New South Wales’ Labor government will not work with One Nation leader Mark Latham at all, and will begin a process that could again ban independent MP Gareth Ward from parliament.
With vote counting all but ensuring the new premier, Chris Minns, will rule in minority, attention has turned to how the new NSW parliament will manage the re-elected pair.
Minns on Sunday said he would not support any claim by Latham to chair an upper house committee and would not work with One Nation, which holds another two seats in that chamber.
It comes after Latham refused to apologise for posting a homophobic and graphic tweet about independent MP Alex Greenwich that drew widespread condemnation, including from conservative commentators and One Nation matriarch Pauline Hanson.
He later deleted the tweet.
“We’re not going to work with him,” Minns told Sky News.
“I’m not sure who’s going to lead the Liberal party in the next few months, but I’ll call on their organisation to make a similar commitment.”
Latham was trying to import a “US-style Trump-style approach” into NSW politics but was having much less success, Minns said.
One Nation slightly grew its vote in lower house contests but went backwards from its 2019 result in the upper house, its main avenue to influence.
The parliament was unable to discipline Latham as he had used a loophole allowing him to resign before the state election and run again for election, Labor’s upper house leader, Penny Sharpe, said on Saturday.
Meanwhile, Minns confirmed Labor would try to send the re-elected Gareth Ward to a parliamentary privileges committee, which considers matters of ethical standards.
Ward, a former Liberal minister, was re-elected as the independent MP for Kiama while fighting five sexual assault charges.
The committee would need to consider whether the parliament was brought into disrepute and the impact of voters choosing to again elect him, Minns said.
“We believe that’s the due process and appropriate response, given what is a pretty unprecedented set of circumstances in NSW,” he said.
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Ward could appeal any suspension to the supreme court, the premier said.
Ward was suspended from the last parliament days after he was charged in March 2022.
He has since formally pleaded not guilty to all charges and is due to stand trial in the NSW district court.
Ward has consistently maintained his innocence and said in a statement released last week he looked forward to getting back to work.
Vote counting in three close seats handed two wins to the Liberal party on Saturday, leaving Labor’s hopes of reaching a 47-seat majority in the dust.
Projections show the Liberal party will retain the Central Coast electorate of Terrigal and the south-west Sydney seat of Holsworthy, while Liberal Jordan Lane has eked out a 0.25% margin in the north-west Sydney seat of Ryde, ABC election analyst Antony Green said on Saturday.
Should Lane hold on in Ryde, the Coalition will claim 36 seats and Labor 45 – a reversal of what each side held going into the March election.
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