Independent Sydney MP Alex Greenwich is suing former NSW One Nation leader Mark Latham over an allegedly defamatory tweet posted last year.
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00:00 The origin of this defamation case took place a couple of days before the New South Wales
00:06 state election last year, when there was violence directed towards LGBT protesters who had gathered
00:11 outside a Sydney church where Mark Latham was speaking.
00:15 Now Alex Greenwich, the independent Sydney MP, had given comments for a newspaper story
00:19 about the church incident in which he described Mark Latham as a disgusting human being.
00:25 The tweet by Mr Latham, which is at the centre of this case, was replying to that statement
00:30 by Alex Greenwich.
00:32 The ABC has chosen not to republish the full tweet, but in part it read "disgusting, how
00:38 does that compare with" and then went on to use explicit terms to describe sexual activity.
00:44 Now Mr Greenwich alleges the tweet, as well as subsequent comments Mr Latham gave to the
00:49 Daily Telegraph newspaper, caused him serious reputational harm both professionally and personally.
00:56 He says that the material implied that he engages in disgusting sexual activities, is
01:01 not fit to be a member of parliament and goes into schools to groom children to become gay.
01:07 Now Mr Greenwich's counsel, Matt Collins QC, has given an opening address today and he's
01:12 told the court that his client, in giving his comments to the newspaper first, was engaging
01:17 in public debate about the church incident, but in reply Mark Latham went as low as possible.
01:24 Dr Collins said Mr Latham knowingly and deliberately played upon two very tired stereotypes, including
01:31 that gay men are somehow depraved and cannot be trusted around children.
01:36 Alex Greenwich is now in the witness box and he's under cross-examination by Mr Latham's
01:41 counsel.
01:42 So far he's been getting a lot of questions about whether his initial comments about Mark
01:46 Latham were provocative statements to make just before an election campaign was about
01:51 to finish.
01:52 In response to that Alex Greenwich has disagreed and he has said that he believed that he was
01:57 giving an appropriate assessment of the situation as he saw it at the time.
02:02 Mark Latham has raised several defences as part of this case, including qualified privilege,
02:07 public interest and honest opinion.
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