Australian MP Convicted of Rape Quits before Expulsion from Parliament
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - An Australian state lawmaker and convicted rapist, who is in jail awaiting sentence, quit his seat on Friday moments before a vote scheduled by his former colleagues to eject him.
Gareth Ward, an independent member of parliament in New South Wales state, earlier refused to resign despite his July convictions by a jury for sex crimes against two young men. He failed in a legal bid Thursday to stop his peers taking rare action to expel him, the AP reported.
Ward, 44, sexually assaulted a political staffer after a parliamentary event in 2015 and abused an 18-year-old at the politician’s home in 2013. His sentencing on one count of sexual intercourse without consent and three counts of indecent assault is scheduled for September.
In a bizarre and unusual episode for Australian politics, Ward refused to resign even after his bail was revoked last week following the convictions. He has said he plans to appeal and to keep his seat from jail in the meantime, prompting derision from his peers.
Ward on Monday launched a legal challenge to an expulsion vote planned for Tuesday. The bid was dismissed by an appeals court Thursday, allowing a new parliamentary vote against him to be scheduled.
As lawmakers assembled to oust him from Parliament Friday morning — a measure expected to draw cross-party support — Ward wrote to the speaker of the house tendering his resignation. He would have been the first lawmaker to be expelled from the lower house of the state parliament in more than a century.
Ward was the state’s minister for families, communities and disability services between 2019 and 2021. He served an eight-year term as a local council member before entering Parliament.
