A quote worthy of Hunter S Thompson himself, from Tony Wright, national affairs editor of the Age newspaper in Melbourne, re the savage internecine strife currently ripping apart Australia’s Labor Party: “If you’d hauled a semi-trailer load of fighting rum, a caravan of harlots and a boxing tent into a mining camp on payday, you’d hardly predict the level of crazed viciousness that has busted out in what’s left of the heart of the Labor party.”