Mark Latham ‘defended’ himself with homophobic tweet about Sydney MP: court

Former NSW One Nation leader Mark Latham was “defending” himself when he published a “crass and vulgar” tweet targeting Sydney MP Alex Greenwich, a court has heard.

The Sydney MP launched defamation proceedings against the controversial and newly-independent Mr Latham in May last year following a graphic and homophobic tweet.

In a statement of claim, Mr Greenwich alleged Mr Latham painted him as “not a fit and proper person” to be in parliament because he “engages in disgusting sexual activities”.

He further alleged Mr Latham portrayed him as “a disgusting human being who goes to school to groom children to become homosexuals” in a subsequent media interview.

Appearing before a second day of hearings at the Federal Court on Thursday, Mr Latham’s barrister, Mr Kieran Smark SC, said the “primary tweet was a striking publication”.

Mr Smark told the court Mr Latham was responding to “an attack” by Mr Greenwich in a media interview where he called him a “disgusting human being”.

“He (Mr Latham) is addressing how he can be called a ‘disgusting human being’ when … he’s saying he finds the conduct of LGBTQ+ people disgusting,” he said.

“Mr Latham had no basis to know what sort of sexual conduct Mr Greenwich himself engaged in, or whether he engaged in sexual conduct at all.

“He was putting forward, by way of defence … the disgusting conduct that he could see in all this was the fact that gay men engaged in the conduct described.”

Mr Smark later added: “Although it’s a graphic response to vulgar response (by Mr Latham), that doesn’t mean it’s a disproportionate response.

Mr Smark said a “reasonable person” would know Mr Latham’s was expressing his own opinions, and that the imputation of his political ability was “tangential”.

He earlier described other tweets by Mr Latham about the same time as “offensive, crass, and vulgar”, but stated that did not make them defamatory in nature.

“What we say globally is that Mr Latham’s primary tweet may have wounded Mr Greenwich, but it did not wound his reputation,” Mr Smark told the court.

He later added: “We can see a kind of almost universal – or not quite universal – revulsion at the primary tweet, but that does not directly mark it is defamatory”.

Mr Greenwich’s barrister Matt Collins KC said Mr Latham’s statements were “pregnant with innuendo”.

“It is plainly not a tweet about homosexual sex. It’s a tweet about a particular and unhygienic sex act,” Dr Collins said at the start of his closing address on Thursday.

“To suggest that it is to be equated to being homosexual is something we would not expect to hear in one of His Majesty’s courts in the third decade of the 21st century.

“People understood Mr Latham to be saying exactly what he said in the tweet: that Mr Greenwich he engages in the particular disgusting and hygienic sexual act.”

Mr Smark said the defamation action would have to prove the imputations, that they were defamatory, and that there was serious harm or the likelihood of it.

He told the court acceptance of LGBTQ+ people in Australia had been revolutionary “due in part to work of people like the applicant”, referring to Mr Greenwich.

He described vitriolic messages directed at the MP after the tweet as being from people who were “vile filth”, and “drawing from a wellspring of prejudice”.

Nonetheless, he said their actions did not reflect a “change in their internal perception of the reputation” of Mr Greenwich because of Mr Latham’s tweet.

“It’s not a trivial thing that happened and we’re not saying it was trivial in its impact on Mr. Greenwich,” Mr Smark told Justice David O’Callaghan on Thursday.

“The fact that people felt motivated to make homophobic attacks on the applicant … it doesn’t follow that they’re expressing the standards of the general community.”

Much of his opening address, which will continue on Thursday, spoke to the legal thresholds for proving defamation, including understanding the meaning of the tweet.

Mr Latham described Mr Greenwich as “disgusting” and made crude comments about anal sex in the so-called primary tweet, which was removed after just 2.5 hours online.

Taking the stand on Wednesday, Mr Greenwich told the court he took legal action because he “wanted the hate and abuse to stop” and that he had considered leaving public life.

He described the imputation of the comments as being a “justification of the attack” on him and said the tweet, as in his statement of claim, had “saddened me and angered me”.

Under cross examination, he defended calling Mr Latham a “disgusting human being” who was “extremely hateful and dangerous” in an interview days before the tweet.

He denied accusations he expected a response from the comment and reiterated claims he had felt unsafe in public and at his office because of abuse following the tweet.

The first day of hearings otherwise largely focused on the events leading up to the tweet, namely a protest by LGBTQ+ activists of a speaking event by Mr Latham at a Sydney church.

Dr Collins told the court Mr Latham had, in statements after the riot, accused Mr Greenwich of instigating the protest, which he said the Sydney MP was not involved in.

He said Mr Latham had “got the facts hopelessly wrong” and had condemned in later statements co-called “transgender radical left wing activists” for sparking the riot.

The hearing continues on Friday.