Age and Experience the Pre-Requisites

Mark Latham does appear to have inherited something from his mentor Gough Whitlam - a dislike of having his summer holidays interrupted. In 1974 Prime Minister Whitlam was most reluctant to return to Australia from Europe when Cyclone Tracy devastated Darwin and even when he came back he did not hang around for long before resuming his overseas sojourn.
In 2004 Opposition Leader Latham was well enough to play for an hour or two with his kids in the swimming pool at a holiday resort but not able, apparently, to phone his press secretary to put out a few token few words of sympathy for the victims of the Asian tsunami.
There is perhaps a touch of arrogance there and it is providing Mr Latham's detractors with new ammunition to fire at him. The airwaves are full of breathless journalists quoting unnamed sources in the Labor Caucus predicting his downfall. Those that are not dwelling on the absence of words of sympathy are claiming to be concerned by their leader's pancreatitis.
My own view on the Labor Leadership is that even an extremely sensitive and gifted man of Mr Latham's age would have difficulty in winning an election. The Australian people have a history of choosing leaders they have grown familiar with over a long period. Study the table in the piece Eight Out of Nine A'int Bad which I wrote just over a month ago.

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