Mark Latham's NSW Parliament office used to record sex tapes: sources
'You're asking me to dispute something I haven't seen,' Latham said in a text. 'Is this really today's journalism? Grow up. You're obviously a clown.'
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The former One Nation MP posted on X that it was a 'regular request' by 'sick puppies'.
Matthews' lawyer declined to comment as the matter was before the courts.
The couple's relationship ended on May 27, the day Latham was involved in a vote to decide the future of Rosehill Gardens racecourse. On radio, Latham referred to the break-up as 'that horrendous night' and said he had no contact with her since, other than returning some possessions and the pair retaining a small part-ownership of a trotting horse.
Matthews, a Liberal Party member and former OnlyFans creator who according to LinkedIn runs an e-commerce global logistics firm, claims Latham pressured her into depraved acts and drove his car at her, with his side mirror hitting her and 'causing a bruise'.
'[Latham's alleged acts] including defecating on me before sex and refusing to let me wash, forcing degrading sexual acts, pressuring me to engage in sexual acts with others, demanding I call him 'master', telling me I was his property, and repeatedly telling me that my only value to him was for sex to demean and control me,' her court document reads.
This masthead does not suggest that the claims against Latham are true, only that they have been made.
Speaking on Sydney's 2SM on Wednesday, Latham also addressed explicit messages between the couple published in the Daily Telegraph on Tuesday, which were sent while the former One Nation MP was sitting in the parliamentary chamber. Latham claimed they were 'edited' and lacked context.
'Sitting there listening to Penny Sharpe droning on, and then a woman who looks like Nathalie Matthews sends you a message. Which one would you pay attention to?' Latham said.
Latham told 2SM that his record as an MP 'matches up against anyone in the upper house'.
Mark Latham with his former partner Nathalie Matthews in 2024. Credit: Instagram
'The big news is I had a private life,' he said. 'I had a sex life that I've got to say was fantastic.'
Latham described the leaked messages as part of 'some personal or political campaign to try and damage me'.
Premier Chris Minns said he 'hopes the truth comes out' in court about Latham.
When asked if it was appropriate for members of parliament to be sending lewd texts during a session at parliament, Minns said it was a 'pretty basic expectation' that members be focused on their constituents when at work.
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'These are serious allegations, if they are to be tested in court or some other judiciary that should take place. I think it's important that the public knows I'm focused on them, and I hope this is investigated and that the truth comes out.'
Acting Opposition Leader Damien Tudehope defended working with Latham to devise amendments to key pieces of legislation, saying the MP's actions do not undermine his good ideas.
'Now I might not agree with what Mark Latham is alleged to have done or what he has admitted to have done, but that does not mean that I am precluded, or anyone is precluded, from assessing a policy position in terms of its objective merit,' Tudehope said.
'The opposition will continue to deal with anyone who puts forward policy proposals, and it doesn't matter who they are.'
When parliament resumes in August, Sharpe, Labor's leader in the upper house, will move to refer Latham to the privileges committee after he used parliamentary privilege to share private information from a psychologist's report about rival MP Alex Greenwich.
Matthews had approached NSW Police seeking an AVO against Latham weeks ago, but investigators declined to pursue it on her behalf. She is pursuing the matter as a private AVO.
The businesswoman has also taken an AVO out against her former husband, Ross Matthews.
The pair separated this year, and Ross Matthews is facing criminal charges over allegations he called her 200 times between April and June this year.
Court documents allege he used a 'raised voice' and was 'speaking aggressively over the phone'.
'[It] left her feeling shaken and scared,' documents claim.
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During that time, Ross Matthews had taken civil action against Matthews in the NSW Supreme Court in March before the matter concluded in late May.
Ross Matthews, on X, pinned a post saying 'I do not talk to Nathalie and I do not care' while requesting a halt to messages.
The AVO hearing between Matthews and Ross will take place in Sydney's Downing Centre Court in late July, one week before the hearing against Latham.
Matthews enlisted NSW Liberal Party vice president and Hawkesbury Council Deputy Mayor Sarah McMahon to act as her lawyer in the case against Latham.
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Sydney Morning Herald
an hour ago
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For two decades, Labor voters have hidden their embarrassment over having vested their hopes in Mark Latham. Amid the latest Lathamisms – a term for a squalid little ooze of gall from the so-called 'upper house' – it is worth pausing to remember what he offered when he became federal opposition leader in 2003. Presenting as articulate and intelligent, Mark Latham had worked, in his 20s, for John Kerin, Gough Whitlam and Bob Carr and had been mayor of Liverpool Council at age 30. He has a Sydney University economics degree and played footie for the Liverpool Bulls. His book Civilising Global Capital, published when he was 27, described a crisis for the industrial working class as one of structural and technological change that could be addressed through education, upskilling and the 'ladder of opportunity'. By 2003, Latham argued that under the leadership of Kim Beazley the party had drifted from the reformist ambition of Whitlam, Hawke and Keating. Beazley, softened by years in government, had been too weak on the republic referendum and Tampa, too bipartisan over Australia's subservience to George W. Bush's fraudulent invasion of Iraq, too nice to take up the fight to John Howard and his 'conga line of suckholes' (another Lathamism). When he became leader, Latham was also, appealingly, an outsider, criticising the factional system that brought down Beazley's successor Simon Crean. Latham offered plainspoken independent thinking and genuine opposition to the Howard government. One of his mentors, Senator Stephen Loosley, said he had a gift for speaking past Canberra and straight into Australia's lounge rooms. Mungo McCallum wrote that Latham had 'many qualities that were not only desirable and attractive but are in short supply in today's ALP'. One of Latham's key internal supporters was Julia Gillard. Under his leadership, Labor recruited Peter Garrett and, in his first year, Latham was easily outpolling Howard. By the 2004 election, voters were looking past the ideals and the pedigree and sniffing the character. There were stories of a fistfight to settle a Liverpool council dispute, salacious rumours about his buck's night, then his first wife Gabrielle Gwyther 's claim that they broke up because he wanted an open marriage. Latham has variously denied these allegations. Then there was the Howard handshake, which still gets replayed as if it shows us what we should have seen from the beginning. At a radio studio the day before the 2004 election, Latham took his opponent's hand as if to put him in a 'Cumberland throw'. Swing voters had seen all they needed, and Latham became the first new federal Labor leader in 87 years to lose seats. Having styled himself as the charismatic outsider, the lone wolf, Latham attributed the result to colleagues leaving him with too much to do on his own. There were signs, beneath the Labor 'true belief', of a cruel streak. In his own words, Latham was 'a hater. Part of the tribalness of politics is to really dislike the other side with intensity. And the more I see of them the more I hate them … John Howard tries to appeal to suburban values when I know that he hasn't got any real answers to the problems and challenges we face. I hate the phoniness of that.' This might have expressed a widespread grievance, but where did it cross into the tribalness of an 'A-grade arsehole' (not my words but Latham's, to describe Labor premiers Carr, Peter Beattie and Geoff Gallop)? An answer came after Christmas in 2004. Latham, recuperating from the election loss, was silent after the tsunami that killed 228,000 people in 14 countries. After Howard committed $1 billion in relief and declared a national day of mourning, Latham called the disaster, dismissively, 'the Asian flood'. He 'couldn't reverse the waves'. Three weeks later, citing life-threatening cancer, Latham quit.
The Age
an hour ago
- The Age
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