NSW Premier Chris Minns will continue ignoring questions from Independent Member for Kiama Gareth Ward and has also said he will refuse to accept Mr Ward’s vote on legislation in the lower house.

If Mr Ward does vote with Labor, a member of the Labor party would abstain from voting, ostensibly making Mr Ward’s vote not count.

Premier Minns says, "I don't want to be in a situation eventually where the government could be brought into disrepute because we've been relying on Mr Ward's vote."

He says that this practice will continue “until the criminal part of his [Mr Ward’s] court session and those inquiries are completed.”

Mr Ward has been facing criminal charges last year, and was suspended from parliament as a result. He pleaded not guilty and his case will go to trial in April 2024.

Mr Ward says he is “completely appalled” by Premier Minns’ actions. The Premier has already refused to answer Mr Ward’s questions in parliament on two separate occasions.

“I don’t expect an apology from the Premier to me, but I believe he should apologise to my electorate of Kiama for his treatment of the issues I’ve raised and the decision they made to re-elect me as their local MP.”

Earlier this week, the NSW Government’s Parliamentary Privileges Committee released a report which concluded that the Government could have “serious and negative consequences” and would risk legal action if it re-suspended a member of parliament that had been re-elected.

The parliamentary privileges committee stated one of the risks the government faced if it re-suspended with “full public knowledge of pending criminal charges” would be culpable of “repeated denial of the electorate being represented in the assembly by their chosen member.”

Even though the Premier ruled out moving to re-suspend Mr Ward, Mr Minns says his party will continue the practice of taking the MPs' questions on notice and replying to them formally in parliament so residents of the Kiama LGA can still have their questions answered.

"He [Mr Ward] still faces very serious charges and while I make absolutely no judgement about those charges and the eventual case that needs to take place I'm also not going to pretend they don't exist," Premier Minns told reporters on Thursday afternoon.

The report also stated that re-suspending Mr Ward would run the risk of compromising the presumption of innocence of a member by further demonising them before they’ve had their day in court. Premier Minns denied that he was jeopardising Mr Ward’s presumption of innocence.

"A reasonable person would acknowledge that there is an inherent conflict of interest in him questioning the executive about particular issues, and the most appropriate thing to do is take it on notice and reply formally to his enquiries of the executive." Premier Minns says.