What do you have to do to be expelled from an Australian parliament?
Being convicted of rape and indecent assault may not even be enough, given the showdown emerging as NSW Independent MP Gareth Ward sits in a Cessnock prison awaiting sentencing while continuing to remain the member for Kiama and receive his MP salary.
Last month, Ward was found guilty of raping a political staffer in 2015 following an event at parliament, and of indecently assaulting a then 18-year-old man three times in 2013.
Both victims were assaulted at Ward’s home; they had met him while building their early careers in politics.
Ward has been the member for Kiama since 2011, and has remained a member in the weeks since his conviction and will now pursue a legal fight, from prison, to retain the position.
He has experience in refusing to leave parliament. While he did resign from the Liberal party and as a state government minister when the allegations emerged in 2021, he successfully ran as an independent and managed to get reelected in 2023, just ahead of his Labor opponent Katelin McInerney.
Now, Ward’s lawyers have sought an injunction to prevent his expulsion from parliament, despite both the Labor Government and Coalition wanting him gone.
Premier Chris Minns is responding by pushing for an urgent Supreme Court hearing to address the matter.
“We’ve got a week of parliament to sit, and I think that most people would appreciate it’s an unconscionable situation to have someone who’s currently sitting in jail in Silverwater, convicted of serious sexual offences, who is demanding to remain a member of parliament and continue to be paid,” he told 2GB radio.
It’s incredible to think the NSW Government needs to deal with this in the Supreme Court.
But NSW parliamentary rules enable Ward to cling on as a member, even while in prison and post a conviction.
An MP needs to be convicted of a crime punishable by five years or more in prison for their seat to be declared vacant, under the NSW Constitution Act. The act describes conviction as meaning taking in “the end of the appeals process”, should the individual convicted choose to appeal.
Ward is choosing to appeal. And even once the appeals process is exhausted, he would still need to receive a sentence of more than five years to be expelled, according to the Act.
Clearly, the parliamentary rules need to change. In the meantime, it’s up to the current parliament — who should now be dealing with other issues — to try and remove a convicted rapist from his chair.
The fact there has been no successful expulsion from NSW Parliament since 1917 should say it all in terms of how fast these existing rules need to evolve.