Former Labor politician Mark Latham has resigned as a financial columnist for Fairfax Media’s Australian Financial Review.
A statement on the AFR’s website, Latham apparently resigned due to the controversy surrounding him his “views on feminism and other social issues”.
Latham has continuously come under attack for his writings about women and numerous issues. He has been a columnist for the AFR for eight years, with with editor-in-chief Michael Stutchbury noting readers both love him and hate him.
“Mark has been a provocative and highly readable columnist for the Financial Review,” Stutchbury said on the AFR site. “He has been both loved and hated by readers – sometimes by the same ones at different times. While I didn’t agree with everything Mark wrote, he has played a significant role in Australian public life and brought rare personal insight into his writing.”
A recent post where he called out Australian of the Year Rosie Batty for speaking at an entertainment event sparked much outrage online.
The article caused a social media storm between Latham and Batty with a heap of media attention circulating the issue.
The AFR statement about his resignation refers to Latham’s writing and views as a “self-styled western Sydney perspective” with a “sharp critique of feminisim, the medialisation of mental illness and domestic violence”.
While noting Latham’s controversial views, the statement reported Stutchbury saying the publication has the “right and even duty to publish provocative opinions that some readers and non-readers might find offensive”.
Read the full statement here. Lead image via ABC.
