Mark Latham

Latham supports travel ban on certain Islamic countries, saying, "If you know that there’s a country that’s producing a lot of troublemakers, would-be terrorists, radical jihadists coming to Australia, what sort of sane nation would say, 'Bring 'em in!' If you know there's a nation that's no good for us, then turn off the tap."

Latham also announced that he was open to running as a candidate for the Liberal Democrats in future elections. However, he was blocked by the party executive from running as a candidate and, as a result, resigned his party membership in September 2018.

In November 2018, Latham announced that he had joined One Nation as the party's state leader in New South Wales, and would stand for the Legislative Council at the 2019 state election. In response, Luke Foley, the state ALP leader, ruled out preferencing One Nation candidates. Latham ran on a platform which opposed immigration, congestion, overdevelopment and renewable power, and proposed DNA tests for Aboriginal welfare recipients and banning the burqa in Government buildings.

A third controversy related to Latham questioning the sexuality of a school student during an Outsiders segment criticising a video put out by Sydney Boys High School in support of International Women's Day and suggested he "thought that first guy was gay", referring to a student in the video. Latham was fired from Sky News on 29 March 2017 after the story was published.

In April 2017, Latham launched a website called Mark Latham's Outsiders and hosted a weekly Facebook Live program. Despite sharing the same name, it is unrelated to the Sky News program Outsiders which has continued without him as host.

In June 2017, Latham joined The Rebel Media as a commentator. In that same month, Latham attracted further controversy when he claimed that same-sex marriage was dominating media coverage, despite the small number of people in such unions, and blamed gay journalists within the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Fairfax Media for pushing the issue.

In May 2017, Latham announced via his Facebook page that he would be joining the Liberal Democrats, a libertarian party. The Labor Party responded by placing a life ban on Latham from ever re-joining the party, after a motion was passed by the New South Wales branch of the Labor Party. According to Latham, he had terminated his ALP membership in March 2017 after being refused permission to address a party gathering.

Latham was a supporter of same sex marriage. However, in 2017 during the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey he endorsed the NO vote.

After leaving parliament, Latham became a prominent political and social commentator. In December 2016, he began co-hosting Outsiders on Sky News Live. His employment at Sky News was terminated in March 2017 after he made insulting comments about a fellow presenter and the teenage daughter of a governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia. After briefly joining the Liberal Democrats, Latham announced in November 2018 that he had joined One Nation as its state leader in New South Wales. He successfully stood for the party in the upper house at the 2019 state election.

In January 2016, further controversy erupted over Latham's radio podcast on Triple M with comments that he paraphrased from a government report saying "men who have lost their self esteem" turn to domestic violence "as a coping mechanism." Latham referred to Batty (whose son was murdered by his father) as "exploiting her personal tragedy" and "doing more harm than good" by publicising domestic violence against women and children as an epidemic "when the official reports show it at one percent." Batty responded that she hoped "someone like Mark is able to become more informed and (is) not stuck in the, I guess, ignorant position because that type of thinking went out several decades ago...there are still some people unfortunately very influenced and stuck in those (mindsets)."

Since leaving politics, Latham has worked as a journalist and political and social commentator, and has appeared on numerous panel programs including Sunrise on the Seven Network and The Verdict on the Nine Network. In 2016, Latham became co-host of Sky News Live programs Jones + Co and in 2017 co-host of Outsiders.

In August 2015, Latham resigned from his regular column after spending eight years with the Australian Financial Review. His resignation was linked to a series of articles critical of Australian of the Year Rosie Batty and also Group Captain Catherine McGregor.

Between March and August, Latham's position in the opinion polls gradually declined, leading to renewed speculation that Howard would call an early election. During August, Labor claimed a tactical victory over the government on the issue of the Australia – United States Free Trade Agreement and there were allegations in a Senate inquiry that Howard had lied about the "Children Overboard Affair" during the 2001 election campaign. By mid-August, Labor was again ahead in all three national opinion polls.

