Mark Latham escapes censure motion for now – but faces NSW privileges committee
The NSW upper house voted on Tuesday night to refer Latham to the powerful privileges committee but delayed the condemnation motion until October when it expects to have the results of the privileges investigation.
Labor's leader in the upper house, Penny Sharpe, had pushed for a censure motion but the opposition, Greens and some of the minor party members voted against the move, arguing members should wait for the results of the privileges inquiry.
Two MLCs from the Shooters and Fishers party abstained, and the Marijuana party member, Jeremy Buckingham, voted with the government. The government lost the vote 22 to 16.
Sharpe argued Latham, a former federal Labor leader and then One Nation MP, should be condemned over three specific incidents. This included that he allegedly breached privilege in relation to certain documents about the former police commissioner Karen Webb and investigations into gifts of gin that were produced on the basis that only parliamentarians could view them.
Sharpe also called out Latham's 'problematic behaviour' of taking 'photographs of his colleagues at the chamber and sending them to a third party alongside derogatory remarks about their appearance'.
She detailed Latham's use of parliamentary privilege, which protects MPs from defamation proceedings, to share the medical records of independent MP Alex Greenwich. The records had been part of a workplace sexual harassment and vilification claim that Greenwich won against Latham.
'The idea that a member would stand in this place and reveal private medical reports, no matter where they got them from, or how they're there, is a gross abuse of privilege as well,' Sharpe told parliament.
Last month the Daily Telegraph published messages, reportedly sent by Latham to his former partner Nathalie Matthews, in which he allegedly shared photos of female colleagues and made disparaging comments about their appearance.
During his response to the censure motion, Latham said of allegations that he breached parliamentary privilege relating to documents about the police commissioner's conduct: 'It's got nothing to do with national security, police techniques, policing methodology.
'There's nothing in it that warranted a non-publication order. It's about the integrity, the honesty of the police commissioner.'
He also resurrected a 2015 sexual scandal that embroiled several ALP figures, and accused the state premier, Chris Minns, of double standards in his treatment of sexual allegations.
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