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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

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 Guardian17-07-2025
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
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Australians lost $1bn through collapsed investment funds. What happened and how can workers keep their super safe?
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The Guardian

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  • The Guardian

Australians lost $1bn through collapsed investment funds. What happened and how can workers keep their super safe?

Thousands of Australians recently lost more than $1bn in retirement savings after the collapse of funds linked to their superannuation platforms, sparking warnings from the corporate regulator about risky investment schemes. While only a small share of the population has been affected, some investors have seen their entire super balances wiped. Here is how the collapses happened, and what Australian workers can do to avoid a similar situation. Over the past year or so, more than 12,000 Australians have been exposed to three major collapsed or frozen investment schemes: First Guardian, Shield Master Fund and Australian Fiduciaries. The failures have so far led to collective losses of up to $1.2bn. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (Asic) blocked investment in Shield in February 2024 and froze the assets of First Guardian in February 2025 after its managers blocked most investors from accessing their funds in May the previous year. 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Two-year-old sexually abused at family daycare by man living at the premises, mother claims
Two-year-old sexually abused at family daycare by man living at the premises, mother claims

The Guardian

timean hour ago

  • The Guardian

Two-year-old sexually abused at family daycare by man living at the premises, mother claims

A mother has claimed her two-year-old daughter was sexually abused at a family daycare service by a man she did not know was living there. The alleged offender was the partner of the woman running the service, located at a private home in New South Wales. Police, the Department of Education and the Department of Communities and Justice investigated, but the woman told Guardian Australia that, without physical evidence, no charges were able to be laid and no action was taken against the man or the service, which is still operating. Jennifer* said her daughter Ava* was two years old and attending a family daycare centre – a service run by an individual in their home, but which still receives the federal childcare subsidy – when she started talking about interactions with a man she didn't know. Some were innocuous, others rang alarm bells. 'It was sort of like, 'Who is [this person]?' It was just a bit off, it was just strange,' said Jennifer, who says she had no idea there was a man living at the home where the service operated. Sign up: AU Breaking News email Jennifer called the woman running the centre to ask her about it. 'I, in good faith, rang [her] the next day, thinking that there would actually be an explanation for it all.' But Jennifer said the response from the woman about the man – who was the woman's partner – was defensive and angry, something that raised 'red flags' for Jennifer, so she un-enrolled Ava. In the months that followed, Jennifer said Ava's behaviour changed. 'She regressed in toilet training, she'd just become sort of more anxious than she'd ever been and getting scared all the time, like really bizarre stuff like screaming … which she'd never been before.' By this point nearly three years old, Ava then disclosed that the man had exposed himself to her and he had touched her private parts, Jennifer said. Ava's disclosures came after seeing something that reminded her of the family daycare. She told her parents that some of the incidents occurred when she was in the daycare's sleep room. Jennifer reported the alleged incidents to police, who investigated, taking a statement from Ava and from her parents. Ava had to undergo a medical assessment by a specialist doctor who deals with potential child victims of sexual abuse but there was no physical evidence of assault. The man was not charged with any offences against Ava. Jennifer said that before reporting to police, she consulted with friends in the police force, who told her that a conviction or even a charge against the man was very unlikely. 'Basically, this has been everyone's advice the whole time: you won't get a conviction unless she's got an STD, or there's semen, or physical evidence. You won't get a conviction. But if there's a record of investigation, it might help someone in 20 years' time, basically. That's what it was for … in 20 years' time, when people start reporting things … there's something on record.' Jennifer praised the police and the Department of Communities and Justice, which served as a liaison with the family and organised support, including counselling, for them, but said the process was still incredibly distressing for Ava. 