On the morning of 8 October, the day before the election, a television crew filmed Latham and Howard shaking hands as they crossed paths outside an Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio studio in Sydney. The footage showed Latham appearing to draw Howard towards him and tower over his shorter opponent. The incident received wide media coverage and, while Latham claimed to have been attempting to get revenge for Howard squeezing his wife's hand too hard at a press function, it was variously reported as being "aggressive", "bullying" and "intimidating" on the part of Latham. The Liberal Party campaign director, Brian Loughnane, later said this incident generated more feedback to Liberal headquarters than anything else during the six-week campaign, and that it "brought together all the doubts and hesitations that people had about Mark Latham". Latham disputes the impact of this incident, however, having described it as a "Tory gee-up: we got close to each other, sure, but otherwise it was a regulation man's handshake. It's silly to say it cost us votes – my numbers spiked in the last night of our polling." According to Latham's account of events, Latham came in close to Howard for the handshake to prevent Howard shaking with his arm rather than his wrist.

On 14 August 2013, during the election federal campaign, Latham was interviewed by the 3AW radio station in Melbourne. He caused controversy when asked to comment on Liberal Party leader Tony Abbott's characterisation of Fiona Scott, the Liberal candidate for Lindsay, as having "sex appeal". Latham responded:

In November 2010, Latham contributed an essay in The Monthly titled "No Exit The ALP". In it, Latham again criticised the ALP, writing that "for all the heightened rhetoric, for the seemingly endless creation of summits, committees and policy review processes, the lasting impression from the Rudd years is one of emptiness". He also remarked that "Without a guiding philosophy of politics, Rudd's prime ministership was an exercise in populism. He avoided tough decisions and mastered the art of media manipulation as a way of extending his honeymoon". Latham concludes that Labor had "lost its way". His suggested solution is that Labor again champions great causes, writing that:

In 2010, Latham was a guest reporter for television show 60 Minutes, where he reported on the federal election campaign. It was here that during a report he confronted Julia Gillard. Latham pushed his way through the crowd and confronted Gillard and her partner, Tim Mathieson, saying: "I understand you have made a complaint about me working for Channel 9". Gillard replied "I don't know anything about that, Mark. If you want to work with Channel 9, that's a matter for you", before Latham suggested that Kevin Rudd had been behind the leaks against her during the campaign.

Latham was helped by the fact that there was no obvious successor to the leadership. The most likely candidates, Kevin Rudd, Wayne Swan and Stephen Smith, accepted senior positions on Latham's frontbench and pledged loyalty to him. The leaders of the Socialist Left faction, and the centre-left under Martin Ferguson and Julia Gillard, also maintained their support for him. There was little support for a return to Beazley, and neither Tanner nor McMullan were seen as viable leadership candidates. In the longer run, however, many commentators doubted Latham would survive until the 2007 election after such a heavy defeat.

He commented on the 2007 federal election campaign with an article in the Australian Financial Review, in which he said Australia was having a "Seinfeld election, a show about nothing". Latham wrote that, no matter which party won, Australia would have a conservative economic policy and an industrial relations system which was decentralised and productivity-based. He stated that Australian public life had reached the "zenith of policy convergence", and that "Many people in the Labor movement are expecting Labor in power to be far more progressive than its stated election promises. I expect a Labor administration to be even more timid, more conservative".

Latham's seventh book, a collection of quotations titled A Conga Line of Suckholes, was released by Melbourne University Publishing in late September 2006.

On Thursday 19 January 2006, Latham was eating with his two sons at a Hungry Jack's restaurant in Campbelltown, New South Wales when he was photographed by Ross Schultz, a photographer from The Daily Telegraph. Schultz alleged that Latham snatched the camera and smashed it, without destroying the electronic media that contained the photographs. It was reported that Latham called Schultz a paedophile, presumably because he thought Schultz had taken pictures of his sons. The Telegraph subsequently announced plans for upcoming publication of the photographic images in the following Saturday's edition and that it would be seeking $12,000 from Latham to replace the equipment. The following day, Latham appeared to drive towards a Channel 7 television cameraman at his Sydney home. The photographer was unhurt but Seven's head of news in Sydney, Chris Willis, said the footage clearly showed Latham's car veer toward the cameraman as he stood on the side of the road. In February 2006, Latham was charged with assault, malicious damage and theft in relation to the incident. Latham did not appear in Campbelltown Local Court to face the charges, on 22 March, instead giving a lecture to political science students at the Australian National University. When asked by a student how he could blame everyone else but himself, Latham replied: "I'm sorry I didn't come in here and expose myself as a miserable arsewipe". On 26 April, The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Latham again chose not to appear in Campbelltown Local Court in relation to the 19 January incident. The case was adjourned to 24 May. On 6 June, The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Latham escaped having a criminal conviction for malicious damage to the camera being used by Schultz recorded against him, but had been placed on a good behaviour bond for two years. After pleading guilty to malicious damage, he had the charges of assault and theft dropped. He was also required to pay $6,763.70 in compensation for the damaged camera.

