In 2014, Kiama’s then-Liberal MP, Gareth Ward, now a convicted rapist, gave an impassioned condemnation of former Labor politician turned child sex offender Milton Orkopoulos, declaring that the one-time minister should “rot in prison”. No one would have disagreed with Ward. Orkopoulos was in jail for sexually abusing three teenage boys.
Now Ward has joined Orkopoulos in jail. One year before that speech to parliament, in 2013, Ward indecently assaulted an 18-year-old man on the South Coast. Then, a year after the speech, Ward raped a 24-year-old man at his Potts Point apartment following an event at Parliament House. The one-time Liberal powerbroker was found guilty on Friday of four sexual abuse charges involving the two young men. He met both men through his position in politics.
The guilty verdict stunned many of Ward’s former Liberal colleagues, largely because of his shameless bravado. Ward was so confident that he would be found not guilty that he contested the 2023 state election as an independent – and won. He also sat the exam to be admitted as a barrister of the Supreme Court.
Perhaps the most extraordinary aspect of the whole sorry saga is that, as of Wednesday this week, despite having his bail discontinued and being detained, Ward remains the MP for Kiama, complete with a taxpayer salary. And there are no rules stopping this.
Labor wants him gone, as does the Coalition. In trademark Ward style, he is digging in. That will be in vain because when parliament returns next week, the lower house will use its extraordinary powers to expel him.
Being convicted of a crime that is punishable by five years or more in prison means you are booted from your seat. But constitutional law expert Professor Anne Twomey explains on her YouTube channel that under changes to the state’s constitution in 2000, conviction is considered to mean “once you have reached the end of the appeals process if you choose to appeal and not had the conviction overturned”. (Those still in contact with Ward say he is defiant and will appeal.)
Source: Garth Ward in jail for sex crimes, keeps taxpayer-funded salary