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March 08, 2006
Gee---troubling is brewing in the federal ALP. It has the smell of blood flowing and the media circling to feast on the wounded bodies. Politics sure is a tough business.
Paul Zanetti
An angry Simon Crean is openly gunning for Senator Stephen Conroy for his role in trying to throw Crean out the ALP. It is Latham revisited, isn't it. Remember Mark Latham?
Do you remember the things he was saying about certain members in his party? Well I've been reading it. In an entry in Latham Diaries on 15 November, 2004 Latham says:
Parliament comes back tomorrow, the moment we have been dreading. Caucus has gone feral with the destablisation of my leadership. It will be worse this week as the troublemakers gather in one place, gossiping to each other and to the press galllery. The chief troublemaker is Conroy: nonstop leaking, stirring discontent, befriending the malcontents. The moment he left my office last month, after our so-called reconciliation, his promise of teamwork went out the window. (p.373)
In an earlier entry, whilst commenting on working to form his shadow Cabinet, he says of Senator Conroy, that as a machine man he's not interested in policy only factions and patronage.
He then adds that Conroy:
...told me that he's against me on the Tasmanian forests because of his affiliation with the TWU--their members carry the logs. Nothing to do with argument, reason or public policy, but rather his factional links to a union. Has he ever driven a truck? Is it just me, or is there something fundamentally wrong with our Party?
Something is indeed wrong.Labor's rank-and-file membership, as it now stands, is totally dominated by factional warriors. As Latham well knew this political party is rotten to the core.
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Sure it looks bad, but remember Crean shafted someone else to get the seat. There would be few MPs who didn't. On both sides!