Latham Ordered To Pay $100K To Alex Greenwich In Homosexual Vilification Ruling

Former One Nation MP Mark Latham must pay fellow parliamentarian Alex Greenwich $100,000 in compensation after a tribunal found he had unlawfully vilified and sexually harassed the Sydney MP.

The NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal’s Administrative and Equal Opportunity Division found on Thursday that a tweet and media statements made by Latham had constituted workplace harassment and homosexual vilification under the NSW anti-discrimination act.

Latham must delete any social media posts that vilify Greenwich because of his sexuality, and has been given 24 hours to do so.

Greenwich launched the action in 2023 after Latham made a sexually explicit tweet too graphic to repeat on 30 March in response to a Sydney Morning Herald article in which Greenwich referred to Latham as a “disgusting human being” following an alleged anti-trans speech at a One Nation-aligned event.

The Federal Court had previously found the tweet defamed Greenwich, a decision Latham is appealing, with Greenwich cross-appealing for increased damages.

Senior NCAT Member Amanda Tibbey and General Member Maryanne Maher found that the tweet was “capable of inciting an ordinary member of [Latham’s Twitter] audience to have hatred towards, serious contempt for, or to severely ridicule” Greenwich on the basis of his homosexuality, and reduced him to a “presumed unhygienic sexual act”.

The tribunal also accepted Latham’s tweet had triggered a “barrage” of abuse based on his sexuality from members of the public, which led Greenwich to suffer psychological injury.

“They also unleashed a campaign of terror and harassment, with police making an arrest of a person, electoral office workers having to wear gloves to open some mail in case it contained dangerous substances,” the members wrote in their ruling.

Sexual acts “not a matter of abstract public purpose discussion”

In addition to the $100,000, Latham must also cover Greenwich’s legal costs.

Last year, Latham was ordered by the Federal Court to pay a substantial share of Greenwich’s legal costs on top of the $140,000 in damages previously awarded to the openly gay MP in 2024.

In a statement, Greenwich said he welcomed the decision, as well as the tribunal’s recognition that social media and statements to the media constituted a “workplace” for members of parliament.

“The judgment makes clear that social media is plainly capable of being a vehicle for unlawful vilification, particularly where the conduct is engaged in by a public figure with a large audience,” he said. “The judgment also makes clear that politicians should be careful when making comments to journalists about others.

“I pursued this matter not only for myself, but for the many people across the LGBTQIA + community who experience similar abuse and are told to accept it as part of public life or online debate.”

As the case was being heard last year, Latham argued his comments were made “reasonably and in good faith” for “academic, artistic, religious instruction, scientific or research purposes” or for “discussion or debate”, a notion the tribunal rejected.

“The nastiness of asserting that sexual acts by homosexual males are ‘unhygienic’ or inevitably involve faecal matter is not a matter of abstract public purpose discussion,” the members wrote.

“They were words landed as verbal ‘blows’ against a political opponent, insults of a crude and gross type, likely to goad or encourage base emotions, including hatred, serious contempt for and/or severe ridicule of the applicant on the ground of his homosexuality.”