Mark Latham takes swipe at Lisa Wilkinson
NSW One Nation leader Mark Latham took multiple swipes at journalist Lisa Wilkinson in NSW Parliament on Wednesday, claiming she’s “always been about the money” and couldn’t leave Western Sydney “fast enough”.
Speaking under parliamentary privilege, Latham claimed Wilkinson was “reinventing herself as a victim of the gender pay gap at Channel 9”. He was referring to Wilkinson’s recently released memoir It Wasn’t Meant To Be Like This, in which she talks about her abrupt exit from Channel 9 in 2017. In her memoir, she revealed that she was sacked over the phone while shopping at Woolworths.
Latham said that one of Wilkinson’s old classmates had contacted him to say that it had “always been about the money” with her. Latham alleged that he said, “We went to Campbelltown High together and she couldn’t get out of here fast enough. She’s always been as tight as all get out, it’s always about the money and the victimhood.”
Latham went on this tirade during the Private Members’ Statements part of the day, where sitting MPs can make statements on “matters that concern their electorates or are of local significance”. He accused Wilkinson of having a “PhD in victimology” and said that she had “played the victim card” while promoting her book.
Latham claimed that his comments about Wilkinson related to a discussion about the gender pay gap, despite not discussing the gender pay gap at any other point during his speech.
In her memoir, Wilkinson claimed that her Today co-host Karl Stefanovic was offered a five-year deal with Nine worth at least $2 million per year, while she was being offered around $780,000, and her deal was only for two years.
She said that the pay disparity was “so off the charts that no-one would have believed it.”
Latham also criticised Wilkinson for crying about her “first world problems” while “posting a picture from her Mosman mansion, with smudged mascara, feigning distress, while also carefully – in a classic product placement – posing with copies of Mr Wilkinson’s ghostwritten books in front of her.”
‘Mr Wilkinson’ refers to Wilkinson’s husband, writer Peter FitzSimons, who is one of Australia’s most prolific non-fiction writers.
Latham also took aim at Wilkinson’s work as editor of Dolly and Cleo magazines, saying, “there’s never any mention of the plight of migrant women or poorly-paid factory jobs or sweatshops, there’s never any mention of the Indigenous women having the life beaten out of them in country NSW hellholes.
“If this is feminism then God help the women of the world.”
Image: Brook Mitchell/Getty Images, Don Arnold/WireImage