Meet The Press Live Blog

Today's Guest: NSW Premier Bob Carr
Host: Greg Turnbull.
Panel: Julia Coliaguiri, 2UE; Paul Mullins, Channel 10 News

Part One

(before we launch into this: Mark Latham's cancelled his membership of the Labor Party? Bomph - whoah. That's shocked me quite a lot. It shouldn't, but it does).

Here he is, in full flight - it's as if he never quit. Still referring to himself in the third person. `No tie, casual jacket - no job, see!'. My God, he's relaxed. He's so bloody happy and relaxed (well, who wouldn't be?), shaking away intimations of Federal aspirations as if they were crumbs on his lap. He has the story of his legacy worked out well by now; the `I never intended to implement a Kennett style reform programme' etc etc.

Part Two
Interesting that while Carr is dismissing the idea of Iemma being imposed upon the caucus by the party machine, he is already speaking in the past tense ... ouch. I hope I never get described as a `viable and good candidate', as Carr has described Carl Scully. Talk about damning with faint praise.

Here comes the Federal question. Interesting also that Carr has dismissed the idea of a presidential `beauty pageant' style nomination system occurring in Australia given the previous question about the party machine and how they do or don't put their selection up.

Carr is absolutely right when he says that there is great potential in the industrial relations debate. But he doesn't look so very certain when he denies the idea of removing the power of the caucus to appoint a frontbench in order to get rid of `dead wood'. He's on further shaky ground dismissing the idea of `powerbrokers' (even the panels giggling). Wouldn't it be funny if he just said `Fuck it - I'm outta here anyway. Yep, it's all based on whoever Joe Tripodi's screwed this week. Next question.'

Part Three
Whoa, there's a curly one from Julia Coliaguiri: what does Carr think of the war in Iraq. And a damn good answer, too. `Carefully and diplomatically structured' could be as apt a description for his response as for his idea for a pullout strategy.

Phoar, another curly one - bringing in John Faulkner's extremely ascerbic assessment of NSW Labor. Whoops, that crumb was a little too heavy to just shake away. No great answer there. The the question of why a politically passionate 15 year old from Maroubra would join the ALP is a very pertinent one.

I would say `And thus goes Bob Carr on a relatively-on-time train into the sunset ... yet I know he'll be back again on the Sunday Programme in only two hours' time :)