One Nation’s New South Wales leader, Mark Latham, has launched an attack on LGBTIQA+ politicians claiming they have too much influence and suggesting that members of the queer communities are better off than most Australians.
The former federal Labor leader, who is now a member of the NSW parliament for the One Nation party, posted his tirade to Twitter on Saturday morning.
“The debacle in Canberra, where an attempt to protect people of faith against discrimination morphed into yet another focus on LGBTIQ alphabet, highlights something MSM will never report: The disproportionate, self-centred, destructive influence of gay MPs in all major parties.”
The One Nation leader went on to claim that gay people earned more, had better education and more access to the media and politicians than most Australians.
“These MPs are driven more by sexuality than party ideology. Gays have higher incomes and education levels and stronger political and media access than the rest of society, yet the MPs persist with a precious persecution complex overriding more important and valid equity issues.
“NSW Parliament is even worse, where they have a cross-party working group of gay and lesbian MPs, trying to and very often dominating the legislative agenda. The hidden story of how our politics functions today.” Latham claimed.
Currently there are 11 members of the federal parliament who identify as part of the LGBTIQA+ communities, the parliament is made up of 151 members of the House of representatives and 76 senators, representing 4.8% of representatives.
Among the federal LGBIQA+ MPs are Liberals Dean Smith, Trent Zimmerman, Trevor Evans, Tim Wilson and Angie Bell. Labor’s Louise Pratt, Penny Wong, Nita Green, and Julian Hill. While in the Greens there’s Senator Janet Rice.
In New South Wales there are five LGBTIQA+ members of parliament, Penny Sharpe in Labor, Don Harwin and Shayne Mallard in the Liberal party, Mark Pearson from the Animal Justice party and the independent Alex Greenwich.
Western Australia currently has five LGBTQIA+ politicians, all of them are Labor members, they include Stephen Dawson, Peter Foster, Lisa Baker, John Carey and Stuart Aubrey. Both Dawson and Carey are both Ministers.
Victoria has a single LGBTQA+ politician, Labor’s Harriet Shing, while fellow Labor member Ian Hunter is solo in South Australia, as is Chansey Paech in the Northern Territory. Representation in the Australian Capital Territory includes Chief Minister Andrew Barr, alongside Labor colleagues Chris Steel and Suzanne Orr.
There has never been a representative in Queensland who publicly shared that they are gay or bisexual, and no transgender or intersex people have been elected to an Australian parliament. Greens member Janet Rice’s late wife Penny Whetton was transgender, the couple have two children.
Latham also fired off a missive about Olympian Ian Thorpe who had headed to Canberra to lobby against the government’s Religious Discrimination Bill alongside Equality Australia.
“In your world Ian Thorpe, a millionaire, is the new downtrodden and disadvantaged in society. Spare me the bulldust.” Latham said in response to a post challenging his statements.
Earlier in the week Thorpe gave several media interviews where he shared his concerns that the Religious Discrimination Bill could have negative effects for not only LGBTIQA+ people but also pregnant women and people with a disability.
Thorpe said his concerns also included aged care, hospitals and other services run by faith-based organisations.
While the bills ended up being shelved by the coalition after it progressed to the senate with amendments that would have provided some protections for LGBTIQA+ students, the One Nation party had voiced their support for their Religious Discrimination Bill in it’s original form.
Federal leader Pauline Hanson said her party would back the bill and dismissed concerns raised by Labor, The Greens and crossbench members, saying they were looking for a problem that did not exist.
I’ve been assured by senior religious leaders these students are not expelled by religious schools,” she said. “Labor’s amendments are a solution looking for a problem which doesn’t exist.”
While Senator Hanson was voicing her support for Religious Discrimination legislation this week, back in 2017 she called for the practicing of the Islamic faith to be banned in Australia.
OIP Staff
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