Like a cockroach that can’t be killed, Mark Latham has crawled around public life for too long. He must go

Gough Whitlam commands a legacy the scale of which few prime ministers have matched. In three short years, his government extricated Australia from the Vietnam War and abolished conscription, recognised China, established Medibank and Australia Post, did away with the death penalty for Commonwealth offences, and replaced God Save the Queen with Advance Australia Fair.

Regrettably, Australia is stuck with one of Whitlam’s less desirable achievements: Mark Latham. Few did more to build Latham up as a potential prime minister than Whitlam, and it is still remarkable that he and other Labor types saw fit to think this toxic political figure could lead our country.

In fairness to the then-caucus, Latham’s behaviour has deteriorated with time. But there were plenty of early warning signs when, in December 2003, Labor MPs voted 47-45 to replace Simon Crean with the fiercely bright but deeply flawed then-member for Werriwa. As the Herald’s Deborah Snow and Damien Murphy reported at the time, many around Latham knew he was an erratic loner fundamentally unsuited to the role his party had entrusted him with.

Independent NSW MP Mark Latham has crawled around public life for decades.Credit: Janie Barrett, Stephen Kiprillis

Voters saw through the charade and thoroughly rejected him at that year’s poll. But like a cockroach that can’t be killed, Latham has crawled around public life since, surviving or succumbing to various scandals during stints at Sky News and The Australian Financial Review, and political flirtations with the Liberal Democrats and then One Nation. Each scandal had common threads, chief among them Latham’s extreme nastiness, disrespect for women and sense of superiority over all others.

It was on the platform of One Nation that Latham was elected to the NSW Legislative Council in 2019. Ever the opportunist, Latham quit ahead of the 2023 election so he could run again and secure a fresh term on Macquarie Street. Latham and Pauline Hanson’s awkward match detonated later that year, and Latham is now an independent on the crossbench. That said, Latham has not always been alone in parliament: he’s been repeatedly wined, dined and courted by Liberals who should have known better than to mix with this stain on public life.

Because upper house MPs are given eight-year terms, Latham is entitled to stay in NSW parliament until 2031. This would be a bad outcome even if Latham had been on his best behaviour. But given his deplorable conduct in parliament over recent years, NSW MPs may need to contemplate a difficult, complex change in the rules.

Should Latham remain an elected representative? The Herald strongly believes he should not. In our view, Latham disqualified himself from office long before allegations this week by his former partner, Nathalie Matthews, of a “sustained pattern” of abuse, including emotional, psychological and financial manipulation.

An apprehended violence order application lodged by Matthews in the NSW Local Court claims Latham pressured her to have sex with other people and participate in depraved acts, and drove his car at her. The Daily Telegraph also revealed sordid WhatsApp messages Latham and Matthews exchanged while the MP was sitting in the parliamentary chamber. The Herald then reported that Latham’s Parliament House office was allegedly used as the scene of “sordid” sexual trysts captured on video.

In the latest instalment, the Telegraph on Thursday reported that Latham allegedly took photos of female colleagues in the chamber without their knowledge and made disparaging comments about their appearances in text messages.

Most would resign under similar circumstances. But Latham is incapable of shame and has a history of riding out scandal. Like the grub that he is, he laughed off most claims this week and said they were part of a campaign to bring him down. “The big news is I had a private life,” he said. “I had a sex life, that I’ve got to say was fantastic.”

MPs are certainly entitled to a sex life, and in NSW politics the line between public responsibilities and private activities is not always clear.

Latham denies the accusations and says some lack important context. It will ultimately be up to the courts to determine the AVO matter. But if even remotely true, these allegations in and of themselves are not yet enough to force Latham from parliament.

The most immediate cause for driving Latham from public life involves two entirely different matters: his vilification of a fellow MP, and his insistence on using parliament to prosecute personal vendettas against colleagues and those in the community who dare to disagree with him.

Herald readers may recall that Latham last month used parliamentary privilege to share the confidential medical information of independent MP Alex Greenwich. That information had been presented to the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal during a homosexual vilification and workplace sexual harassment claim brought by Greenwich against Latham.

A separate Federal Court trial had earlier found Latham defamed Greenwich in a graphic and offensive tweet about his sexuality.

As part of the tribunal process, the psychologist’s report was made confidential, but Latham blatantly defied that order and repeated the evidence during an upper house speech. It was a disgraceful abuse of the powers of privilege, designed to inflict further harm on Greenwich. It is grounds for Latham’s eradication from parliament.

But there’s a catch. While the Minns government has referred Latham to the privileges committee over the affair, the worst that committee can do is sanction the rogue MP. To complicate matters, Latham would see any sanctions as a badge of honour and would be unlikely to change his behaviour. At best, a sanction might give the Liberal Party pause for thought in how much they deal with Latham on legislation, but it is unlikely to change how Latham does business.

In NSW, an MP is unable to stay in parliament if they make an allegiance to a foreign power, are declared bankrupt, or are convicted of an “infamous crime” or offence punishable by imprisonment for a term of five years or more. The NSW Legislative Council may have the power to expel someone if it determines them to be guilty of “conduct unworthy of a member”, but that was last properly examined by experts in 2003 without a clear outcome.

So what now? Hopefully, karma takes over. Latham may be bankrupted by the estimated $600,000 costs of the Greenwich saga, which would mean he loses his seat in the Legislative Council.

If that doesn’t do the trick, some uncomfortable questions may need to be asked about whether parliament needs the power to rid one of its own from Macquarie Street. This is a devilishly complicated proposition but should be considered.

At a legal level, using the power of expulsion may be seen by courts or other bodies as an indication of guilt. In 2022, after Kiama MP Gareth Ward was hit with a series of sexual assault charges (Ward maintains his innocence), the then-Coalition government wanted to drive him out, but that plan was abandoned when the Crown solicitor warned such a move could prejudice a future trial.

At a democratic level, Latham was elected fairly and squarely, and many voters believe they do not just do the hiring but also the firing. Very few parliaments in Australia have expulsion powers, and those that do rarely, if ever, use them. The last time the NSW Legislative Council expelled a member was in 1969. A vote on an expulsion nearly happened in 1997, but the parliament lost its nerve and backed down.

Finally, at a political level, any expulsion mechanism would need to include safeguards to make sure any effort to get rid of awful characters is not pursued purely for partisan advantage.

There are certainly pitfalls in this approach. But the Herald would endorse a mature examination of whether the existing rules are adequate, and whether the powers available to parliament reflect a problem as dark – and dangerous – as Mark Latham.

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