Messiah status for Labor leaders (letter)

by Frank Bellet

News Weekly, February 3, 2007

Sir,

The media frenzy, which has accompanied the "ascension" of Kevin Rudd to the Labor Party leadership, makes for an interesting study - as does the promotion of the reinvented feminist Julia Gillard.

While Kevin Rudd has explained that he is a Christian, I have always held the belief that most other Labor politicians and party hacks look on their Labor politics as a religion.

Assuming this to be true, you'll find that as leaders come and go (particularly when they are coming), Labor supporters feel the need to search for and proclaim Messiah status to anyone with a glib tongue, who they think might lead them out of the desert or wilderness.

The Mark Latham experiment was a case in point. Fawning articles on Latham, breathlessly written by members of the Canberra press gallery, prior to the last election, still make for interesting reading and a good laugh - that is, if exaggeration and unintentional humour take your fancy.

Frank Bellet,
Petrie, Qld