d_i_r_t_y's Journal: mark latham, prime minister of australia

Delegates, I believe in grassroots democracy. It's the new type of politics the Australian people are calling for.

I don't want people campaigning for better community services. I want them running them getting involved in their local community and having their say.

When I first got interested in politics 30 years ago, it was an honoured profession. This was the noble ideal of public life a life lived in the service of others.

But let's be frank. The Australian people no longer see it this way. After years of broken promises and broken programs, they no longer trust the political system.

They see a system that looks after the powerful, not the people.

They see election campaigns with too much spin-doctoring and stage management.

They see political entitlements with too many rorts and too much featherbedding.

So I commit myself here today to this great national purpose: reinventing and revitalising our democracy, opening up greater public participation, cleaning out the excesses of the political system, governing for the people, not the powerful.

it is rare, almost a contradiction of terms, to be inspired by the rhetoric du jour that passes for politics these days. and yet, the would-be prime ministerial candidate for the federal opposition, mark latham, delivers passages such as the above with a kind of conviction and ruggedness that stirs my natonal pride and rekindles my faith in the kind of noble egalitarianism that real leaders inspire in people to feel and act like they are *part* of their country, and not just some income bracket.

maybe it's the not so moderate amount of wine i've consumed, but i really feel proud of the fact that one of our would-be leaders has stood up and finally pronounced the thing that speaks to the root of the concerns of everyday australians -- why isn't our government listening to us?