Mark Latham will argue he was offering an “honest opinion” when he posted a graphic and homophobic tweet about his parliamentary colleague Alex Greenwich earlier this year, court documents show.
The New South Wales One Nation leader will defend himself against a defamation action brought by Greenwich over the tweet and subsequent statements to media, according to a defence briefing made public on Tuesday.
The document was lodged with the federal court this week after Greenwich filed an extensive statement of claim in June, in which the Sydney MP argued he had been subjected to “threats, repeated jibes, hatred, homophobic comments and contempt and ridicule” as a result of Latham’s comments.
Latham’s team will argue the initial comment posted on Twitter – the platform now known as X – was an “honest opinion” and related to “a matter of public interest”, being comments Greenwich had previously made about Latham.
“Greenwich is an openly gay man who has participated in homosexual sexual activities, material that was set-out in specific or general terms in the primary tweet and is substantially true,” the defence reads.
Latham’s tweet, which was later deleted, attracted widespread condemnation from across the political spectrum, including from the premier, Chris Minns, and One Nation’s federal leader, Pauline Hanson, who called for Latham to apologise.
But Latham’s defence points to these “statements of support for Greenwich and criticisms of Latham across politics and the media” to argue that Greenwich’s reputation was not seriously harmed.
“Greenwich did not suffer serious harm to his reputation,” the defence reads.
Latham will also argue that he wrote the tweet using “qualified privilege” in response to an “attack” Greenwich made against him in a media report.
Latham posted the tweet in response to an article about LGBTQ+ protesters being targeted outside an event where he was speaking. Greenwich was quoted in the article calling the former federal Labor leader “a disgusting human being”.
In the now-deleted tweet, Latham said “disgusting?”, and made gratuitous comments about a sexual act. Guardian Australia has chosen not to publish the comments in full.
Greenwich’s lawyers have alleged the tweet was defamatory because it implied the politician was “not a fit and proper person to be a member of the NSW parliament” because he “engages in disgusting sexual activities”.
The defamation statement of claim pointed to other comments Latham had made about Greenwich to the media, including comments he made in a Daily Telegraph story in April.
The claim alleges the comments Latham made about Greenwich to the newspaper implied Greenwich was not fit to serve in the parliament “because he goes to schools to groom children to become homosexual”.
Latham’s team will argue that it was his “belief at the time, and now, that it was inappropriate for primary and high schools in NSW to have discussions about sexuality with their students”.
Greenwich is also seeking aggravated damages for Latham’s refusal to publicly apologise for posting the initial tweet after repeated calls to do so.
Latham’s defence will argue that Greenwich had “not apologised for using similar language against Latham” and point to comments he made on The Project in March saying “I don’t need an apology from Mark Latham”.
Greenwich has separately lodged a complaint of homosexual vilification and sexual harassment against Latham and a police complaint.
