A second caller berated him and told him and his office staff, “I bet your parents are proud of you, aren't they?”
A third caller said, “Jump over the Gap, you —-.”
A quarter mocked him saying: “Mark Latham made me cry!”
Greenwich brought defamation proceedings against Latham last year after the independent NSW upper house MP posted and later deleted a very graphic and offensive comment on Twitter, now X, on March 30 last year . Greenwich, who is gay, called the tweet “defamatory and homophobic.”
Greenwich is also suing Latham over related comments he made in Sydney The newspaper telegraph on April 1 last year.
The tweet led One Nation founder Pauline Hanson to withdraw Latham, a former federal Labor leader, as the party's parliamentary leader.
'foot loss'
On the third and final day of the libel trial, Collins claimed the tweet defamed Greenwich and “resulted in loss of standing” in the community.
Sydney MP Alex Greenwich (right) and her husband Victor Hoeld outside the Federal Court in Sydney on Friday.Credit: Nick Moir
“We say that your honor will be satisfied that a not inconsiderable number of members of the community were provoked to brand him in these terms evidences a serious loss of reputation,” Collins said.
“It's not an answer for [Latham’s lawyers] … to say, as they did yesterday, “Oh, well, these people would probably already have had those opinions about him.” These opinions were not opinions that had ever been expressed with such ferocity to Mr. Greenwich before.”
Tweet published after the election
Latham's tweet was posted five days after the NSW election last year.
Four days before the election, Latham had spoken at a Catholic church in south-west Sydney about what he called “religious freedom, parental rights, school education and protection”. [non-government] schools of Alphabet Activism”. Collins told the court on Wednesday that “Alphabet” appeared to be a derogatory term for the LGBTQI community.
About 15 LGBTQI protesters outside the event were reportedly confronted by violent counter-protesters, Collins said. He said Latham was “completely wrong” and publicly accused Greenwich of instigating a violent protest.
Greenwich was cited later The Sydney Morning Herald describing Latham as a “disgusting human being”.
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Five days after the election, Latham tweeted in response to Greenwich's comment: “Disgusting? How does this compare to [sexual activity described in graphic and offensive terms the Herald has chosen not to publish]?”
He later tweeted: “I'm so sorry to say that I hate the idea of having anal sex with another man. Has it become mandatory?”
Collins told the court that this was not an apology.
Greenwich alleges that the initial tweet conveyed up to two defamatory meanings, including that he is “not a fit and proper person to be a [NSW MP] … because he engages in disgusting sexual activities.”
Latham's response
Latham seeks to defend the case on a number of grounds, including that the defamatory meanings alleged by Greenwich are not conveyed by the tweet or telegraph comments
“What we are saying globally is that Mr Latham's tweet may have hurt Mr Greenwich, but it did not hurt his reputation,” Latham's barrister, Kieran Smark, SC, said on Thursday.
Smark submitted on Friday that Latham's comments could have been “the trigger or spur” of the abuse, but did not show that those people changed their view of Greenwich “in any meaningful way” after his customer
Judge David O'Callaghan will deliver his decision at a later date.
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