Greenwich loses bid to have Latham charged with contempt as Tribunal rules his ‘offensive’ posts would likely not be taken seriously by reasonable people

Mark Latham will not be charged with contempt over a series of social media posts he made in the wake of his $100,000 homosexual vilification case loss to Alex Greenwich, with a tribunal finding reasonable people would not take the “offensive” posts seriously.

Greenwich won his homosexual vilification case against Latham in the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT) in April, with the tribunal ordering Latham to pay his political rival $100,000 in compensation over a homophobic tweet and a series of further comments he made on social media and in media interviews.

The comments followed Mr Greenwich calling Mr Latham a “disgusting human being” in a media article over an event the former Labor leader attended at a church.

Mr Latham was ordered to remove any material posted online that vilified Mr Greenwich on the basis of his sexuality.

The former NSW One Nation leader was quick to respond, branding the ruling a “woke, left wing political judgment”, claiming it was “riddled with factual errors” in a statement posted on X.

“NCAT should be embarrassed and ashamed by what has happened in its grossly political and incompetent handling of this matter, at every level,” Mr Latham said.

He also set his sights on one of the Tribunal members, Mandy Tibbey, who he tried and failed to have recused from his NCAT proceedings last June over concerns that her views on transgender people could affect her impartiality.

In an NCAT hearing last year Mr Latham had pointed to an academic lecture by Ms Tibbey, which examined issues of the acceptance of transgender people in the Anglican Church, and the potential role of anti-discrimination laws in church laws surrounding sex, gender and sexuality.

Ms Tibbey ultimately told the Tribunal the case had “nothing to do with transgender people”, and later determined it wasn’t appropriate for her to recuse herself.

Following his loss of the NCAT case this April, Mr Latham claimed one of the Tribunal members was a “prominent transgender activist who was asked to recuse herself but failed to do so”.

“She’s straight from the Greenwich School of Alphabet Politics and naturally, has been hostile to me,” Mr Latham wrote on X.Mr Greenwich hoped to have Mr Latham charged with contempt in the Supreme Court of NSW as a result his social media posts following the NCAT decision, which the Independent MP submitted “scandalised” the Tribunal.

He launched an application in the NCAT to have the matter referred to the Supreme Court.

Mr Latham had argued the application should be dismissed as contempt protects courts, and the tribunal is not a court.

Further his legal team argued no contempt was made out, and that the “matter should not be referred (to the Supreme Court), the allegations being hopeless”.