Federal Labor, post the 2019 election result, has had to deal with a policy malaise the likes of which it has not experienced since the Mark Latham experiment in 2004.
Recall that Latham went to that election with a bold agenda, the centrepiece of which was Julia Gillard’s Medicare Gold for the nation’s elderly.
On the surface, it was a popular policy, described by Latham at the time as the “greatest extension in federal responsibility for hospital c…