Mark Latham's alleged behaviour in parliament is a sign of a toxic political culture for women – and that's a much bigger problem to fix

The Guardian

17-07-2025

Over the past few years, political leaders around Australia have been called out for tolerating poor behaviour – mostly by male politicians and staff directed at their female colleagues.
This time, the focus is on New South Wales MP Mark Latham.
Over the years, Latham's behaviour in public life has been characterised by controversy. He allegedly broke a taxi driver's arm in a dispute about a fare; he allegedly denigrated female journalists, and; he's been embroiled in controversy and conflict in his jobs at Sky TV and in his former role as One Nation state leader.
But to fixate on an individual is to overlook a bigger problem that still persists in Australian politics.
Premier Chris Minns this week described Latham's alleged behaviour in parliament as 'troubling', and said he would be 'sacked in any other workplace'.
'In a typical workplace, he'd be out the door tomorrow but I'm not Mark Latham's boss, I'm not responsible for him being in parliament,' Minns said.
Technically, Minns is right. Politicians are elected by voters and cannot easily be removed – for good reason.
Each MP runs their office as a kind of fiefdom and is responsible for hiring and firing their staff, which obviously creates vulnerabilities.
However, as leader of the NSW government, Minns – and his opposition counterpart – are the only ones who can drive change, complex as it is.
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There is something deeply toxic in our political class and our parliamentary workplaces: aggressiveness is lauded, poor behaviour tolerated, and women face ingrained discrimination that starts within our major political parties.
Parliament's formal institutions are weak and designed to deal with other problems – not workplace culture.
The worst behaviour has involved allegations of rape in the case of Brittany Higgins, whose assailant, a fellow staffer, Bruce Lehrmann, was cleared in a criminal case of assaulting the then 24-year-old in 2019 in the office of the federal defence minister where they both worked.
In a civil defamation case, he was found, on the balance of probabilities, to have assaulted her. Lehrmann is appealing.
As the 2021 Jenkins report on federal parliament showed, our parliaments tolerate widespread sexual predation on young female staff, sexist behaviour, and treat the workplace as somehow immune to the standards now common in most workplaces.
Latham began his political life as an anointed son of the Labor party. He was feted by the former prime minister Gough Whitlam as his successor in the seat of Werriwa.
Federal Labor would go on to choose Latham as its leader in opposition because the party valued his pugnacious style over the more gentlemanly and considered personality of Simon Crean, whom he replaced.
After losing the 2004 election, Latham left politics, wrote books and became a media commentator. Controversy trailed him, and he was sacked as co-host of Outsiders on Sky News – a show that thrives on controversy – for derogatory comments he made about a teenage girl.
Latham returned to politics in 2017 and joined the right leaning Liberal Democratic party. In November 2018, he left the Liberal Democrats to join One Nation as its NSW state leader.
But that too soured when he fell out with the party's federal leader, Pauline Hanson. He now sits as an independent in NSW parliament and has six more years to run of his eight-year upper house term.
And the drama continues.
Latham's homophobic slur published on X in 2023 against the independent MP Alex Greenwich resulted in him having to make a defamation payout of $140,000. There are now more proceedings before the NSW Administrative Tribunal as Greenwich seeks further remedies.
Earlier this month, Latham used parliamentary privilege to publicise Greenwich's confidential medical records from the tribunal. Greenwich has used the lower house on several occasions to hit back. It's not what we elected them to do.
Allegations of misuse of parliamentary privilege can be referred to the privileges committee but it cannot deal with the deeper issue of what is acceptable behaviour in a modern 21st-century workplace.
The latest Latham controversies are a result of a relationship breakdown with a former Liberal councillor and businesswoman, Nathalie Matthews. She is pursuing a private apprehended violence order against him in the NSW local court and has alleged a 'sustained pattern' of emotional, physical and financial abuse and pressuring her into 'degrading sexual acts'. Police declined to pursue an apprehended violence order and have not laid any charges against Latham, who has strongly denied the claims.
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Sordid details have spilled into the public domain about his private life, before any court processes have unfolded.
The latest leaks included pictures that Latham is alleged to have taken secretly of female MPs in the upper house and sent to his former partner as text messages with disparaging commentary on the women's appearance.
The alleged use of a camera in the chamber will almost certainly lead to another reference to the privileges committee. But how to deal with the bigger question about attitudes to women?
'Mark's attitude towards his colleagues is disgraceful – instead of showing respect he chooses to objectify and degrade,' Liberal MP Eleni Petinos, one of the women referenced in the texts, told the Daily Telegraph.
'It's just grossly inappropriate. We don't walk around to be objectified everyday.'
Latham said: 'I've broken no law, no Standing Order of the Legislative Council.'
'Obviously those photos were only ever private but three Liberal women took it upon themselves to work for their publication,' he said.
There have also been allegations, alluded to in other leaked text posts, that Latham and his former partner in happier times had sex on a table in Latham's office and filmed the encounter.
While this likely happens in other workplaces, it is undoubtedly not acceptable workplace conduct.
NSW established an independent complaints officer in 2022 'to receive and investigate complaints about minor alleged breaches of the Members' Code of Conduct and to receive and investigate allegations of bullying, harassment, inappropriate behaviour by members'.
But it is unclear what can be done if the offender is an MP.
The federal parliament has wrestled with this problem – it set up the Jenkins review and is now in the throes of implementing its final recommendations.
This includes the Independent Parliamentary Standards Commission that will oversee an independent workplace investigation and sanctions framework to enforce behaviour codes for parliamentarians, staff and other people who work in commonwealth parliamentary workplaces.
Federal MPs can be fined up to 5% of their salary, kicked off powerful parliamentary committees, and even suspended from parliament under the law.
It also has a remit to improve the culture of the parliament.
Ironically, it may be the $140,000 defamation finding and legal costs that spell the end of Latham's career. A bankrupt person cannot sit in parliament, a rule which harks back to an era when only landed gentry could vote and participate in our democracy.
It's time for our leaders to make fixing the culture inside political parties and inside parliaments a priority. That means thinking deeply about how to balance the rights of people to elect whom they choose with respectful and modern workplaces.
Anne Davies is Guardian Australia's NSW state correspondent