Tanya Plibersek says she cried the day Mark Latham became federal Labor leader
The social services minister said discussions were underway to remove Mr Latham's portrait from Labor's caucus room as the one-time party leader faced days of allegations of inappropriate behaviour.
Pressure is mounting on the now independent NSW upper house MP following media reports alleging he took photos of female colleagues speaking in parliament and made disparaging comments about them in private messages.
The Sydney Morning Herald also reported allegations a sex video was recorded in his parliamentary office.
Mr Latham declined an interview with the ABC and has not confirmed or denied the existence of such a video or sending the alleged messages, although one MP referenced in the messages said he has called her and apologised.
In a post on social media about the alleged video, Mr Latham said: "No suggestion of any law or rule broken."
The 64-year-old also this week denied allegations of a "sustained pattern" of domestic abuse and pressuring his former partner Nathalie Matthews to engage in "degrading sex acts" which were made in an apprehended violence order (AVO) application filed in a NSW court.
Ms Plibersek, who was elected in 1998 and was in the Labor caucus with him until he left federal politics in 2005, said she had no evidence of behaviour similar to what has been alleged about him this week at the time but harboured "doubts about him as a political figure".
"Do you know I've been a Member of Parliament for a long time, and the only time I remember going home and having a little cry after work was the day that Mark Latham was elected as leader of the Australian Labor Party?" she said on Friday.
"I always had my doubts about him as a political figure, and I think those doubts have only increased in recent decades as his behaviour has become worse and more extreme."
Ms Plibersek said she was baffled as to why his portrait remained among other leaders of the federal Labor party.
"Over the last couple of decades looking at that photo on that wall, I've scratched my head at times thinking this guy doesn't represent the Labor party; he doesn't represent what we stand for; I don't think he represents mainstream Australia," she told ABC News Breakfast.
Ms Plibersek, who was a colleague of Mr Latham's in Canberra between 1998 and his departure from federal politics in 2005, said he would have been sacked in any other workplace.
"The New South Wales parliament — it's only the people of New South Wales that can effectively sack Mark Latham, but he's with a very poor history, particularly when it comes to women," she said.
"He said of Rosie Batty, who was Australian of the Year who lost her son, Luke, in domestic violence circumstances, that she was waging a war on men.
"The guy who said that men hit women as a coping mechanism.
"The people of New South Wales, I think, would be looking at the reports of his behaviour in the New South Wales Parliament and just scratching their heads about why anybody would think that taking a taxpayer's dollar to do a job would be behaving in the way that he is in his workplace, it's just a mystery that anyone would think appropriate."
Even before this week's allegations, the NSW Labor Party had signalled an intention to put forward a censure motion against Mr Latham when parliament next convenes.
The motion was in response to him allegedly "disclosing authorised information" under parliamentary privilege, by referencing confidential information from a psychologist's report prepared for NCAT in proceedings brought by MP Alex Greenwich.
Premier Chris Minns said on Thursday the privileges committee should investigate Mr Latham's behaviour in parliament.
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