Mark Latham defying Pauline Hanson bid to axe him as One Nation NSW leader

NSW One Nation leader Mark Latham is defying a bid by Pauline Hanson to sack him, claiming he remains head of the party’s parliamentary team.

One Nation federal party leader Pauline Hanson with Mark Latham in 2018. Picture: AAP

NSW One Nation leader Mark Latham is defying a bid by Pauline Hanson to sack him, claiming he remains head of the party’s parliamentary team and suggesting “if she is worried about under-­performance, her best solution is to buy a mirror”.

Senator Hanson has disbanded One Nation’s state executive, which had been led by Mr Latham, citing a disastrous swing against the party in the March state ­election.

In a Facebook post on Monday, Mr Latham accused Senator Hanson of taking over the NSW branch “without consultation or due process” and claimed he had “stood in the way of attempts to misuse our funds”.

“She has installed her own new state executive with people from Queensland and Tasmania who did not lift a finger to help us during the March election campaign,” Mr Latham wrote.

One Nation’s vote in the NSW upper house had fallen by 1 per cent, he conceded, but the party’s 6 per cent result was still 2 per cent ahead of the NSW Senate result last year in a campaign that Senator Hanson had headed.

“In Queensland, Hanson’s Senate vote fell by 3% and she only just scraped in for re-election. If she is worried about under-­performance, her best solution is to buy a mirror,” Mr Latham wrote.

“The decision to try to abolish the position of NSW One Nat­ion parliamentary leader is bizarre, mirroring something the Greens do in the NSW parliament.”

Senator Hanson now sits on the state executive and vowed to become “personally involved” in a review of the party organisation, including its parliamentary wing.

“At the state election in March 2023, there was a 14 per cent swing against our party vote from the previous election,” she wrote in a letter to the NSW leadership team, cited by The Daily Telegraph.

“There is still no good explanation as to why this occurred, given that we had two MLCs in the state parliament, a fully resourced NSW branch office and disillusioned conservative voters abandoning the Liberal Party … these are serious questions that need to be addressed.”

Expectations of a strong One Nation performance at the March election failed to materialise, with the party snagging just 1.8 per cent of the vote and failing to pick up a seat in the Legislative Assembly.

However, Mr Latham’s ploy to gain an extra Legislative Council member by recontesting the top of the One Nation ticket succeeded, with former Labor MP Tania Mihailuk taking his vacancy, boosting the party’s numbers to three.

Mr Latham said NSW One Nation had conducted a thorough post-election review in June involving all its state candidates.

“Last month, Senator Hanson was briefed on the review’s findings. Our NSW party was moving forward in a sensible, co-operative way but has now been turned upside down by the Queensland ­intervention.”

The “Queensland takeover” was about money, Mr Latham claimed. “I have stood in the way of attempts to misuse our funds, especially the administration money contributed by NSW taxpayers through the Electoral Commission.”

Earlier this year, Mr Latham fell out with Senator Hanson over a graphic and homophobic tweet in which he claimed independent MP Alex Greenwich engaged in “disgusting” sexual activities.

Senator Hanson slammed the comments and called on Mr Latham to apologise.

“I want you to know that I don’t condone them, and neither do my members of parliament or party associates,” Senator Hanson said.

“I think they are disgusting. I have tried to ring Mark a couple of times to no avail.”

Mr Greenwich has made good on a threat to sue Mr Latham, claiming the former federal Labor leader had painted him as someone who “goes to schools to groom children to become homosexual”.

Mr Latham is defending the lawsuit by arguing his comments had “enhanced” rather than damaged Mr Greenwich’s reputation.