Transcript

HAMISH ROBERTSON: This morning, Mr Latham is continuing his tour of marginal seats in central and northern New South Wales. He spent the morning at another community forum at Raymond Terrace in the marginal Liberal electorate of Patterson.

Our reporter Alexandra Kirk is travelling with the Opposition Leader. She joins us now.

(To Alexandra Kirk) Alex, what's been the mood at the community forum this morning?

ALEXANDRA KIRK: Generally, very receptive, Hamish, and this democracy in the raw idea seems to have struck a chord here, people are airing their concerns, and their gripes, and the feeling that you get is that people are embracing this chance to get concerns off their chest, to have somebody listening.

It seems to be a bit of relief for people and their problems, and they've aired everything from the problem with foreign workers, as they see it, taking the jobs from Australian workers, unemployment, hospital waiting lists, education funding, parental responsibility.

And Mark Latham himself has again raised the importance of parental responsibility and parents reading to their children early on – we've seen a lot of him reading books to young children a lot lately.

And this is his response to the Prime Minister visiting a primary school in Western Australia yesterday.

MARK LATHAM: I hope that the Prime Minister follows my example in reading books to children. This is not just about the Book Start Scheme and the adult literacy we've announced as policy, it's also about the leadership and the role model of public life where if we can encourage more parents tonight to be reading to their infant children and building literacy in this country I think that's a good role, a good service.

So if the Prime Minister can join me in that, John Anderson, Andrew Bartlett, other political leaders, then I think that's a very good thing for us all to promote as vigorously as possible.

HAMISH ROBERTSON: Mark Latham with his views on the importance of parents reading to their children.

(To Alexandra Kirk) Alexandra, how has Mr Latham's message on reading gone down with the people he's met so far?

ALEXANDRA KIRK: Well, of the 30 plus questions that were asked of Mr Latham this morning only one person raised it as an issue, and as it turned out it made her very angry, and Kerrie Lee Menzies talked about working with the employment service in the local area, and raised a litany of problems that she saw – unemployment, drug abuse, homelessness, poverty – and by all accounts, she took great offence at Mark Latham pushing the social responsibility line, in particular the need for greater parental responsibility, along with his mantra of giving every newborn children books and also reading to kids. She went off in a huff after having her say and after hearing what Mark Latham had to say, and held her own impromptu media conference outside.

KERRIE LEE MENZIES: How naïve is this? 21st Century, you give a kid a book suffering from depression, homelessness, dysfunctional family, drug dependency, violence in the home, violence from siblings, mental health issues.

I mean, you get a kid of the next generation like that, hand them a book and say 'it'll be all right, mate, there'll be a job there at the end if you read this.' The big picture is help these kids, get them off the street, give them something to look forward to. These kids don't have a future! A book is not going to do it.

HAMISH ROBERTSON: Kerrie Lee Menzies, obviously unimpressed with Mark Latham's message.

(To Alexandra Kirk) Alex, were there any more Labor policy announcements this morning from Mr Latham?

ALEXANDRA KIRK: So far not yet from Mr Latham. But we are hearing that Labor is working on policy for radically overhauling the very generous superannuation benefits for federal MPs, they're talking about introducing a more conventional fund, presumably more in line with everybody else's super, presumably less generous than the current fund where the benefits are something like seven times more generous than most workers get.

Now, Mark Latham was asked about it this morning, he is not saying how Labor will change the scheme, or how it's going to convince in fact a majority of MPs to back it, because that's what's going to need to happen if it's going to happen. But definitely he seems to be sensing great community antipathy to the scheme and was having a crack himself at generous super payments and benefits for politicians.

MARK LATHAM: Well, I think politicians need to recognise that a lot of the public distrust and cynicism about double standards, and when people see a Parliamentary super scheme that's way out of line, far more generous than the community standard, well, it's hardly surprising that the public makes a grievance about that.

So, as I've said last week at our conference, we've got a responsibility to bring parliamentary life, public life back into good public regard, and getting rid of double standards and improving the ethics of politics, and we knocked off the tobacco money at our conference, all of those things can rebuild public trust in our democracy, and along with public participation and forums like this the whole need to restore public life as an honoured profession in the public interest is very pressing.

HAMISH ROBERTSON: Opposition Leader Mark Latham speaking in the marginal Liberal electorate of Patterson in New South Wales earlier this morning.