News
20 October, 2025
Disgraced former MP to learn his fate
Disgraced former Member for Kiama Gareth Ward will learn his fate within days.
Disgraced former Member for Kiama Gareth Ward will learn his fate within days.
Mr Ward will be sentenced on October 29 after being convicted in July on one count of sexual intercourse without consent and three counts of indecent assault.
He strenuously denied the charges and refused to resign from parliament event after being sent to jail.
He eventually resigned – on the same day parliament was due to expel him – triggering a September 13 by-election won by Labor candidate Katelin McInerney.
Mr Ward is well known to many local residents given his involvement in the Liberal Party over a number of years and the fact the Kiama electorate used to include parts of the Wingecarribee LGA around Robertson.
He was also a former NSW Minister for Families, Communities and Disability Services, Parliamentary Secretary for the Illawarra and South Coast and Parliamentary Secretary for Education.
He spent eight years as a Shoalhaven City councillor before being elected to State Parliament and served as Shoalhaven’s deputy mayor from 2008 to 2010.
Mr Ward held the Kiama electorate for the Liberals from 2011, winning the seat in 2011 and then topping the polls again in 2015 and 2019.
In his inaugural speech to parliament on May 31, 2011, Mr Ward expressed his “deepest sense of honour and privilege” to serve in the nation’s oldest parliament.
“I hope that I can uphold and build upon the traditions of the most distinguished service and respect that have been developed through the creditable contributions of so many outstanding individuals who came here to articulate the views and concerns of their local community and with a desire for a brighter future for our state,” he said.
Mr Ward resigned from the Liberal Party in 2021 and contested the seat of Kiama in 2023 as an independent – successfully – despite the fact that he had been suspended from parliament following his arrest and despite the fact he had been committed to stand trial.
Mr Ward – once considered a rising star in the Liberal Party – has weathered a number of controversies in recent years.
In September 2017 he claimed to have been the target of an attempted mugging in New York City after booking a male masseur for a massage.
In 2018 he was described by former Member for Gilmore and fellow Liberal Ann Sudmalis as a bully and a misogynist. She also accused him of branch-stacking and narcissistic behaviour.
In July 2024 he allegedly arrived at Parliament House at 4am in his underwear to collect a set of spare house keys after locking himself out of his Potts Point apartment.
Mr Ward is currently imprisoned at the Cessnock Correctional Centre.
The most serious charges on which he has been convicted carries a maximum 14-year jail term.
Mr Ward’s lawyers have argued that he should receive a lighter sentence because he has lost his political career and potential legal career and because his standing in the community has been shattered.
They have also argued that his albinism – which has left him legally blind – would make him “extremely vulnerable and at risk in an unfamiliar and challenging environment such as custody”.
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