Trump’s Aussie mates: Latham, Dean and Cameron launch new show

Mark Latham, Ross Cameron and Rowan Dean have teamed up for a new panel show on Sky News called Outsiders.

Rowan Dean, Mark Latham and Ross Cameron on set at Sky News in Sydney. Picture: Britta Campion

Mark Latham, Ross Cameron and Rowan Dean, or “Trump’s Aussie Mates”, have teamed up for a new panel show on Sky News called Outsiders.

It is an answer to the ABC’s Insiders program, the embodiment of an out-of-touch, inner-city Leftist class, according to the trio.

Former Labor Party leader, Latham, former Howard government frontbencher, Cameron, and editor of The Spectator magazine, Rowan Dean, hosted a US election-day function called Trump’s Aussie Mates on ­November 9 in Sydney.

High on Donald Trump’s unexpected victory, the three men joined Sky’s Paul Murray Live that night to discuss and celebrate what had just transpired.

“All three of us over the past 12 months were both supportive of Donald Trump and, more importantly, recognised he would win and kept repeating this despite this meaning the opprobrium of every other media commentator basically,” Dean told The Australian. “I was told I was reprehensible as a human being for even countenancing a Donald Trump victory on Lateline.”

Days after the Paul Murray appearance, an agreement was in place for a new show featuring the trio to air on Sunday mornings at 10am, immediately after Barrie Cassidy’s Insiders on the ABC, with the program to debut on ­December 4.

“It could be close to a record for the fastest conception of a TV network news program,” Cameron said. “It required two conversations and one email and it took less than 24 hours.”

Latham, known for his Trump-like disdain for political correctness, the establishment and bleeding-heart Lefties, claims ­credit for the idea.

He said Cassidy’s predictions of a Hillary Clinton landslide victory galvanised his belief there was room in the market for a show that gave voice to Australia’s own silent majority.

“It’s like the ‘Opposite day’ ­episode of Seinfeld,” Latham said. “If you do the opposite of Barrie Cassidy you’ll get it right.”

Latham predicts the program will enjoy unprecedented access to the White House during the Trump presidency.

“When we want to call team Trump, we just called him direct. We don’t need the Shark,” he said in reference to a News Corp report that Australian golfer Greg Norman had put Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in touch with the president-elect.

One objective for the program is to gain access to a Human Rights Commission conciliation conference, run by president Gillian Triggs, for a complaint lodged under the controversial section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, Cameron said.

“Our modest goal is to be the highest-rating show on Sky in three weeks,” he said.

Latham said he was proud there was “absolutely no balance whatsoever” on the panel. “There’s no gender balance. We’re all white. We don’t believe in things like gender balance,” he said.

The hosts declined to divulge their thoughts on Turnbull’s handling of the Trump victory thus far. “You’ll have to watch the show,” they said.

So how do they think the Trump presidency will pan out?

Cameron: “Brilliantly. Two terms.”

Dean: “It will be a proper presidency.”

Latham: “We want Trump to abuse the media and for them to abuse him back and we want more lectures from actors … then a Trump landslide in 2020.”