The children are squabbling again:
One Nation MP Mark Latham says he has been ousted as leader of the party in New South Wales.
Mr Latham said in a Facebook post federal leader Pauline Hanson removed him from the job “without consultation or due process”.
“Senator Hanson has installed a new state executive with no leader,” he said.
Mr Latham remains a member of the One Nation party.
Wherein lies the only real surprise in this story; I find it odd that she didn’t dump him entirely, and even more so that he hasn’t stomped off with his ball and gone home himself. (Not yet, anyway; I do expect him to tender his resignation in the huffiest possible way within the next few days.) It continues:
In a statement, Senator Hanson said the party chose to appoint a new leader in NSW “following the recent state election which saw [the party’s] vote drop by 14 per cent”.
“The national executive of the party has also declared vacant the position of NSW parliamentary leader while the review takes place,” the statement read.
Mr Latham, however, said he remained the leader of the “parliamentary team”.
“This is a matter, quite rightly, for me, Rod Roberts and Tania Mihailuk. I remain as the leader of our parliamentary team,” he said.
“Over the past 5 years we have built up into the largest One Nation parliamentary party in the country— so where’s the problem?”
Well, Mark, the problem is kind of twofold.
One, the party is called Pauline Hanson’s One Nation. Her name is in the name of the organisation. The Libs don’t call themselves Robert Menzies’ Liberal Party. The party is about her and her ego. You presided over a drop in her party’s popularity in NSW. That’s not a good look.
Two, frankly, you exist. You’re Mark Latham. You’re a liability to whoever you’re working with. Even the Liberal Democrats had enough sense to tell you to go fuck yourself when you offered to run for them. Have you forgotten about being sued by Alex Greenwich for vilifying him with comments that even Pauline criticised you for? (I’d be worried if you had, given that you’re currently engaged in defending yourself in that case…) Legal action is never a good look either.
Look, the fact that Mark Latham ultimately shacked up politically with One Nation was not really surprising (except in that he joined someone else’s party rather than starting his own); he’d clearly moved so far to the right that PHON was the logical last stop for him without leaving the political mainstream entirely. And the fact that it seems to have ended badly… also not surprising in the least; those two planet-sized egos were bound to clash eventually and Latham was, frankly, always going to be Latham because he’s incapable of doing anything else. Only surprising that it’s taken so long for the shit and the fan to collide.