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The article focuses on Mark Latham, leader of Australia's opposition Labor Party. Faced with an election by the end of 2004--and the prospect of Prime Minister John Howard winning a fourth term--Labor parliamentarians decided to ignore Mr Latham's colourful past and on December 2nd elected him to replace the lacklustre Simon Crean, whose public-approval ratings collapsed. Mr Latham is Labor's youngest leader in a century. Yet he also seems to be the party's best hope for overcoming the identity crisis that has plagued it since it lost power to Mr Howard's coalition almost eight years ago. Mr Latham is a champion of the market and individual enterprise and favours tax cuts for high earners. The job of government, he says, is "to help the people who are doing the right thing--the people who are getting stuck in, doing things the fair dinkum Australian way." He will push his ideas to make Australia an "upwardly mobile society", and boost health and education, where the Howard government is vulnerable. His biggest challenge will be to unite his party behind him before the election, whose timing is up to Mr Howard. The government coalition will try to exploit Mr Latham's inexperience and his inconsistencies on economic policy. But the new Labor leader is as formidable a communicator as Mr Howard, and every bit as adept at responding quickly to circumstances.

The article reports that Kim Beazley, who led Labor from 1996 to 2001, was left as the only candidate for the job after two rival contenders, Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, announced their withdrawal. Both conceded they had been unable to muster sufficient support among their parliamentary colleagues to challenge Beazley. Barring any unforeseen problems, the path was cleared for Beazley to resume the Labor leadership at one of the lowest points in the party's 114-year history. Labor is still reeling from the shock of its fourth successive defeat last October by the conservative coalition government led by John Howard. On January 18th, a second shock followed when Mark Latham, who had led Labor for only 13 months, resigned as leader and from parliament. A tough year lies ahead. In July, the government will take control for the first time of the Senate, giving it what Beazley called "a position of absolutely unprecedented power".

Focuses on Mark Latham, leader of Australia's opposition Labor Party, who resigned abruptly on January 18th. View that Labor seems as far from regaining power as at any time since losing to the conservative coalition, led by John Howard, almost nine years ago; Latham's silence following the Indian Ocean tsunami and his announcement he was quitting the leadership and his parliamentary seat of Werriwa in Sydney; Observations on Latham's leadership; Possibility that the Labor Party may turn once again to Kim Beazley, a deputy prime minister in the last Labor government.