Mark Latham set to secure Upper House seat for One Nation
After 14 years in the political wilderness, Mark Latham is widely expected to return to office as One Nation’s first member of the NSW Upper House — and he’s hopeful a colleague will join him.
After 14 years in the political wilderness, Mark Latham is widely expected to return to office as One Nation’s first member of the NSW Upper House — and he’s hopeful a colleague will join him.
Last night former federal Labor leader Mr Latham, 58, was almost certain to have reached the magic 4.54 per cent quota of total votes to win the right-wing party’s first seat in the NSW Legislative Council.
In fact, One Nation was tallying votes above 10 per cent in metropolitan NSW, a result broadcaster Alan Jones described as “extraordinary”.
Straight-talking media commentator and author Mr Latham is expected to be one of 12 members of the Upper House from at least five micro-parties and the Greens on a potentially chaotic crossbench.
“We only ran in 12 Lower House seats, so I’m keen to see what happens in the Legislative Council,” Mr Latham said. “At the moment we’re tracking towards two quotas (seats).
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“When the metropolitan numbers are counted in the Legislative Council, it’s pretty encouraging for getting my running mate Rod Roberts elected.”
While Mr Latham did not condone Opposition Leader Michael Daley’s comments about Asian immigration, he did stress that Sydney was growing too quickly.
“Sydney’s growing by 100,000 people a year — 100,000 new cars on the roads — and Sydney is clearly growing too quickly,” he told Channel 7.
“We need a pause, a real pause on that rapid population growth, so our jobs and services catch up.”
Mr Latham also touched on Labor’s bad results in Kogarah, a seat with a large population of Asian heritage.
“The questions in Kogarah aren’t about the size of the immigration intake, it’s the racism that (ALP Leader) Michael Daley expressed with a very incorrect statement, and kind of a lewd statement, to say that Asians are taking the jobs and the place of people in the city,” Mr Latham said.
“That’s not the demographic trend. Those comments were off the radar.”
Mr Latham spent 11 years in federal parliament as the member for Werriwa, leaving a year after his defeat by John Howard in the 2004 federal election.
He has since fought defamation battles, been sacked from numerous media roles for controversial commentary and joined David Leyonhjelm’s Liberal Democrats Party.
Blocked from running for the LDP in today’s poll, he joined One Nation in 2018, running on a campaign against high immigration, burqas and political correctness.
Mr Leyonhjelm said Mr Latham “has lots of ideas and knows politics”.
“He has no experience in minor-party politics, but I think he will be up to speed with that in a few months’ time,” Mr Leyonhjelm, who was also expected to take a seat in the NSW Upper House for the first time, said.
Other MLCs were not so complementary.
“I think he will stay in the parliament for eight years, but will he remain within One Nation and work together with Pauline Hanson?” Greens MLC David Shoebridge asked.
“In the past she has been incapable of working with much smaller egos than Mark Latham.”
Half of the Legislative Council’s 42 seats were up for grabs in this election. Commentators estimate there will be up to 12 crossbenchers from the Greens and at least five micro-parties.
Liberal MLC Peter Phelps, who was ninth on the Coalition ticket for re-election, said: “That is a very diverse crossbench of 10 in a 41-seat (42 with a speaker) parliament.
“Good luck to the poor sod who has to negotiate through that.”
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