0
Searching analysis of why change is needed
Looking back 8 years, this is a serious attempt to revitalise Australian Labor and find a route back to being a force for change. Unfortunately the lessons were not learnt.
Looking back 8 years, this is a serious attempt to revitalise Australian Labor and find a route back to being a force for change. Unfortunately the lessons were not learnt.
coreyzerna's review
3.0
It's a pity Latham couldn't hold himself together long enough to pull off an election victory in 2004 .. he's a smart man and could have made a sensible leader
randomreader405a3's review
4.0
Latham has not lost much of his arrogance. He begins this Quarterly Essay with a self-congratulatory introduction for already raising the organisational dysfunctionality of the ALP in The Latham Diaries and he ends it by patting himself on the back for having written a "quite productive" essay.
Personality aside however, he may be right. Latham takes great care to provide an essay with real suggestions for change, rather than the endless introspection and fighting found in the usual commentary and books such as Lindsay Tanner's Sideshow.
In short, his answers involve embracing the pre-selection/primary style nomination process being tried out by the ALP right in NSW, scuttling union influence; owning the Keating reforms of the 90s, educating the now "post-left electorate" about the fallacy behind the perennial cost of living debates; a real education revolution based on teacher standards, performance pay and encouraging more home/parental involvement; a war on poverty based around a policy of dispersal - moving public housing into the general community; taking advantage of the public's nervousness at the increased far-right fanaticism ala Bolt, Jones and Abbott; owning the issue of climate change, differentiating the ALP from the climate-sceptics on the far-right.
All interesting ideas and worthy of debate, so the essay is certainly worth reading. Whether any of it is practical or feasible given the current state of the ALP? That is another question.
Personality aside however, he may be right. Latham takes great care to provide an essay with real suggestions for change, rather than the endless introspection and fighting found in the usual commentary and books such as Lindsay Tanner's Sideshow.
In short, his answers involve embracing the pre-selection/primary style nomination process being tried out by the ALP right in NSW, scuttling union influence; owning the Keating reforms of the 90s, educating the now "post-left electorate" about the fallacy behind the perennial cost of living debates; a real education revolution based on teacher standards, performance pay and encouraging more home/parental involvement; a war on poverty based around a policy of dispersal - moving public housing into the general community; taking advantage of the public's nervousness at the increased far-right fanaticism ala Bolt, Jones and Abbott; owning the issue of climate change, differentiating the ALP from the climate-sceptics on the far-right.
All interesting ideas and worthy of debate, so the essay is certainly worth reading. Whether any of it is practical or feasible given the current state of the ALP? That is another question.
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