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One Nation’s Pauline Hanson has thrown her support behind Mark Latham, declaring she has confidence in the NSW leader of her party less than two months after she publicly denounced his homophobic tweet towards Sydney MP Alex Greenwich.
In her first interview on the matter since she condemned Latham’s comments as “disgusting” on March 30 and called on him to apologise, Hanson said she remained disappointed by his conduct and said she would seek more answers at a meeting with her NSW colleagues in the coming weeks.
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson says she still has confidence in NSW MP Mark Latham despite publicly rebuking him last month over a homophobic tweet. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen/Dominic Lorrimer
However, she said he was “doing an excellent job” representing the party’s interests in NSW.
“He’s got an eight-year term. So all I expect of Mark is to do the job that he’s been doing for the last four years and represent the people of NSW to the best of his ability and be that voice,” Hanson said.
Asked whether she still had confidence in Latham and whether he was appropriately representing the party, Hanson said: “most definitely”. She said it remained her view that Latham’s conduct was “inappropriate” but she said “it is not up to me to apologise for him”.
Greenwich has made a formal complaint to NSW Police and Anti-Discrimination NSW and has also initiated defamation proceedings against Latham.
Hanson said that since the furore erupted, she had spoken only once with Latham two weeks ago.
“For the last four years representing the people of NSW, he’s done an excellent job raising issues, especially around education and transgender [issues],” she said.
“With regard to the politics of it all, I’m disappointed by all means about what happened with the outcome and the tweet. But it’s something that I’ve only had a brief conversation with Mark about since then.”
Latham was widely condemned when he tweeted a graphic, offensive and sexualised comment directed at Greenwich, who is gay, before deleting the comment hours later. The tweet was in response to an article published in this masthead a week earlier in which Greenwich called the former Labor leader “a disgusting human being”. The article was about LGBTQI protesters who were targeted outside a candidates’ forum that Latham addressed during the state election campaign.
In a video message posted to her Facebook that evening, Hanson called on Latham to apologise and revealed she had tried to call him “to no avail”, but her pleas were ignored with Latham issuing another tweet 24 hours later saying: “never apologise, never explain”.
Last month, Latham revived the issue in an online radio interview with host Chris Smith where he defended the sentiment of his original homophobic tweet, refused to apologise and disputed that Hanson had tried to contact him, saying: “I’ve had no contact from her whatsoever.”
Speaking on Tuesday, Hanson remained adamant she had attempted to get hold of him that day, saying “there’s no question about whether I contacted him or not”, and she said that she’d since made it clear that she does not share his views.
“Mark has since spoken with me about how I feel about these matters. I’ve got two people who are gay who work in my office – there’s no problem with it at all. I don’t have an issue with that,” she said.
Pressed on whether Latham was testing her authority by publicly denying her version of events, Hanson said she would “find out the answers” in a closed-door meeting with Latham, the party’s executive and its two other NSW upper house MPs, Rod Roberts and Tania Mihailuk, in the coming weeks when they discussed the outcome of the election.
“I’m not going to get into further discussion about this. As I said, I have not had a meeting with the executive or the members of parliament. I will have a discussion with them behind closed doors and I will find out the answers as leader of this party,” she said.
“I’ve had a hell of a battle over the last 25-26 years [since founding One Nation] that I will actually do my job and I will find out some answers before I make final decisions or have my say.”
She also expressed concern that Roberts’ appointment as deputy president of the Legislative Council had weakened the party’s position in the upper house.
“I will be asking some questions. Where does that leave our vote on the floor of parliament to represent the people of NSW?” she said.
Latham was contacted for comment.
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