Independent MP Alex Greenwich was subjected to a level of abuse he had never experienced before, including vitriolic voicemails telling him to kill himself, following a homophobic tweet posted by Mark Latham, a court has heard.
On the final day of the federal court defamation trial, Greenwich’s barrister, Matthew Collins KC, played several voicemails left on the Sydney MP’s office answering machine last year, including messages telling him to jump off a cliff.
Most of the content was too vulgar and offensive to repeat.
Greenwich launched defamation against Latham, a former New South Wales One Nation leader, over an offensive and since-deleted tweet posted in response to an article in which Greenwich called him a “disgusting human being”. In response, Latham said “disgusting?”, and made gratuitous comments about a sexual act.
Greenwich is also suing Latham over his related comments in the Daily Telegraph last year.
On Friday, Greenwich’s team also took the court through emails sent to the politician following the tweet’s publication just days after the March election, including ones that called him a “repugnant sodomite”, a “depraved grub” and an “abomination of nature”.
Many emails referred to faecal matter, which Collins said was in direct reference to and because of the tweet posted by Latham in 2023.
“We say your honour will be satisfied from the fact that a not insignificant number of members of the community were provoked into branding him with those terms evidences a serious loss of standing,” Collins told the court.
He also rebutted an argument mounted by Latham’s defence on Thursday that the abuse that flowed from the tweet was only from people who already had a “pre-existing dislike” of Greenwich.
“Mr Greenwich had not before experienced anything like this level of abuse,” Collins said.
“Whatever might have been out there, no one was motivated to express them in anything like this form until Mr Latham whipped up this frenzy.”
Latham’s defence on Thursday told the court that while Latham’s words were offensive, crass and vulgar, they had not harmed the MP’s reputation, noting the outpouring of support from prominent figures.
Latham’s barrister, Kieran Smark SC, told the court on Friday that while his client’s comments may have been the “trigger or the spur” for abuse from “crazy homophobes”, there was no proof that the views had been altered “in any significant way” after the tweet.
Greenwich’s team put to the court on Friday that even those who disagreed with Latham had their view of the MP impacted, with some now pitying him.
Ahead of the trial, Latham’s lawyers outlined that the politician was offering an “honest opinion” when he posted the tweet, using “qualified privilege” in response to the “attack” Greenwich made against him in the earlier media report.
Justice David O’Callaghan will deliver judgment at a later date.
• In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
