Tanya Plibersek claims Mark Latham’s behaviour in the workplace ‘completely unacceptable’

Tanya Plibersek said the only time she remembers crying in her 27-year career in politics was when Mark Latham was elected as the leader of the Labor Party.

It comes as Ms Plibersek revealed discussions were underway about whether to remove Mr Latham’s portrait from a wall of photos of past leaders hanging in the Labor caucus room.

Salacious allegations have come to light about the NSW independent MP this week, including that he took secret photographs of female colleagues in the upper house of NSW Parliament and shared them in messages with his former partner.

Along with the photos, he made inappropriate and sexually-charged comments, including that one MP “looks pregnant” and that he had “pinched her bum lightly and she smiled.”

His former lover, Nathalie Matthews, has also made other extraordinary allegations against Mr Latham, including that he subjected her to domestic abuse and degrading sex acts, including defecating on her before sex. Mr Latham has vehemently denied the claims.

Another claim that Mr Latham recorded a sex video in his Parliamentary office has also come to light.

Ms Plibersek, who was elected in 1998 and served in the Labor caucus with Mr Latham until 2005, said she did not see any evidence of behaviour alleged against Mr Latham but said she always had “doubts about him as a political figure.”

“Do you know, I’ve been a Member of Parliament for a long time, and the only time I remember going home and having a little cry after work was the day that Mark Latham was elected as leader of the Australian Labor Party,” she said on Friday.

“I always had my doubts about him as a political figure, and I think those doubts have only increased in recent decades as his behaviour has become worse and more extreme.”

Ms Plibersek said the fact he has been described as a “pig” was “perfectly justified.”

“I think the behaviour is the sort of behaviour that will get you sacked in any other workplace, but it’s probably consistent with what we’ve seen from Mark Latham over the last few decades,” she told Today.

“And he is the guy that said of Rosie Batty, who was Australian of the Year, who suffered the most horrendous domestic violence murder of her son.

“He said she was waging a war on men. He’s the guy who said that men hitting women are doing it because they need a kind of stress release.

“He’s the guy that picked on high school students when they made an International Women’s Day video saying that the boys, you know, making fun of the boys for doing that.

“He just really doesn’t get it and he hasn’t for many decades. I think, you know, the criticism is perfectly justified.

“In any other workplace, this behaviour would be completely unacceptable. Of course it’s unacceptable in the State Parliament. Of course it is. People, taxpayers, are paying his wages to represent them, not make videos in his office.”

Ms Plibersek then revealed the party was in discussions about whether it was appropriate Mr Latham’s portrait stayed on the caucus room wall.

Asked if she would take it down, Ms Plibersek said “that’s not a decision for me alone.”

“But I can tell you over the last couple of decades, looking at that photo on the wall, I scratched my head at times and thought, you know, this guy doesn’t represent the Labor Party,” she told ABC Radio.

“He doesn’t represent what we stand for. I don’t think he represents mainstream Australia. And I think the people of NSW are getting a bit of buyer’s remorse for the fact that he’s actually in the NSW Parliament.”

Latham left Federal Parliament in 2005 after losing the election to John Howard at the 2004 election.

He returned to politics and was elected into the NSW Parliament for One Nation in 2019, before resigning from the party in 2023 and sitting as an independent.