Conservative crossbench parties look set to benefit from Mark Latham and One Nation becoming increasingly marginalised in the New South Wales upper house due to his comments about homosexuality, political experts say.
The Minns government, the Greens and the Animal Justice party have vowed to not work with One Nation’s state leader following a graphic tweet Latham posted and deleted on 30 March that Greenwich described as “defamatory and homophobic”.
On Monday, Greenwich announced he would launch defamation proceedings against Latham unless he retracted his comments and promised not to make similar comments in the future.
Prof Stewart Jackson, an expert in politics at the University of Sydney, said the government’s shunning of Latham could increase the influence of the Shooters Farmers and Fishers party, and potentially the Liberal Democrats as well.
“It has increased the influence of the Shooters because they sit in the middle,” he said. “I suspect Minns may well have secured support on at least some issues.
“The LDP on particular issues has been quite useful for the Labor party, but only on areas that are key to them such as personal freedoms.”
The state’s upper house has an even split of progressive and conservative members, forcing the government to make deals with the left and right to pass laws where the Coalition is not in support.
Jackson said it’s difficult to know yet how well the Liberal Democrats’ John Ruddick will work with the government, given he’s considered a conservative figure. But he said the party has leaned progressive on certain issues in the past, such as marriage equality.
Chris Minns said Latham’s behaviour was why Labor wouldn’t work with him or his One Nation colleagues.
“We won’t go running to Mark Latham and do deals to get legislation through the upper house,” the premier said on Tuesday.
Election analyst Ben Raue said the government was already likely to work with the Shooters party over One Nation, given it was already at odds with Labor on policy. But he said it did slightly increase the influence of other conservative minor parties.
“It does reduce options for government, that’s one less person to work with and increases power of alternative parties to get their way,” he said.
Legalise Cannabis’ upper house MP, Jeremy Buckingham, condemned Latham’s comments but said he wouldn’t yet rule out working with the One Nation MP when proposing amendments to legislation. But Buckingham said he had “very little” expectation One Nation’s policies or amendments would be “palatable” for his party.
The Liberal leader, Mark Speakman, said the party would work with Latham given it’s in the best interest of the state to work with everyone who is elected.
“I made it very clear that I regard Mark Latham’s comments as reprehensible,” Speakman told reporters on Tuesday. “He should show some courage and apologise.”
“But having said that, the cards that I’ve been dealt with are the people who have been elected to parliament.”
He is among those who have called for Latham to apologise to Greenwich, along with the federal One Nation leader, Pauline Hanson. At the time the comments were made, Hanson posted a video to social media decrying the comments.
Latham later tweeted: “I’m very sorry for saying I hate the idea of [homosexual sex]. Has it become compulsory?”
He has also claimed the media didn’t give rightwing politicians like himself a chance to give “their true opinion”.
Greens MP Cate Faehrmann said the party’s resolve to not work with Latham in the last parliament had only strengthened this term after his attacks on Greenwich.
Animal Justice Party MLC, Emma Hurst, said her party would also not be working directly with Latham.
“The Animal Justice party has a strong position against homophobic or other hate comments,” she said.