The Sun Herald reported on 13 August 2006 that the family were moving from their Glen Alpine home to a property at Mount Hunter, near Camden.

Labor's defeat led to media criticisms of Latham's personal style and policy priorities, and also to a crisis in confidence in his leadership within the Labor caucus. Several prominent members of the front-bench, notably John Faulkner, Lindsay Tanner and Bob McMullan, chose not to recontest front-bench positions. McMullan made it clear he was unhappy with Latham's leadership style and gave an interview suggesting there would be a leadership challenge early in 2005. The national secretary of the Australian Workers' Union, Bill Shorten, was also highly critical of Latham.

On 18 January 2005, citing life-threatening illness and family concerns, Latham announced his resignation from the Labor Party leadership and from Parliament. He strongly criticised the media for invading his family's privacy during his illness. Latham had been federal Labor leader for 13 months, the shortest tenure since Billy Hughes was expelled from the party in 1916. Latham was only the second federal Labor leader, after Matthew Charlton in 1928, to leave politics without ever having held ministerial office.

Latham's biography Loner: Inside a Labor Tragedy, by Bernard Lagan, was launched on 29 June 2005 by Senator John Faulkner, published by Allen & Unwin. The book caused furore within Labor ranks. Most of this was due to material contained within a single email written by Latham in the last page of the book. Of Kim Beazley's return to the leadership, Latham said: "Labor got the leader it truly deserves – it is well suited to a conservative stand-for-nothing type of leader." Latham also criticised state Labor premiers Bob Carr, Peter Beattie and Geoff Gallop, calling them "A-grade arseholes." Union leader Bill Shorten remarked that Latham had displayed "all the attributes of a dog except loyalty."

Soon after his retirement, Latham announced his decision to publish a selection of diary entries spanning almost a decade. Following a bidding war, it was announced that Melbourne University Press (MUP) would publish the Diaries in late September. MUP later awarded the exclusivity rights for extracts to News Ltd and the exclusivity for the first interview to the ABC television program Enough Rope, which was due to be broadcast at 9.30 pm on Monday 19 September 2005.

Latham gave his first public lecture since the release of the Diaries, titled "Ten Reasons Why Young Idealistic People Should Forget About Organised Politics", on 27 September 2005, at Melbourne University. The reserved-seating lecture was filled to capacity, an extraordinary occurrence. During the lecture, he argued that organised politics is ineffective at achieving real social change, due to public apathy, the rise of conservatism and the inward-focused structure of the major parties, and instead encouraged youth to focus on more grassroots, community-based programs. He also claimed politics has a detrimental impact on health, happiness and family life, largely blaming the "arrogant" and "incompetent" media, as well as internal party struggles.

On 1 June 2004, Latham told Parliament that during his time as mayor he had reduced Liverpool's debt service ratio from 17 to 10 percent, which he said was less than half of western Sydney's average. He also said Liverpool had adopted a debt-retirement strategy that he claimed would have made it debt free by 2005, but it was not implemented by his successors. Councillor Colin Harrington, whom Latham defeated during the mayoral elections of 1991, later said these figures were not accurate. He said the average debt-servicing ratio for western Sydney was 12.1 percent and he said the council's financial staff could find no significant reference to the debt-retirement strategy.

On winning the leadership, Latham appointed his predecessor, Simon Crean, as shadow treasurer, while also retaining a number of Kim Beazley's supporters in senior positions. In July 2004 Beazley himself was re-elected to the ALP front bench as Shadow Minister for Defence.

