We don’t need to shame Latham, he does it himself
Mark Latham has been showing us who he is for years, and yet he still won at the NSW state election over the weekend. So what does this really mean for the future of our beloved state, asks Eliza Barr.
When I decided I wanted to be a journalist I never imagined a man who could have led our country would one day call me a “genuine dope” on Twitter.
Newly elected One Nation upper house MP and former Opposition Leader Mark Latham and I go way back.
Our worlds first collided in April 2017 when I began working at the Fairfield Advance and he published a video saying the lack of English spoken in Sydney’s southwest was “disgraceful”.
“How can we have a proper cohesive, cooperative multicultural community if people don’t even speak the basic language of the nation,” he said in the video.
When I reported the community’s disgust at his remarks, he called me a “cheerleader for refugees”.
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It was just the beginning of his public petulance towards me which endures to this day.
However, Latham’s increasingly cantankerous sledges against my credibility are only one feature of his rude, contemptuous speech which extends well beyond me and my position to attacks on migrants, refugees, Indigenous people and transgender people.
In a truly astonishing turn of events Mark Latham has evolved from national Labor leader to political outcast to a freshly elected state representative for One Nation via a brief flirtation with David “Sue My Wife” Leyonhjelm’s Liberal Democrats.
That is utterly dreadful news for civil public discourse.
Last year I stumbled into a confrontation with far-right YouTuber Lauren Southern in the streets of Lakemba as she clumsily fibbed about the area being a “monoculture” — while she stood at the junction of a falafel shop, an Indian restaurant and an Australian pub.
“Barr is a full-on Left political activist masquerading as a “journo”,” Latham tweeted Southern.
“She’s 100% FAKE NEWS.”
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In February 2018 he complained I was “typical of journalists these days who seek to impose their own views onto stories or the non-reporting of them while masquerading as independent news reporter”.
Here’s the thing: I don’t actually need to say anything at all about Mark Latham. I never did, and I never will.
Mark Latham’s behaviour speaks for itself. And now that he is an elected representative in NSW that is the heart of the problem.
Latham speaks for himself in his videos where he refers to southwest Sydney’s “ethnic enclaves” as a disgrace.
He spoke for himself in 2017 when he questioned a school student’s sexuality after he appeared in an International Women’s Day video about feminism.
He spoke for himself this month when he advocated for DNA tests for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in some bizarre effort to stop “welfare rorters”.
RELATED: The tragedy of Mark Latham
He spoke for himself two weeks ago when he said children were “changing their gender every other day” and becoming “mentally ill because they are confused about their gender”.
Factual reports on Latham’s policies and his ideology are not fake news.
No-one twisted his words — they’re straight from the MP’s mouth.
Latham has already told you everything you need to know about him all by himself.
Just listen to him.
That is the man you’ll meet once more as he resumes his position in the corridors of power.
Eliza Barr is a journalist for NewsCorp. @ElizaJBarr
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