"Fitzgibbon's first instinct in public life is panic" ... former ALP leader Mark Latham gave a broadside to senior Labor figures in an interview on Thursday. Credit:Jessica Hromas "He's always inflating his numbers. He's now got [Graham] Richardson, who, more than any other person, has wrecked the modern culture of the Labor Party. Why is Richardson supporting Rudd, and in there working on the numbers? Because Gillard won't listen to him, you see. "Richardson is all about difference, unless he's the main numbers man and the one they listen to, he goes to do you in. He did Rudd in three years ago. He made out that he was a part of the coup against Kevin Rudd because Rudd wasn't listening to him. Now he wants to be a part of a coup against Gillard because she didn't listen to him. "Why don't people listen to Graham Richardson? I'll give you one good reason – he's the man that walked up to Eddie Obeid once and said: 'Here, on this platter for you, I've got a seat in the NSW upper house on behalf of the Labor Party.' "How can the man who put Eddie Obeid into the NSW Parliament be wandering around talking about political judgment, calling the Prime Minister an idiot? The biggest idiot in Labor politics today is the man who put Obeid in Parliament: Graham Fredrick Richardson.

"I've had a gutful of the bloke who was a paid lobbyist for Ron Medich, who got into scandals about Swiss bank accounts. How can you say you're a Labor man when you've set up Swiss bank accounts? Swiss bank accounts worked for Kerry Packer. "It's shameful that this man has any reputation, the man who set up the wheeling and dealing, 'whatever it takes' culture in the modern Labor Party. He's the bloke who wrecked the place and he walks around like he's got clean hands like Mother Teresa, knows all the numbers. All he knows how to do is put people like Obeid in Parliament ... and it's a real achievement in public life for Richardson, but 20 years after he made that decision, it is contributing to the destruction of the federal Labor government. He should crawl under the rock from which he came. "I know Joel Fitzgibbon well. Fitzgibbon's first instinct in public life is panic, and you saw that yesterday when he's wandering down the corridors saying, 'we've only got 31 per cent of the primary vote'. He's an amateur. He's a buffoon. He is not someone who – when I was running for leadership against Beazley – who we thought was good enough to come into our council of war. "If Rudd is relying on Fitzgibbon, again, it just points to the fact that he's got the dregs of the labour movement with him. People like Richardson and Fitzgibbon. Fitzgibbon's second instinct in life is to blabber non-stop, on and off the record, to the media; he's addicted to the media as badly as Rudd ... "They won't have a ballot in the caucus board ... I'll tell you what the ballot should be for. It should be for the position of chief government whip, because in the Westminster tradition, that position of chief government whip held by Joel Fitzgibbon only has one duty: to be loyal to the leader.

"And if you're a person of honour and you recognise that you can't discharge that duty any more, you have to resign from that position. Not take the extra taxpayers' money that comes with it. "When you talk about Fitzgibbon, you're talking about someone who is not only the dregs of the labour movement, he's totally dishonourable. "He's totally dishonourable, if he was a man of honour he wouldn't be walking around pocketing that extra money as the chief government whip. Because he's the chief government leaker, he's the chief government destabiliser, and it's shameful, shameful that he remains in that position today. "They should have a ballot in the caucus – it should be for Fitzgibbon's position. He should be sacked. But more importantly, we should have high standards and people of honour in the labour movement. Fitzgibbon is very representative; no surprise he's now hanging out with Richardson, it's very representative of all the things that have gone wrong in the culture of the modern Labor Party. "I'd say, don't listen to idiots like Richardson and Fitzgibbon, don't trust a word of people of dishonour who've shamed the labour movement consistently for a long, long while.

"Don't listen to a bloke like Richardson who put a bloke like Eddie Obeid into the NSW Parliament, we should be better than that, we should have a culture in the Labor Party that's not about wheeling and dealing and doing whatever it takes, its about public policy and a vision for the Australian people. It's about looking after the battlers, caring about poverty, caring about inequality. "Let's not get sidetracked into the dregs of the labour movement – people like Fitzgibbon and Richardson – we should be better than that. And if we've got some good ideas for the Australian people, let's put them forward. "We made a decision about the leader 12 months ago. The honourable Labor thing to do is abide by that, put forward our ideas for the Australian people – and if we lose on election day, far better, far better to die on our feet than to live on our knees. "I find this so upsetting, the modern Labor Party lives on its knees when it associates with people like Richardson and Fitzgibbon's culture of wheeling and dealing, of panic. The number merchants who care nothing for the real issues that concern Labor supporters, they just concern themselves about being a big wheel in the system. Loading

"This is not the Labor Party of Curtin, Chifley, Whitlam and Keating. It's the Labor Party of people who should be just kicked straight out the door and told, if they haven't got the honour to stand up for what's right, they've got no place in the modern Labor system. "That's what I'd be saying to the colleagues. It's true – unless you deal with the bad people, you bring yourself down and if you live in a bad culture, that's never going to get better."