In January 2004, the Labor Party national conference was held in Sydney. During the conference, Latham received very positive media coverage and introduced his plans for early childhood literacy. He introduced an unusual campaign style, choosing to focus on "values" issues, such as reading to children and economic relief for middle-class Australia, which he termed with the political slogan "ease the squeeze".

Until March 2004, Labor under Latham's leadership held a strong lead in national opinion polls. Latham's commitment to withdraw from Iraq caused a sharp drop in Labor's lead, but following the revelations of prisoner abuse in the Abu Ghraib prison, Labor's lead increased again, suggesting that support for involvement in Iraq had declined, undermining Howard's position.

In June 2004, Labor's "troops home by Christmas" policy came under fire from U.S. President George W. Bush who, at a White House press conference during Howard's visit to Washington DC, described it as "disastrous". Bush's comments raised controversy in Australia over whether Bush was interfering in Australia's domestic political affairs, whether the election of a Latham government would endanger the U.S. alliance, and whether the comments were made with Howard's prior knowledge.

In July 2004, Latham again became the centre of controversy when it was alleged on a commercial television network that he had punched a political rival during his time on Liverpool Council. Latham strongly denied the accusation. On 6 July 2004, he called a press conference and denounced the government for maintaining what he called a "dirt unit," which he said was gathering personal material about him, including details of his first marriage. The government denied that any such unit existed, but some observers speculated that Liberal Party researchers had accumulated more potentially embarrassing material about Latham, which would be used during the election campaign (a threat which never eventuated), in addition to claims that Latham was an inexperienced economic manager.

The election was held on 9 October 2004. Although opinion polls showed the ALP leading the government at various stages of the six-week campaign, the government was re-elected with an increased majority. This was despite Latham being generally credited with a strong performance and a victory in the sole campaign debate. In the days after the election, Latham was criticised for releasing many key policies too late, a case in point being Labor's policy regarding conservation of Tasmanian old growth forests.

The final crisis for Latham's leadership erupted in the aftermath of the December 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. With both Latham and his deputy leader, Jenny Macklin, on leave, the acting opposition leader, Senator Chris Evans, issued statements in the aftermath of the tsunami. Latham was criticised for not issuing a statement as leader personally, particularly at a time when John Howard expressed national sympathy over the disaster, pledged $1 billion in loans to Indonesia and declared a national day of mourning. Latham rejected the criticism of his non-appearance after the tragedy, saying "none of my verbiage could make any practical difference – bring back the dead, reverse the waves, organise the relief effort". Macklin issued a statement on the disaster on 30 December before also choosing to take leave.

Latham has described himself as a humanist. In a 2004 interview he said "I'm agnostic. I think there's a force, a spiritual world beyond the material. But I'm not in a position to define it, let alone put it into a certain form of religious practice."

Latham became leader of the Labor Party in December 2003, narrowly defeating Beazley in a leadership vote after Crean's resignation. He was the youngest leader of the party since Chris Watson in 1901. At the 2004 federal election, the ALP lost five seats and reduced its share of the two-party-preferred vote; the incumbent Howard Government was re-elected to a fourth term. Latham resigned as leader in January 2005, and left parliament at the same time. After leaving politics, he published a memoir, The Latham Diaries, in which he attacked his former colleagues and condemned the state of political life in Australia.

Latham was a strong supporter of Kim Beazley's successor Simon Crean, defending the leader against his critics within the party. He called Crean's principal frontbench detractors, Stephen Smith, Stephen Conroy and Wayne Swan "the three roosters". When Crean resigned the Labor leadership, Latham contested the ballot for leader against Beazley. On 2 December 2003, less than 10 years after entering Parliament, Latham won the vote for the leadership by 47 votes to 45. Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard were early contenders for the leadership, but both withdrew in favour of Beazley and Latham respectively. At age 42, Latham became the youngest leader of the federal parliamentary Labor Party since its first leader Chris Watson, who became leader at age 33 in 1901. In his first press conference as leader, Latham championed his belief in a "ladder of opportunity" that would bring prosperity to all Australians.

