(Lack of) leadership and the future for the Australian Labor Party

Without identity, Labor might as well resign itself to the opposition benches where history will measure its impact as ineffectual as being "flogged with a warm lettuce".

Without doubt, history will record this period of Labor in Australia in the footnote: a time when its heart monitor flat-lined. A period when the party waited for deliverance and was content with caretakers as leaders. But now is the time of reckoning, a poor choice will see the next leader fulfil the role of undertaker.

Perhaps we should place an advertisement; "Wanted: Leader of the Australian Labor Party. Must be elegant, gallant, fresh, imposing and uncompromising in stature with a bold and original imagination. No wimps need apply. Must be presumptuous enough to believe that he/she can save Labor in Australia from the danger of atrophy".

These are big shoes to fill - but if there is one thing that is common to Australian working-class heroes (Ned Kelly, Peter Lalor and the likes) it is not so much greatness that has proved definitive but a greatness of heart. Charles E.W. Bean, an Australian journalist at the Gallipoli front line, wrote about an Australian brand of hero.

"What these men did nothing can alter now. The good and the bad, the greatness and smallness of their story will stand. Whatever of glory it contains nothing now can lessen. It rises, as it will always rise, above the mists of ages, a monument to great-hearted men; and for their nation, a possession for ever."

The question is - will Labor rise again? And is there such a person to lead Labor into battle, on to the floor of the House behind the Usher of the Black Rod? Legend has it that we will know this mortal being by his/her shameless defence of a line in the sand.