Fiery Latham offers sharp contrast
By CNN's Grant Holloway in Sydney
 |  Political pundits agree Mark Latham has campaigned strongly. |
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 CNN's Mike Chinoy looks at the two candidates running for Australian Prime Minister
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SYDNEY, Australia (CNN) -- Win or lose on October 9, Labor Party leader Mark Latham has already etched himself into the annals of Australian political history.
At the helm for less than a year, Latham has re-established his party as a proactive opposition and credible alternative government.
Faced with a vastly experienced and wily incumbent in Prime Minister John Howard, Latham has campaigned strongly to put his opposition Labor party in a good position to reach for victory.
It may not yet be enough to unseat a government that has presided over nearly nine years of economic prosperity, but it has been enough to give Howard's conservative coalition a genuine challenge.
With just 10 years of parliamentary experience compared with Howard's 30, the 43-year-old Latham has established himself as the leading Labor politician of his generation.
It has been a meteoric rise for the working-class boy from the outer-western suburbs of Australia's biggest city, Sydney.
After being educated at a government selective school, the young Latham worked as a barman to help pay his way through through Sydney University, earning an honors degree in economics.
His first professional political experience began at age 26 when he was elected as a local government councillor and by 30 he was mayor of the Liverpool Council, a populous local government district.
His national political career began in 1994 when he became the member for Werriwa, a safe Labor party seat encompassing many of the working class suburbs of western Sydney where he grew up.
 Latham has toned down his image since becoming Opposition leader. | |
Latham soon made his mark on the national stage, winning a reputation for fiery language and a volatile temper.
Among many colorful incidents, he referred to the Prime Minister as an "arselicker", broke a taxidriver's arm in a dispute over a fare and, perhaps most damagingly, described U.S. President George W. Bush as the "most incompetent and dangerous president in living memory".
But it has been a much more reserved Latham that has been making his mark on the campaign trail.
Hammering domestic policy issues such as health care and education, Latham has returned time and again to the key themes of "easing the squeeze" on Australia's middle-class families and "restoring the rungs in the ladder of opportunity" for the less well off.
He has also been a strident critic of what he describes as John Howard's "lack of accountability" over intelligence failures leading up to the war in Iraq and he has promised to bring home Australian troops from Baghdad by the end of the year if elected.
As a leader, Latham has successfully cast himself as a stark contrast and fresh alternative to the 65-year-old Howard.
