Mark Latham, Australian politician
Mark William Latham (born 28 February 1961) is an Australian politician. He has been the state leader of One Nation in New South Wales since November 2018, and won election to the Legislative Council at the 2019 state election. He was previously the leader of the Australian Labor Party and Leader of the Opposition from December 2003 to January 2005, leading the party to defeat at the 2004 federal election.
Latham was born in Sydney and studied economics at the University of Sydney. He joined the Labor Party at a young age and worked as a research assistant to Gough Whitlam and Bob Carr. He was elected to the Liverpool City Council in 1987 and became mayor in 1991. Latham entered federal parliament at the 1994 Werriwa by-election. He was included in Labor's shadow cabinet after the 1996 federal election, but left the frontbench in 1998 following a dispute with the party leader, Kim Beazley. He returned to the shadow cabinet in 2001, when Simon Crean became leader.
Latham became leader of the Labor Party in December 2003, narrowly defeating Beazley in a leadership vote after Crean's resignation. He was the youngest leader of the party since Chris Watson in 1901. At the 2004 federal election, the ALP lost five seats and reduced its share of the two-party-preferred vote; the incumbent Howard Government was re-elected to a fourth term. Latham resigned as leader in January 2005, and left parliament at the same time. After leaving politics, he published a memoir, The Latham Diaries, in which he attacked his former colleagues and condemned the state of political life in Australia.
After leaving parliament, Latham became a prominent political and social commentator. In December 2016, he began co-hosting Outsiders on Sky News Live. His employment at Sky News was terminated in March 2017 after he made insulting comments about a fellow presenter and the teenage daughter of a governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia. After briefly joining the Liberal Democrats, Latham announced in November 2018 that he had joined One Nation as its state leader in New South Wales. He successfully stood for the party in the upper house at the 2019 state election.