Mark Latham faces another Rosehill humiliation

Sydney Morning Herald

15 hours ago

For a place that, let's be honest, rarely crosses the mind of most Sydneysiders, Rosehill racecourse is punching above its weight in the Harbour City's news cycles of late.
Responsibility for that partly lay with Chris Minns' well-intentioned plan to buy the site for $5 billion and build 25,000 new homes, a move rejected by most Australian Turf Club members keen to stick a middle finger up at the premier and Peter V'landys.
The botched deal was the subject of many a deranged tirade from NSW upper house MP Mark Latham, one of its loudest opponents, for whom Rosehill has been the site of many a recent humiliation. On the day of the Rosehill vote, Latham separated from former girlfriend Nathalie Matthews, who later made a series of allegations of abuse against the former Labor leader. Latham has denied Matthews' claims.
Rosehill was also the site of an earlier embarrassing incident for Latham, who in April launched into an expletive-laden rant against the ATC's head of corporate affairs Steve McMahon, a friend of Minns, when the two crossed paths in the members area.
The ATC slapped Latham with a 12-month good behaviour bond, while the MP later rage-quit the club.
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Racing NSW drafted in former Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission boss Michael Phelan to conduct its own investigation into the incident. This week, they charged Latham in connection with abusing officials.
'Some people have taken their defeat at Rosehill really hard,' Latham sniggered on X, with a picture of an email from the regulator's operations manager – integrity, Michael Cleaver, relating to 'charges issued by Racing NSW stewards'.
Latham could face penalties in the form of a fine, or at the most severe, being 'warned off', which would leave the upper house rogue banned from racetracks, unable to have a punt and restricted from ownership of a horse.