NSW Labor vowed to never work with Mark Latham. The reality is more complicated

One of Chris Minns’s first commitments as premier was to have nothing to do with Mark Latham.

“The position from NSW Labor is unambiguous, we won’t be dealing with Mark Latham,” Minns said in April 2023 after Latham published a series of vile and homophobic remarks about Sydney MP Alex Greenwich.

The sensational allegations about Latham’s behaviour in parliament – including the alleged use of his parliamentary office to film “sordid” sexual trysts, and photographing female MPs in the chamber – has put renewed spotlight on the former federal Labor leader’s political relationships.

Mark Latham returns home on Friday.Credit: Wolter Peeters

They have also once again placed an uncomfortable spotlight on the culture inside NSW parliament. Despite the explosive findings in the 2022 Broderick report that sexual harassment and bullying was rife in the building, the Herald can reveal only 39 MPs – or about 29 per cent – have completed both stages of a workplace behaviour program set up following the report’s release.

Minns himself has used the allegations against Latham to criticise the Liberals’ leader in the upper house, Damien Tudehope, over his co-operation with Latham in opposing Labor’s controversial cuts to the workers’ compensation scheme, urging him to “cut that string”.

But the truth is more complicated, and Labor has not been averse to lobbying Latham when it needs to.

While the government has not supported Latham’s elevation to any committee chair positions, they still work hard to win him over on legislation, and have worked with Latham in the upper house over amendments to its bills.

As recently as May, Treasurer Daniel Mookhey met Latham in the office of fellow independent Rod Roberts as Labor scrambled to convince upper house crossbenchers to support his controversial reforms to workers compensation.

“They wanted our support,” Roberts said. “It wasn’t a one-off, they were constantly chasing us. This idea they won’t work with Latham is bullshit. You only have to sit there and watch the footage in the chamber when parliament is sitting and watch certain ministers go and sit beside him and chat with him.

“I know and can say that he’s had texts of support from some Labor MPs in the last couple of days.”

Nor can Labor claim to have a zero-tolerance policy towards MPs with questionable track records. In 2022, the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party leader Robert Borsak was captured on camera saying a female MP should have been “clocked” following a fiery debate in parliament.

Despite Labor MPs calling on Borsak to apologise at the time, in government they have continued to work with him. Last month, this masthead revealed Minns had opened the door to a Shooters plan to establish a new “hunting authority” and pay bounty hunters to kill feral animals.

Minns has pointed out the government doesn’t “accept” votes on legislation, and, unlike a normal workplace, he has no power to restrict Latham’s conduct in parliament. At the same time, he has also criticised the Liberals and crossbench parties such as the Greens for having “backed each other’s motions”.

But ministers regularly negotiate with him. In March, during debate over a bill to establish a new governance model over SafeWork NSW, the government MP leading the debate thanked Latham for his “carefully considered amendment” to the bill which had been drafted “in consultation with the minister’s office”.

NSW premier Chris Minns on Thursday urged the Liberals to sever ties with Mark Latham.Credit: Steven Siewert

The allegations against Latham are yet another chapter in the long and unsavoury history of politics in this state.

Rape allegations against a Nationals MP aired in the parliament, the alleged harassment of a female journalist by Labor leader Luke Foley, and the former NSW Labor general secretary, Jamie Clements, who quit in 2016 facing sexual harassment allegations.

The Broderick Report, released in 2022, was a shocking indictment on the parliament’s culture. The report found five people had experienced attempted or actual sexual assault. There was a culture of “systemic and multidirectional bullying” in parliament, it found. More than a third of respondents said they had been bullied or sexually harassed over the past five years, and some offices were “well-known hotspots”.

It also found that almost half of sexual harassment incidents in the past five years were perpetrated by MPs.

Despite that, by June last year, only 6 per cent of MPs had taken part in a workplace culture program set up following the report’s release. That figure has since risen to 48 per cent of MPs who have done the first stage of the training. Only 39 MPs, or about 29 per cent, have done both stages.

The Department of Parliamentary Services did not directly respond to a question about how many of the Broderick report’s 31 recommendations had been implemented, but pointed to a $15 million funding announcement made by the government in 2023 to help put the changes in place. They included 10 new human resources staff members.

“Key areas of change have transitioned to ongoing arrangements, including a commitment to ensuring that the parliament has the resources needed to support staff and promote a safe and respectful workplace,” a spokesperson for the department said.

However, progress on other reforms has been slow. A parliamentary committee set up after Labor came to power in 2023 to review the implementation of Broderick’s recommendations has yet to hold any hearings, and submissions only closed last month.

A separate inquiry into the Independent Complaints Officer, which is supposed to deal with internal bullying and harassment claims, found most complaints were not investigated because they were outside its remit.

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