Call me a romantic, a pushover, a slut even, to be turned on by this "fusillade of cliches" (to use Alexander Downer's phrase) from Mark Latham. But that's the sort of pillow-talk that really turns us community-minded folk on big time. And anyone who says different is just jealous they couldn't pull off an orgy of collective orgasms from their own National Press Club speeches.

... at the moment, I'm in love with Latham. Because he isn't afraid of being called "soft".

"I think the greatest problem so far with Mark Latham is that it's hard to know what he's about. He lacks consistency. The great leaders of Australia, people like on the Labor side someone like Whitlam, or on our side Menzies, are people who really stand for things and believe in things and fight an argument for those things. In Mark Latham's case he has a different position every day, sometimes on the same issue. I find him very inconsistent and intellectually his policy positions are often quite incoherent."

"Everything about Labor policy so far under Mark Latham is about more government involvement in peoples' lives and if you look at it he's saying he wants to regulate the family, he wants to regulate parenting."

Mark Latham never fails to unleash a [b]stream of shit[/b] everytime he opens his mouth. "I grew up poor," he says, "And struggled lots. I'm a real Aussie Battler!"

Henceforth, thee shall be known as Gardyloo Mark, by way of warning the public of the hypocritical [b]shit[/b] about to come.

For those who don't know, "Gardyloo!" is a cry that used to be heard in the slums in Scotland (and France, too-- apparently). It meant that [b]shit and piss and slop[/b] would come flying out of the chamber pots, out of the window, and onto the open [b]sewerage[/b] below. It served as a warning to people walking around in the street.

“Mr Latham once believed in internet democracy. He wrote on 14/5/2000 in the Sunday Mail that: ‘Democracy can be revitalised only by opening the system to public participation. Internet democracy seems a logical change. It will re-engage people in the political process. Politicians will need to post detailed information and policies on the net, addressing a host of issues and audiences.’

“Mr Latham says he believes in ‘honesty and transparency in public life’ yet he is now denying what he once believed in.

“As Orwell wrote ‘to simultaneously hold two opinions which cancelled out….to forget whatever was necessary to forget.’ This is doublethink…”

The other question that will be interesting to put to Latham is this: if he wins and incoming MPs' super payments are wound back, would he join the new scheme or stay with the perks of the old?

Pointing to the 600,000 children who live in single-parent households, Latham has promised to set up a national mentoring program. He told the conference: "For boys without men in their lives this is a real issue: a lack of male mentors and role models teaching them the difference between right and wrong. I see this in my own community: boys who have gone off the rails. And lost touch with a thing called society."