'She knew what was going on. She's a pretty smart chicken. Even though she was so young, she sort of knew … she remained upset and anxious for quite some time.' An assessment of Ava's behaviour, from a new daycare service that Jennifer eventually enrolled Ava in, seen by Guardian Australia, said Ava 'shows signs of anxiety' and an 'ongoing difficulty to separate from parents' as well as 'distress around sleeping'. The education department also conducted an investigation into the childcare service after the reports were made to police but, in a summary of its findings, seen by Guardian Australia, it wrote: 'There was insufficient evidence to substantiate a breach of the National Law and Regulations. Insufficient evidence to determine [the man] posed a risk to children. No further action was taken by the department. The case was closed.' Jennifer says the department of education investigation left her with more questions. Had they looked into whether the man was present at the service when the children were there? Had they looked into whether the woman running the service left some children alone while she was getting the other children to sleep? 'Why can't they tell us these key points?' she says. 'You don't have confidence because they don't give you answers. 'The investigation… absolutely made me even more distrustful.' In response to general questions about its procedures, the NSW Early Childhood Education and Care Regulatory Authority said that if a police investigation does not result in charges, the authority still conducts its own investigation and has the power to take strong action. It said it had issued 211 prohibition notices to people working in early childhood education and care in NSW over the last four and a half years and had prosecuted 34 providers, nominated supervisors and individuals since 2021. None of the prosecutions were for incidents involving alleged sexual abuse. Family daycare centres provide care to more than 71,000 Australian children, including around 22,000 in NSW, making up 5.1% of all early childhood education and care services. The service Ava attended is still operating. Guardian Australia has not confirmed whether the man is still living at the premises. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion Jennifer said that she was shocked to learn that family daycare centres have no regulatory obligation to inform parents of who lives at the home, although every member of a household where a family daycare operates must have a working with children check. She says she had no idea that the woman running the service had a partner living in the home. 'It wasn't until Ava came home and started talking about [him], and we're like, 'Who is [this person]?'' Jennifer would like to see this change, to make it mandatory for all family daycare centres to inform parents of who lives at or will be present while their children are in care. She would like to see reform to the way investigations into those working with children – or in close proximity to them – happen, so action can be taken against people who have had credible allegations made against them, even if the level of proof does not reach that required for a criminal conviction. 'That's a hard one because, you know, you don't want innocent people to be punished,' she said. '[But] the level of evidence required for a conviction in court is so high; for beyond reasonable doubt. And when you've got no physical evidence and you've got the words of the two-year-olds, it's not going to stand up in court.' But she says the Department of Communities and Justice, when it met with the family, had a more 'child-centred' focus in talking about the case. 'They came to the house and sat down with us and went through everything and they were amazing and they explained how even though there's no evidence doesn't mean that it didn't occur. It was just more of an open finding. 'They were more believing. And so I feel like there needs to be more of a child-centred approach … rather than a criminal approach. 'I feel like whatever the DCJ were doing felt more holistic without outright coming out and saying like, yes, he's guilty.' Jennifer suggested there could be a threshold of proof, lower than the criminal threshold, that allowed regulators to take actions or impose prohibitions, when there were credible allegations. 'So maybe, I don't know, [this man] shouldn't be in the house when she's operating her family daycare,' she suggests. The incident happened a number of years ago and Jennifer says Ava is, for the most part, doing well. She has friends, thrives at sport and in school, but 'she has her moments, she'll melt down and sometimes we're like: is that part of it? Sometimes you wonder what part of the trauma carries through.' Jennifer and her partner debate what to tell Ava about it when she is older. 'That's a real struggle for us, how do we handle this in the future? Do you want to know this when you're older? Do we have a duty to tell her? It's a quagmire.' 'For my partner and I, we think about it all the time. Occasionally we say to each other, 'God, I was thinking about that today. Like, I can't believe … I've been able to hold it together.'' *Names have been changed to protect privacy In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. If you or someone you know is affected by sexual assault, family or domestic violence, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or visit In an emergency, call 000. International helplines can be found via

Howard-era Asio questioning powers ‘never intended to be permanent', Australia's human rights chief warns
Howard-era Asio questioning powers ‘never intended to be permanent', Australia's human rights chief warns

The Guardian

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Howard-era Asio questioning powers ‘never intended to be permanent', Australia's human rights chief warns

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