Western Australia Nationals MP James Hayward resigned from the party last week after he was charged earlier by police with five child sexual abuse offences in relation to an eight-year-old girl.
But he is still able to receive his $167,000 taxpayer-funded salary PLUS his more than $150,000 in allowances.
Rules for MPs say that they must attend one out of every six consecutive sitting days to avoid being in contempt.
While Hayward resigned his membership from the party, he has not yet officially stood down as an MP and is now an independent, so all he has to do is walk into the parliament building every now and then to make sure the paychecks keep rolling in.
On Tuesday he reportedly walked in, stood in the chamber hallway for 15 seconds, long enough for his attendance to be marked, and then walked straight out again.
As this is the final sitting week before the Christmas break, his summer is now fully covered until the first week of February, when he’ll just need to waltz in and out again.
This is shocking but not surprising given what’s gone down in parliament this year. Christian Porter never took a pay cut after his historic rape allegations, which he denies, came to light and he was removed from his role as Attorney-General.
Due to the severity of the charges, many of his colleagues have said for him to still be an MP is frankly ridiculous.
WA Nationals leader Mia Davies said in a statement his position was ‘untenable’.
“Mr Hayward is facing serious charges, he has resigned his membership of our party and he should now resign from the parliament,” she said.
“Our party took swift and immediate action in the hours after the matter was revealed by suspending Mr Hayward, removing his membership rights and setting in motion procedures under the Nationals WA’s constitution to consider his future.”
The 52-year-old has already appeared in Perth Magistrates Court charged with three counts of indecent dealings with a child, one count of procuring a child to do an indecent act and one count of persistent sexual conduct.
He was granted bail with a $30,000 condition of compliance, including that he reports five times a week to police and that he not have any unsupervised contact with children under 16.
He will appear again in court on December 13.
