Latham 'racy, Risque And Rude'

The Age

Saturday September 17, 2005

By MICHAEL GORDON and MICHELLE GRATTAN

FORMER national ALP secretary Gary Gray has accused Mark Latham of making remarks that were "a little risque, racy and rude" to Liberal staffers, which led to a complaint to the Labor Party from John Howard's office.

In a new book by Age journalist Annabel Crabb, Mr Gray says he approached Gough Whitlam in 1997 to counsel Mr Latham and to settle the issue "with a quiet word".

But Mr Latham has strongly disputed the account, blaming senior Labor figure Robert Ray for starting a "false" smear, and bitterly attacking Mr Gray for spreading and giving credibility to the claim of bad behaviour by approaching Mr Whitlam.

He told the ABC the meeting with Mr Whitlam was awkward because of Mr Whitlam's age, and the smear was subsequently circulated by Labor Party figures, including Mr Beazley and Senator Ray.

He now maintains the smear was the main reason he quit Mr Beazley's front bench in 1998.

Mr Latham has also accused Labor colleagues of spreading an untrue story that frontbencher Julia Gillard had to rescue South Australian Labor MP Kate Ellis from Mr Latham late last year. Both women have denied there was such an incident.

On the ABC's Lateline last night, Mr Latham said former Labor senate leader John Faulkner had warned him when he became leader in 2003 that the Liberal Party would "do anything" to run a sex scandal against him, including "planting women in bars". But Mr Latham said that, in the end, it was "the stuff that had been generated inside the Labor Party" that found its way into the media.

Mr Latham has widened his allegations and attacks, accusing Labor Senate deputy leader Stephen Conroy of contributing to the suicide of MP Greg Wilton and claiming Mr Beazley as leader failed to sufficiently support Mr Wilton before he died.

Mr Latham said Senator Conroy was behind a story that Mr Wilton's preselection was in doubt, asserting the story was a trigger for the suicide.

Senator Conroy said yesterday the claims "are untrue and I reject them completely".

Mr Beazley, who has already dismissed Mr Latham's claims as "fanciful", refused to be drawn on the new claims regarding Mr Wilton, including Mr Latham's assertion: "Kim didn't talk to Greg, ring him, offer him support in any shape or form. I just find that unbelievable . . .

"It was a pretty cold-hearted political attitude that he took, and ultimately we lost a human life of a colleague and, in my case, a mate."

Mr Latham also put the knife into union leader and parliamentary aspirant Bill Shorten, one of Labor's rising stars. He accused Mr Shorten of showing "contempt for his members" by saying different things publicly and privately about the Australia-US free trade agreement.

He made a similar charge against ACTU secretary Greg Combet, saying both men had opposed the deal but privately urged him to "get this through" as a matter of political necessity.

Mr Shorten and Mr Combet refused to comment last night.

Ms Gillard, the one senior Labor figure spared in The Latham Diaries, declared her full loyalty for Mr Beazley, while paying tribute to Mr Latham. "It saddens me greatly to see Mark's loss of faith in the power of politics to make change for the better. It saddens me even more to see Mark's loss of faith in the Labor Party," said Ms Gillard who, Mr Latham says, should be Labor leader.

As the party tries to contain the damage from Mr Latham's attacks, Mr Beazley told the ALP national executive that Mr Latham had done the Labor leadership a disservice and warned people not to get involved in a slanging match.

In New York, Prime Minister John Howard said Labor knew of Mr Latham's personal faults when it voted him in as leader.

"I remind the Australian public that he was chosen by the Australian Labor Party with a full knowledge of what sort of person he was," he said.

In Crabb's book, Mr Gray says he received a call from Senator Ray about Mr Latham's "unnecessarily ebullient behaviour", explaining: "He would have a few drinks and ring ministerial offices and engage in banter. He didn't care necessarily who it was who answered the telephone, so long as it was female.

"Sometimes his comments were a little risque, racy and rude, which resulted in a complaint that went from Tony Nutt (in the PM's office) to Robert Ray, and Robert Ray ringing me."

Mr Gray's account describes the alleged behaviour as "relatively harmless, if foolish" and says Mr Whitlam was immediately protective of his protege. He told Crabb that Mr Whitlam told him: "You know, Gary, when you are tall and handsome, and powerfully built, women throw themselves at you."

"He kept saying to me, 'Power is an aphrodisiac, you know, Gary'."

Crabb's book, Losing It, asserts Mr Latham was appalled by the attempt to involve Mr Whitlam "and the affair further poisoned the relationship with Kim Beazley's office".

Mr Latham told the ABC that when he accused Mr Beazley of spreading the innuendo, Mr Beazley said he did not know anything about it.

It is now clear the only specific allegation against Mr Latham at the time, that he sexually harassed Penny Fischer (daughter of Sex Discrimination Commissioner Pru Goward) when she worked in the office of Liberal minister Warwick Parer, was untrue. Mr Latham has always denied any such episode. Ms Fischer yesterday said there had been no bad behaviour and she had not made any complaint.

EXCLUSIVE EXTRACTS

From 'Losing it' - Annabel Crabb's book about Labor in opposition: The plan to make Mark Latham prime minister was codenamed 'Blizzard'. As the campaign fell apart, one ALP official renamed it a 'blizzard of s . . .'

INSIGHT

Losing it: Mark Latham is blaming his colleagues, but, as Age journalist Annabel Crabb reveals in a new book, the last Labor campaign was a shambles - and much of it was the leader's fault.

TOMORROW

How Mark Latham lost the plot

The inside story of his self-destruction as leader of the ALP.

More exclusive extracts from Annabel Crabb's book of Labor in opposition in tomorrow's Sunday Age.

© 2005 The Age

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