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On the heels of a major legal win, Alex Greenwich tried to have Mark Latham tried in the Supreme Court for contempt over posts that suggested the tribunal “should be embarrassed and ashamed” and the decision was a “disgrace to the concept of evidence and justice”.
On the day Greenwich won his workplace homophobia lawsuit against Latham, the latter politician took to his social media to claim the decision was “a woke, left wing political judgment wrong at law and riddled with factual errors” that he intended to appeal.
“NCAT should be embarrassed and ashamed by what has happened in its grossly political and incompetent handling of this matter, at every level. This ruling cannot be allowed to stand,” Latham said.
Mixed in with the criticisms of the tribunal’s decision making, Latham’s 30 April post included sexist and transphobic remarks, including that one tribunal member was “straight from the Greenwich School of Alphabet Politics” and has been “hostile to me”.
In an application before the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal, Greenwich, represented by Dowson Turco, sought to have Latham referred to the Supreme Court to be dealt with for contempt of the tribunal under the Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act 2013.
Greenwich claimed the 30 April post and others made in the following weeks “scandalised” the tribunal and were intended to “impair the confidence of the people of NSW in the tribunal’s determinations”.
He added they could not be excused on the basis of a “fairly conducted discussion, largely because the respondent’s publications are of such unwarranted gravity, and are expressed in sensationalist terms”.
In response, Latham said there was no contempt of scandalising an administrative tribunal because “contempt protects the court, and the tribunal is not a court”. In any event, he said the contempt allegations were “hopeless” and should not be referred.
Although some comments could be found beyond reasonable doubt to be “scurrilous, and intended to scandalise”, acting District Court Judge Ian Coleman SC was not satisfied they would diminish the integrity or authority of the tribunal or its members.
On the 30 April post, acting Judge Coleman said statements that alleged one tribunal member was a “prominent transgender activist” and the sexist reference to “NCAT ladies” would not deter a tribunal member from determining proceedings according to law or cause reasonable people to lose confidence in NCAT’s authority.
“Although the respondent’s posts strongly and offensively express his disapproval of the tribunal, it’s processes and one particular tribunal member, it is difficult to accept that, irrespective of his intention, to the extent that they took them seriously, the respondent’s posts would undermine the confidence of reasonable people in the integrity or authority of the tribunal or its members,” the acting judge said.
To the extent that the posts would be taken seriously, acting Judge Coleman said reasonable persons “would be more likely to consider that the respondent’s posts reflected more on his personal prejudices than on the authority or integrity of the tribunal or its members”.
Citation: Greenwich v Latham [2026] NSWCATEN 9.
