Latham does the Time Warp

IN a Rocky Horror Show moment, former opposition leader Mark Latham has lurched from self-imposed exile like Dr Frank-N-Furter's creation to deliver a rousing chorus reminiscent of the Time Warp before the federal election.

But Latham's embittered paean against politics won't have Labor's conga line of Kevinistas dancing as enthusiastically as theHoward government's hoofers, because he nailed a number of the phony crises Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd has been using to scare votes from the punters. Global warming, he said, could be tackled only through international co-operation. National strategies such as those trumpeted by Rudd and the Greens' Bob Brown, developed in isolation from other countries, could not deal with the planet's decline from climate change, Latham wrote. "It is a delusion of grandeur for Australia's politicians to think that a small nation like ours has a major role to play. "In any case, judging by the tiny take-up rate for green electricity accounts, local consumers have little enthusiasm for reducing their greenhouse footprint. "They would rather put their money into shopping than environmental protection.'' Displaying a curious nostalgia for the days of class warfare, Latham claimed the economic reforms of the Hawke/Keating/Howard governments had transformed Australia into an intensely materialistic society that, for the first time, had given "working-class people'' easy access to finance and capital. Almost bitterly, he said they had "used these economic opportunities to climb the social ladder, leaving behind their working-class suburbs and values'' and that "consequently, in this campaign, neither party has been willing to embrace social justice or redistributive strategies''. Latham then pulled the rug out from under the so-called housing crisis, saying: "It seems strange to hear people talking about a private housing affordability crisis when, over the past decade, Australia has experienced its greatest-ever boom in private housing investment. "There is no crisis for the hundreds of thousands of families that have readily put themselves into debt and built large new homes, the so-called McMansions, across the country. "In most cases, they are enjoying a quality of housing well beyond the expectations of their parents and grandparents. "Many others have put their finances into housing renovations, upgrading their assets in older suburban areas. "Again, this hardly constitutes a crisis.'' Allowing for his self-serving swipes at both Labor and the Howard government, Latham's article in the Financial Review was his most considered since his 2004 election loss and could signal a return to the political debate. Helpfully, he even pointed out that bargains were still available in south-western Sydney, where a three-bedroom brick house in a decent neighbourhood could be had for less than $250,000. "If they are willing to hold down a regular job and forgo water views and boutique shopping, home ownership can be theirs. "There is no crisis in the private housing market, just the manufactured hysteria of the political class.'' Latham's most telling blow was reserved for the so-called skills crisis. He pointed out that "after 15 years of economic expansion, the remarkable thing about the labour market is that so many skilled positions have been filled in so many industries''. "With unemployment at 4.3 per cent (just off the 33-year low of 4.2 per cent) some businesses are bound to struggle in attracting new staff. "This is what happens in an economy approaching full employment. It is a sign of economic success, confirming the strength of the vocational education and training system. "It's another example of the political class declaring the glass to be half-empty when, in fact, it's about to overflow.'' Latham's remarks came as the Bureau of Statistics demolished a couple of myths peddled by Labor to frighten young and naive voters into believing they were being left out of the record number of jobs created under the Howard government or being forced to work longer hours. According to the ABS, last month brought the biggest monthly rise in full-time jobs for 16 years, when the economy was dragging itself out of the recession former treasurer Paul Keating believed we had to have. With 11 million people now in work, an extra 70,600 full-time jobs were created in October. The ABS defines a full-time employee as one who normally works more than 35 hours a week, or who worked 35 hours during the week surveyed. Dispelling the constant claim that the bulk of new jobs are for "burger flippers'', the ABS figures show that in the past year, 98 per cent of the 280,800 jobs created were full-time. Those already working longer hours - more than 50 for the purposes of the ABS - were not working any longer hours. Further, former treasury secretary John Stone, who has seen a note he wrote nearly a quarter of a century ago given new life by former Labor prime minister Bob Hawke, also struck back, noting that the Howard government had been wrongly attacked for its claim that "working families'' had never had it so good. Stone said this claim was "incontrovertibly true''. "Whichever economic indicator you choose - employment, unemployment, real wages, real living standards, motor-vehicle ownership - has significantly improved since 1996,'' he wrote in the Financial Review. "Sure, 'whingeing Wendys' can always be found to complain on television about petrol prices (still cheaper than almost anywhere else in the developed world), high fruit and vegetable prices (true, but no fault of the Government) or rising rents (which need to rise further to induce the building of more rental dwellings). "There are legitimate criticisms to be made of the Howard government. But this kind of confected nonsense, or the spurious wailing about 'housing affordability', reflects the immaturity of our economic debate rather than a serious discussion of genuine problems.'' With clouds on the international economic horizon, Rudd is under pressure to explain how his pledge to restore collective industrial-relations agreements will not hit those entering the job market and feed inflationary pressures.