Fed: Latham a hypoctrite, a phoney, a copycat: govt ministers

AAP General News (Australia)
04-22-2004
Fed: Latham a hypoctrite, a phoney, a copycat: govt ministers

By Mariza Fiamengo

MELBOURNE, April 22 AAP - Federal government ministers today poured scorn on Opposition
Leader Mark Latham over allegations he plagiarised a speech by former US president Bill
Clinton.

As he joined his colleagues at a federal Cabinet meeting in Melbourne, Health Minister
Tony Abbott called Mr Latham a plagiarist and a hypocrite.

"I just thought it was a very bad case of plagiarism and of course he is guilty, not
just of plagiarism but of hypocrisy, because back in 1996 he accused a Liberal backbencher
of plagiarism because that gentleman had used extracts from a speech or article by the
management guru Peter Drucker," Mr Abbott said.

"And he, Latham, called the Liberal backbencher a liar, fraud and plagiarist.

"And now he has done exactly the same thing himself.

"He said then that every fibre of his body was against plagiarism and now he's responsible
for exactly the same thing."

A speech Mr Latham delivered to a Global Foundation lunch in Sydney on Tuesday, setting
proposed national targets for learning, has been said to contain striking similarities
to a State of the Union address given in 1997 by then-US president Bill Clinton.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer branded Mr Latham a phony.

"To make a speech on national identity and to be plagiarising the works of the American
president exposes Mr Latham of being nothing more than a phony," Mr Downer said.

"It's hardly surprising he's opposed to the free trade agreement with the US because
one aspect of the free trade agreement in America is it toughens up the copyright laws
making it more difficult for people to plagiarise."

Education Minister Brendan Nelson called the Opposition leader a copycat.

"In the space of six months, Mark Latham has gone from schoolyard bully to copycat,"

Mr Nelson said.

Attorney-General Phillip Ruddock said that if Mr Latham wanted to use the former US
president's ideas he should have acknowledged where they came from.

"If you think other people's ideas were worth repeating, the proper approach is to
acknowledge that you have used them," Mr Ruddock said.

But Mr Latham today denied his speech was the same as Mr Clinton's.

"My targets are more ambitious and broader than the ones Bill Clinton outlined in 1997," he said.

"I've got seven targets set out in my program, I think he had just three and one of
those is more moderate than mine -- I want computer literacy at age 10, he was talking
about age 12.

"I've been talking that way for many years about these targets.

"I didn't know Bill Clinton mentioned reading programs in that speech."

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