Mark Latham’s criticism of Sydney Water’s spending hard to swallow

Mark Latham may be Sydney Water’s fiercest critic over so-called wasteful spending, but his outrage over a survey on women’s shower habits rang hollow this week, writes James O’Doherty.

The former One Nation MP, Mark Latham, who ridiculed the taxpayer-funded research as “nonsense,” admitted to exchanging explicit messages with former lover Natalie Matthews during parliamentary sittings on the public’s dime.

Last week, Mark Latham took aim at Sydney Water for wasting taxpayers’ cash on a survey which apparently found that young women are more likely to “adopt water saving behaviours” than their male counterparts, including by taking shorter showers.

Declaring that “nobody believes that women ever take shorter showers than men,” Latham labelled the survey “nonsense”, calling on Sydney Water to “save taxpayers’ money by abandoning it”.

Of all state MPs, Latham is perhaps the harshest critic of taxpayers’ money being wasted.

If the former One Nation member believes money is being poured down the drain, no amount of public spending is too small to escape his ire.

While the Sydney Water survey is, admittedly, rubbish, Latham’s criticism of the spending was this week made harder to swallow.

By his own admission, Latham was happy to exchange sexually-explicit messages with his then partner Nathalie Matthews during taxpayer-funded work hours.

From the floor of the chamber, no less, Latham says he was looking at, and responding to, explicit photos.

At the very least, this is hardly what the people of NSW would expect from an elected member while on the clock.

That is before one considers any concept of public decency; Latham was even sending some of these explicit texts while visiting school students were sitting behind him in the public gallery.

He also took photos of female MPs without their knowledge, made disparaging remarks about female colleagues’ appearance, and claimed to have pinched Liberal Eleni Petinos on the “bum” (something she says is a “fantasy” that never happened).

In any other workplace, any one of these things would lead to a code of conduct investigation.

Yet Latham says he is just “guilty” of “being human … and male”.

“If you’re sitting there listening to Penny Sharpe droning on, and then a woman who looks like Natalie Matthews sends you a message, which one would you pay attention to?” Latham mused on 2SM.

“The big news is - I have a private life, I had a sex life that I’ve to say was fantastic,” he said to broadcaster Chris Smith, who has himself been sacked twice over sexual misconduct allegations - for which he apologised.

In the cosy chat, Latham again denied abuse claims levelled against him by his ex-partner, revealed by The Australian on Monday.

In those accusations, made by Matthews in court documents seeking an apprehended violence order, Latham was alleged to have forced his then-partner into “degrading” sexual acts.

Matthews took the allegations to police, who decided there was not enough evidence to pursue an AVO or charges.

Latham labelled the accusations “comically false and ridiculous,” and says he will defend himself when the matter goes before the court.

Even putting those allegations aside, the outcast MP has demonstrated he is temperamentally unfit for the office he holds.

To be clear: whatever Latham does in his private life is a matter for him and the people with which he chooses to do it - as long as everyone involved gave their enthusiastic consent.

What is at issue here is the standards we expect of our politicians while they are at work.

Latham, having been sacked by One Nation Leader Pauline Hanson, was already a parliamentary pariah.

He has turned parliament into a platform for his own personal grievances and vendettas, even using a late night speech to complain about legal action brought against him by Sydney MP Alex Greenwich.

This week Latham became radioactive, and the Coalition is caught in the nuclear fallout.

In recent months, the Coalition has been repeatedly siding with Latham to disrupt the government’s parliamentary agenda - including delaying an overhaul of the workers compensation scheme.

A Warren Brown cartoon on the current Mark Latham controversy.

Extraordinarily, Acting Opposition Leader Damien Tudehope has even tied himself to Latham in a bid to redefine what constitutes “sexual harassment” at work.

By his own actions, Latham has demonstrated that he is the last person the Coalition should be listening to when it comes to defining workplace sexual harassment.

Tudehope rightly concedes that “having Mark Latham’s name attached to anything relating to sexual activity is a problem,” and that the MP has, by his own behaviour, “tainted” his ability to contribute in parliament.

Yet despite demanding Latham apologise, Tudehope insists that the embattled MP’s ideas on sexual harassment still have merit.

Perhaps the Coalition should consider the contribution from Premier Chris Minns, made last month, well before the latest scandal to tarnish Latham’s name:

“I’m reminded of that old adage … ‘never wrestle with a pig, because you both get dirty, and besides, the pig loves it’.