A despicable unfit liar

Australian Labour Leader Mark Latham has been called despicable, a liar and unfit to lead Australia.

And who has called him this? John Howard? Peter Costello? Tony Abbott?

Nope it is one of his own Labor MPs, in fact the leader of Labour’s Tasmanian federal MPs – Dick Adams.

Latham had fallen behind in the polls, so did a deal with the Greens to get their preferences in exchange for putting out of work some forestry workers in Tasmania.

Latham was trading jobs for trees, but it looks like he will actually end up trading votes for trees.

Voters do not like infighting and having one of your own MPs call you a despicable liar three days before the election can only be harmful.

I think it is safe to conclude Labor can not win enough seats (13 needed) to form a Government by themselves. There is a chance of a hung Parliament (if 8 – 12 seats go to Labor) but I think Howard will lose around five seats and have a three seat majority.

I would put probability of Latham outright win at 5%, probability of hung Parliament at 35% and probability of Coalition majority at 60%.

No idea with the Senate as I have not followed party’s preferences, but I doubt there will be major change apart from Greens wiping out the Democrats.