Donald Trump has found an unlikely supporter in Australia, with the former Labor leader Mark Latham backing his campaign for US president.

Latham, who led Labor to defeat by John Howard in the 2004 election, has been an even more controversial figure in Australian since his political demise.

He has built a reputation as a contrarian, attacking the domestic violence campaigner and Australian of the Year Rosie Batty, and deriding Australia’s most senior transgender military officer.

He quit as columnist for the Australian Financial Review after BuzzFeed news revealed a Twitter account linked to his email address had posted a series of derogatory tweets.

In the spirit of his contrarianism, he delivered a strident defence of Trump in his new column in the Daily Telegraph.

“For the past quarter of a century, under the 24-hour news cycle, whenever a non-politician, a genuine outsider, has run for elected office, the media have jumped all over their novelty value, depicting them as some kind of freak show,” he wrote.

“Donald is by no means perfect but I much prefer his approach to the lying snakes of machine politics and media manipulation.”

He said Trump’s foreign policy – which includes dismantling the Obama administration’s deal with Iran – “is in our national interest”.

Latham’s endorsement follows a warning from another former Labor leader, Kim Beazley, that Australia should prepare for a possible Trump presidency. Beazley, who retired this year as ambassador to the US, told the Australian it was “not our business who the Americans elect, in the same way it’s not their business who we elect”.

He cautioned that to protect the Anzus alliance, Australians needed to “adjust to whoever holds the job” of US president. “But I’ve got to tell you, if it is Trump holding the job, we’re in for a lot of hard thinking,” he said.