Federal Court hears Mark Latham's tweet 'went as low as possible' as independent MP Alex Greenwich sues the former One Nation leader

Independent Sydney MP Alex Greenwich is suing former NSW One Nation leader Mark Latham over an allegedly defamatory tweet posted last year.

Transcript

00:00 The origin of this defamation case took place a couple of days before the New South Wales

00:06 state election last year, when there was violence directed towards LGBT protesters who had gathered

00:11 outside a Sydney church where Mark Latham was speaking.

00:15 Now Alex Greenwich, the independent Sydney MP, had given comments for a newspaper story

00:19 about the church incident in which he described Mark Latham as a disgusting human being.

00:25 The tweet by Mr Latham, which is at the centre of this case, was replying to that statement

00:30 by Alex Greenwich.

00:32 The ABC has chosen not to republish the full tweet, but in part it read "disgusting, how

00:38 does that compare with" and then went on to use explicit terms to describe sexual activity.

00:44 Now Mr Greenwich alleges the tweet, as well as subsequent comments Mr Latham gave to the

00:49 Daily Telegraph newspaper, caused him serious reputational harm both professionally and personally.

00:56 He says that the material implied that he engages in disgusting sexual activities, is

01:01 not fit to be a member of parliament and goes into schools to groom children to become gay.

01:07 Now Mr Greenwich's counsel, Matt Collins QC, has given an opening address today and he's

01:12 told the court that his client, in giving his comments to the newspaper first, was engaging

01:17 in public debate about the church incident, but in reply Mark Latham went as low as possible.

01:24 Dr Collins said Mr Latham knowingly and deliberately played upon two very tired stereotypes, including

01:31 that gay men are somehow depraved and cannot be trusted around children.

01:36 Alex Greenwich is now in the witness box and he's under cross-examination by Mr Latham's

01:41 counsel.

01:42 So far he's been getting a lot of questions about whether his initial comments about Mark

01:46 Latham were provocative statements to make just before an election campaign was about

01:51 to finish.

01:52 In response to that Alex Greenwich has disagreed and he has said that he believed that he was

01:57 giving an appropriate assessment of the situation as he saw it at the time.

02:02 Mark Latham has raised several defences as part of this case, including qualified privilege,

02:07 public interest and honest opinion.

02:10 [BLANK_AUDIO]