In January 1994, Latham was elected at a by-election to the House of Representatives for the Sydney seat of Werriwa, which had been Gough Whitlam's seat from 1952 to 1978. He was elected to the Opposition front bench after Labor lost the 1996 election, and became shadow minister for education. After the 1998 election he resigned from the front bench following a policy dispute with the opposition leader, Kim Beazley. The two became political enemies following this incident.

While on the backbench of Parliament in the late 1990s, Latham published Civilising Global Capital: New Thinking for Australian Labor (Allen and Unwin, 1998), in which he argued that Labor needed to abandon many of its traditional policies and embrace the aspirational values (home ownership, higher education) of the upwardly-mobile skilled working class and small business class. His policies as the leader of the Labor Party were largely derived from the stance taken in this book, which ideologically is described as "the third way".

Mark Latham also wrote Reviving Labor's agenda: a program for local reform (Pluto Press / Australian Fabian Society, 1990), What did you learn today?: creating an education revolution (Allen & Unwin, 2001), From the Suburbs: Building a Nation from our Neighbourhoods (Pluto Press Australia, 2003), The Political Bubble: Why Australians Don't Trust Politics (Pan Macmillan, 2014), Latham at Large (Melbourne University Press, 2015), and Taking Back Australia: Saving Our Country, Our Culture, Our Civilisation (Wilkinson Publishing, 2018).

Latham was born in Sydney and studied economics at the University of Sydney. He joined the Labor Party at a young age and worked as a research assistant to Gough Whitlam and Bob Carr. He was elected to the Liverpool City Council in 1987 and became mayor in 1991. Latham entered federal parliament at the 1994 Werriwa by-election. He was included in Labor's shadow cabinet after the 1996 federal election, but left the frontbench in 1998 following a dispute with the party leader, Kim Beazley. He returned to the shadow cabinet in 2001, when Simon Crean became leader.

In 1987, he was elected to the Liverpool City Council, in Sydney's south-west, and was mayor from 1991 to 1994. Latham played rugby union with the Liverpool Bulls club and had a stint as its president. He has also been a fan of St George Dragons rugby league club since 1968.

Latham began dating his first wife, Gabrielle Gwyther, in 1987, and they married in 1991. They separated in 1997 and divorced in 1999. Latham married his second wife, Janine Lacy, in 2000; they have two sons together.

Latham also put forward plans to reform the education and health systems. In contrast to the intense stagecrafting of Latham's image at the conference, he boosted his profile by means of loosely organised "town hall"-style direct meetings around the country. By March, Labor had taken the lead over the Coalition in the opinion polls, and Latham had a higher personal approval rating than any opposition leader since Bob Hawke in 1983. Commentators began to discuss the serious possibility that Latham could be Prime Minister by the end of the year.

Latham was born in Ashcroft, a suburb of south-western Sydney in New South Wales. He was educated at Hurlstone Public School; the Hurlstone Agricultural High School, where he was dux; and at the University of Sydney, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Economics with Honours in 1982. While he was a student, Latham worked at the Green Valley Hotel for 2 years. He also worked as an adviser to Labor politician John Kerin from 1980 to 1982. After completing his degree, Latham worked as a research assistant to the former Labor prime minister Gough Whitlam from 1982 to 1987, which included working on the latter's book The Whitlam Government, and then as an adviser to then-Leader of the New South Wales Opposition Bob Carr from 1988 to 1991.

Mark William Latham (born 28 February 1961) is an Australian politician. He has been the state leader of One Nation in New South Wales since November 2018, and won election to the Legislative Council at the 2019 state election. He was previously the leader of the Australian Labor Party and Leader of the Opposition from December 2003 to January 2005, leading the party to defeat at the 2004 federal election.

Latham became the first Labor opposition leader since Frank Tudor in 1917 to fail to make a net gain in seats from the government at his first election. Some commentators, including Kim Beazley, said Latham's leadership had rescued Labor from a much heavier defeat. Beazley said polling a year before the election indicated the ALP would lose "25–30 seats" in the House of Representatives. Instead the party lost a net four seats in the lower house, a swing of 0.21% and there was a 1.1% swing to the ALP in the Senate.