On a Thursday night in the beachside village of Gerringong on the New South Wales south coast, 40-odd people shuffle into the local town hall. Five weeks out from the state election, a local community group is hosting the first candidate forum for the seat of Kiama.
Labor’s candidate, a former organiser with the journalists union, Katelin McInerney, talks about education funding and cites statistics on stretched local health services. The 12-year-old Coalition government is “tired, out of touch”, she tells the crowd.
The Greens candidate, Tonia Gray, a local councillor and academic, wants to see more social housing and more ambitious emissions reduction targets.
Then it’s Gareth Ward’s turn. Ward, a former minister in the Berejiklian government, has held Kiama since 2011, when he ended Labor’s 30-year stranglehold on the seat.
He has increased his margin at the 2015 and 2019 elections – bucking a 12% swing against the Coalition since it won power – and now holds it on a safe 12% margin.
In his opening salvo at the town hall, Ward rattles off a laundry list of projects delivered over the decade, “from defibrillators to major road upgrades”. He has “always held the line” against overdevelopment and is “committed with every fibre in my being” to “continue delivering”.
But Ward is no longer a minister or even a Liberal party MP. He has not even been allowed to set foot inside parliament since March last year, when the government moved a suspension motion against him and the premier, Dominic Perrottet, publicly called for him to resign as an MP.
It followed a string of criminal charges alleging he sexually abused a man and a 17-year-old boy in two separate incidents dating back several years.
Ward has pleaded not guilty to the charges, which include one count of sexual intercourse without consent, three counts of indecent assault and one count of common assault. A date for a trial is yet to be set, meaning the charges will not be dealt with before the election next month.
And so here we are, in perhaps the strangest election contest in the state, where a man who could face jail time is running for re-election to a parliament that – for the time being at least – he is not welcome in.
Yet on Thursday night it seems no one wants to talk about the elephant in the room. Neither of his rivals mention the fact that Ward is facing charges, his suspension from the parliament, or the absence of the Liberal party from a forum in a seat it notionally holds.
Questions from the crowd range from concern about offshore windfarms causing “horrifying disturbance and death” to whales to a lack of rail services and a vague query about LED lights and whether they are too bright for motorists.
That is, until Ward starts talking about the “sensible” stamp duty reforms passed by Perrottet last year. “This government has a lot to be proud of,” he says, prompting an interjection from a woman in the crowd, who says: “You’re an independent.”
“Thank you very much but my values have not changed,” Ward replies. “I think we all know the circumstances.”
“But you can’t be talking about ‘we’,” the woman says.
“I can talk about ‘we’ because, you know what, I was a part of that government for a long time,” Ward says. “If you want to make the obvious political point, very cheap but obvious, you know what? I’m proud of what we achieved. And I’m proud of what I have done and I’m proud of the team that’s doing it and I can back it in.”
It is a tense exchange but a revealing one. The next day, at a cafe in Gerringong during Ward’s first interview since he was suspended from parliament, the Guardian asks whether he still has ambitions to return to the Liberal party one day.
He refuses to say. “I’m not going to comment on hypotheticals.” Nor will he confirm whether, as expected, he would be a quasi-Liberal party vote if the Coalition were to be re-elected in a minority form.
But, he says, “it should come as no surprise to you [that] my principles, my values are small-L Liberal values”.
With his case yet to be heard, there is not much Ward can say about the charges against him other than that he denies them.
But there is a broader question, which is why he is asking voters to support him while facing sexual abuse allegations that will not be dealt with by the time they go to the ballot box.
“I passionately believe in the presumption of innocence but I also passionately believe in my innocence and I’ve said that repeatedly,” he says.
“I don’t get to tell people how they vote. People can make whatever decisions they like based on whatever set of values they believe.”
Despite the unusual circumstances in which he’s seeking re-election, Ward retains a significant local support base and could benefit - a fact previously pointed out by opposition leader Chris Minns - from the fact the Liberal party has yet to preselect a candidate despite Perrottet insisting in January that the party would win the seat.
A local source said the party was in “turmoil”, with many members determined to support Ward. Gail Morgan, a local poet and author, was the only person to put her hand up when nominations closed earlier this month but is yet to be formally endorsed.
A seat poll of 700 people taken in mid-December, seen by the Guardian, had 50% of respondents saying Ward had done an “excellent job” as an MP, compared with 22% who said they did not support him. About 28% thought he was either “average” or “could have done a better job”.
Other party polling described to the Guardian has shown Ward leading on primary vote but not with enough to win the seat outright, meaning whatever the Liberals decide to do with preferencing is likely to be crucial.
“He’s still incredibly popular,” one local Liberal party source said. “We have no chance to win the seat but, whatever, if our vote is too high and it doesn’t flow to him, it could hurt him.”
