Mark Latham finds a buyer to cough up $2.3m for his sprawling estate

When the rogue NSW MP Mark Latham put his sprawling Mount Hunter estate on the market in June, he insisted it had nothing to do with the bills piling up over his legal battle with Sydney MP Alex Greenwich.

But our guess is it won’t hurt to have a little cash in the bank to try to avoid declaring bankruptcy after Greenwich served Latham with bankruptcy papers while the one-time federal Labor leader was trackside at Randwick last weekend, sporting his Rudy Giuliani-inspired home hair dye set-up.

That’s because Latham has finally found a buyer to stump up for the property. The former NSW One Nation leader quietly settled on the sale in mid-October, according to title documents seen by CBD, for $2.26 million.

The MP’s five-bedroom home was first listed for sale on May 12 before being relisted under a different agent on June 2, as the Herald revealed that month, with a price guide of $2.4 million to $2.6 million.

Latham first purchased the 2.3-hectare plot of land for $460,000 in 2006 after retiring from federal politics. Latham and his ex-wife, Janine Lacy, went on to build the colonial-style home that now sits on the property Latham has called home for the better part of the past two decades.

“Nestled amongst the rolling hills and peaceful rural landscapes that make Mount Hunter so highly sought after, this exceptional five-acre estate offers the perfect blend of country charm, modern luxury and family living,” read the sale listing when the property hit the market.

Given the windfall, we asked Latham whether he intended to pay the outstanding $180,000 in court-ordered damages he’s being pursued for after he lost a defamation lawsuit against Greenwich over a “vile, homophobic” Twitter post from March 2023. He didn’t get back to us.

The rogue MP has about two weeks to pay. Latham has separately secured the support of the right-wingers at Revive Australia to run a crowdfunding campaign, which he’s been promoting on his Facebook page, promising supporters their donations would be “tax deductible” despite Revive not being a registered gift recipient. (He didn’t respond to a request for comment on this either.)

If he can’t, or won’t pay, he can then apply for a court to declare himself officially bankrupt, which would probably bring an end to his time in parliament.

Friends in high places

The Albanese government’s plans to overhaul the federal parliamentary pass system triggered a rush among the nation’s lobbyists last month to find MPs game enough to be publicly associated with them.

Word is there’s still a swarm of the capital’s corporate influence peddlers awaiting approval from the pass office. Given the growing stink around Canberra’s lobbying apparatus, we spent the last few weeks expecting a shortage of MPs willing to be seen opening Parliament House up to corporate and activist interests. But how wrong we were!

The first quarterly disclosure report quietly released under the new regime late last month names a handful of Labor government MPs. Among the most senior was Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen, who along with Industry Minister Tim Ayres signed off on a pass for DPG Advisory’s Ben Oquist, the smartglasses-wearing husband of Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young.

They weren’t alone. Labor MP Jerome Laxale lent his signature to at least three lobbyist passes, according to the disclosure. Labor Senator Michelle Ananda-Rajah, meanwhile, was kind enough to sign off on a pass for her former staffer, Oscar Dobson, now a lobbyist at Joe Hockey’s Bondi Partners.

Labor MPs Alison Byrnes and Justine Elliot weren’t shy either when it came to sponsoring access to the parliament for Richard Brooks, a lobbyist at Radburn Partners.

Working as a senior adviser to Labor godfather Don Farrell for a little over 18 months can’t have hurt his cause.

It wasn’t just Labor MPs, though. Elliot joined Deputy Opposition Leader Jane Hume and Coalition senators James Paterson and Ross Cadell in making sure undisclosed representatives of Allianz could walk the halls of parliament without any trouble.

Brand dilemma

Rapist jailbird Russell Brand made headlines around the world late last week after he was found guilty of rape and three counts of sexual assault.

In the UK, the findings dominated front pages everywhere from the Daily Mail to The Telegraph, the Daily Star, and the News Corp-owned The Sun, which opted for the simple all-caps splash “RAPIST”. But it looks like the programming team at the Seven Network may be among the only people in the world who missed the news.

How else to explain the network screening Forgetting Sarah Marshall, the 2008 rom-com starring Brand, on Friday night?

Imagine the surprise of free-to-air viewers in Sydney and Melbourne when they got a peek at the movie on the TV guide for 8.30pm on the network’s 7Flix channel. When the slot rolled around that evening, the movie ultimately went to air. We tried asking the network’s owners, Seven Media Group, as it has been rebranded, what happened, but didn’t hear back by deadline.