Mark Latham denies former partner Nathalie Matthews’ shocking abuse claims
Mark Latham has denied explosive claims by his ex-partner, who alleges a sustained pattern of abuse in a domestic violence order application filed with the NSW Local Court.
Former federal Labor leader and controversial ex-One Nation figure Mark Latham is at the centre of allegations from a former partner that he forced her into degrading sexual acts, demanded she call him “master” and threw dinner plates at her, in an explosive application for a domestic violence order.
Mr Latham on Monday issued an emphatic denial about the claims, saying they were “absolute rubbish” and declaring he had not yet been served with any order.
In application documents filed with the NSW Local Court, his former partner of almost three years, Nathalie May Matthews, has claimed that he engaged in a “sustained pattern” of abuse, including emotional, psychological and financial manipulation, pressured her to have sex with other people and participate in depraved acts, and drove his car at her.
Ms Matthews, 37, who owns an e-commerce global logistics firm based in Dubai, Perth and Sydney, is seeking an order preventing Mr Latham from going within 100m of her, alleging an “ongoing, reasonable fear of harassment, intimidation, and potential harm”.
It is understood she has taken the allegations to NSW police but they have not laid any charges or applied for an order on her behalf.
The Australian is not suggesting the allegations are true, only that they have been made and that Ms Matthews is making an application for a domestic violence order.
Mr Latham, who last year was ordered to pay NSW MP Alex Greenwich $140,000 for defamation over a homophobic tweet and was in June described by Premier Chris Minns as a “shameful bigot”, at first did not wish to address the disturbing allegations on Monday afternoon, but later, via text message, labelled them “fictitious and comical”.
“The claims you’ve listed there are absolute rubbish,” he said. “Comical in fact.
“Nothing has been served on me nor has anyone contacted me.
“I haven’t had anything to do with her (Ms Matthews) since 27 May, so nearly seven weeks ago. I ended the ‘situationship’ that night for very good reason.”
Ms Matthews, a Liberal Party member who ran for Sutherland Shire Council for the party in 2021, is seeking an initial interim order, which will be heard later this month, and a final two-year order.
In December, she resigned as the Liberal Party’s Cronulla branch secretary following a four-year stint.
The documents detail serious allegations of “degrading” sexual acts, and claims that she has been in a “constant state of fear and hypervigilance” since returning from overseas in June “due to the defendant’s pattern of harassment and intimidation following previous separations”.
The application alleges Mr Latham engaged in vile acts, “including defecating on me before sex and refusing to let me wash, forcing degrading sexual acts, pressuring me to engage in sexual acts with others, demanding I call him ‘master’, telling me I was his property, and repeatedly telling me that my only value to him was for sex to demean and control me.”
“(Mr Latham engaged in) physical violence, including pushing me against walls, forcing me out the door, throwing a plate at me during an argument, and driving at me with his vehicle, hitting me with the side mirror and causing a bruise,” the court document claims.
Ms Matthews, who gave permission to be identified but refused to comment further, also seeks that the order prohibits Mr Latham from assaulting, threatening, stalking, harassing or intimidating her, and from intentionally or recklessly destroying or damaging any property or harming an animal that belongs to her or is in her possession.
She claims she was subject to emotional and psychological abuse “including constant put-downs comparing me unfavourably to other women, acting as if he would harm himself to manipulate me, monitoring my devices without consent, and systematically undermining my confidence to control and isolate me”.
She also claims Mr Latham forced her to pay for international holidays “under duress”, coerced her into “expensive purchases” and pressured her regarding her father’s will for his benefit.
“The defendant has held intimate photos and videos of me, and I have been afraid he would expose them to shame and control me if I attempted to leave or resist his demands,” she alleges.
The matter will be mentioned at Downing Centre Local Court on July 30.
The allegations come after Mr Latham, now serving as an independent in the NSW Legislative Council, was found by the Federal Court last year to have defamed independent Sydney MP Alex Greenwich after claiming in a homophobic social media post that Mr Greenwich was not a fit and proper person to be a member of the NSW parliament because he engaged in “disgusting” sexual activities.
He was ordered to pay $140,000 to Mr Greenwich.
In separate proceedings in the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal heard in June, Mr Latham allegedly constituted unlawful homosexual vilification and sexual harassment against Mr Greenwich in the post on X in March 2023.
Also in June, Mr Latham used parliamentary privilege to reveal confidential information from a psychologist’s report prepared for the tribunal as to the case brought by Mr Greenwich. In response, Mr Greenwich told parliament that Mr Latham “thinks and talks far too much about my sex life”.
Upper house leader Penny Sharpe said she would refer Mr Latham to the privileges committee over his “unauthorised disclosure of privileged information” under the cover of parliamentary privilege.
This came after Mr Minns had labelled Mr Latham one of the state’s most “shameful bigots” and likened him to a pig, in a ferocious attack that accused the former One Nation MP of ignoring hundreds of anti-Semitic attacks in the state.
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