Gareth Ward: Rapist NSW MP continues to fight ouster via State Parliament 'kangaroo court'

An MP convicted of sexual assault has claimed a parliamentary ouster would be unlawful punishment from a “kangaroo court” that puts democracy into disrepute.

Gareth Ward, 44, remains the member for the NSW south coast seat of Kiama while he awaits sentencing for sexually assaulting an intoxicated political staffer after a midweek event in the state’s parliament in 2015.

The former state families minister was also found to have sexually abused a drunken 18-year-old man at his South Coast home in 2013.

A Labor-led vote to expel Ward from parliament, slated for Wednesday, was delayed after a court ordered a halt at the MP’s request.

On Thursday, Ward’s barrister Peter King argued a letter the MP received from the Labor government about the planned expulsion vote only referred to the convictions and did not lay out a case for Ward’s expulsion.

The letter did not detail any “unworthy conduct” - the expulsion power Labor is relying on to turf Ward - Mr King told a panel of three Court of Appeal judges.

Four MPs have been expelled from NSW parliament, the last in 1969, under the “unworthy conduct” power.

“Are you seriously submitting that (Ward’s) convictions ... are not conduct unworthy?” Chief Justice Andrew Bell asked.

“The four counts are evidence of the fact of conviction, but they’re not evidence of the facts which underlie that conviction,” Mr King replied.

When the barrister tried again to make the same argument, Justice Jeremy Kirk chimed in.

“There can’t be any mystery about it: he was tried publicly on an indictment,” the judge said.

“He, of all people, must know what behaviour led to his conviction.”

Justice Kirk also questioned whether the court could do anything or interfere in the government’s processes.

There was a “degree of hypotheticality” about the case as the parliamentary vote had not been held, he said.

Even if he staves off the vote, Ward faces automatic expulsion under a separate power if he fails to overturn his convictions on appeal.

Mr King also attacked the proposed motion to expel Ward now as unlawfully punitive by denying him a parliamentary return if he won a conviction appeal.

Meanwhile, the trampling of individual rights in favour of the majority would place democracy into disrepute and deter “good people” from running for office, he suggested.

The jailed MP could also not speak against the motion in parliament.

“In short, he is to be expelled by a kangaroo court,” Mr King said.

Lawyers for parliamentary speaker Greg Piper denied the proposed expulsion was punitive.

Instead, it was the lower house protecting the trust and confidence of its members as well as the community.

“That self-protective purpose is so strong that it would be very difficult to establish some sort of illicit punitive purpose,” barrister Craig Lenehan SC argued.

Ward had been given “all the procedural fairness in the world”, including an offer to provide lengthy written submissions against his expulsion, in circumstances where parliament could have just moved against him without notice.

The Court of Appeal is expected to deliver its decision later on Thursday afternoon.

Any expulsion of Ward will trigger a by-election in the electorate he has held since 2011.

Initially running under the Liberal banner, he secured a 2023 poll win as an independent, despite having been charged with sexual assault and suspended from parliament.

A vote to expel him is almost certain to pass with support from leaders of Labor and the coalition.

Ward has been remanded in custody ahead of his sentence for the sexual assaults.

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