Mark Latham’s bid for an independent inquiry into NSW Director of Public Prosecutions Sally Dowling was defeated 19–14. But the allegations aired in Parliament – and Labor MLC Stephen Lawrence’s criticism of her conduct – have not gone away.

Independent NSW MLC Mark Latham has upped the ante in the furore over the state’s director of public prosecutions, Sally Dowling, SC, narrowly missing a majority for his explosive motion this week that slammed not only Dowling, but also Attorney-General Michael Daley and Senior Crown Prosecutor Brett Hatfield, SC.

Latham’s motion called on the Minns government to establish an independent statutory inquiry into the various allegations and “other improprieties” of Dowling, as found recently, 4–3, by a Legislative Council committee.

No doubt, the Latham attack will be discounted by many who have branded the former federal Labor leader and former NSW One Nation leader a firebrand who makes controversy for its own sake.

But his notice of motion, which took him 12 minutes to get through in the Legislative Council on 22 September (with two brief attempted interruptions from Government Leader Penny Sharpe), was not just high on invective; it ran deep on detail.

Latham said the inquiry was needed to explore Dowling’s “sustained pattern of lying under oath to the Legislative Council and the damage she is causing to the integrity, honesty and reputation of the DPP and the NSW criminal-justice system”.

He then listed a handful of “lies under oath”, including having “falsely denied” to the committee the authorising of the pitching of a story to the media aimed at discrediting a judge.

He quoted the committee, which had found false her claim that “she only discovered in December 2025 the story had been pitched by [her] office … despite having sat in the meeting where pitching the story to 2GB was decided upon”.

Latham told Parliament: “Ms Dowling told [the committee] on 31 August 2026 that she believed no........

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