Jennifer Marohasy

I got about half way through the first book about Mark Latham – the one by Bernard Lagan titled Loner: Inside a Labor Tragedy – before somehow misplacing my copy. It must be under a pile of papers somewhere in this house.

Anyway, I decided to buy The Latham Diaries while in Sydney last week. The decision was probably influenced by ravings from a friend in the Victorian timber industry who was finding the read insightful.

I have start the book by working from the names in the back index – Barry Chipman (Tasmanian Coordinator of Timber Communities Australia) and Bob Brown both feature.

I was fascinated to read that Latham holds Brown in the highest regard. He writes:

I also like Bob Brown: other than economic policy, our beliefs are quite similar. I prefer this political values to the likes of Adams [federal Labor colleague] and Michael O’Connor [union boss], with their close links to the timber and woodchip bosses. It’s a shame that people like Bob Brown have been lost to the Party. Gough tells me he was a member of Western Sydney in the 1970s.

Later in the book Latham complains that Adams,O’Connor and Tasmanian Premier Paul Lennon did not cooperate with him during the federal election campaign putting the interests of the local timber industry before the needs of the federal Labor party.