Ken Smith (Australian politician)

Kenneth Maurice Smith AM (born 30 December 1944) is an Australian politician who was the member for Bass in the Victorian Legislative Assembly from 2002 to 2014.

Smith was a plumber before he entered the Parliament of Victoria in 1988, winning the Legislative Council seat of South-Eastern Province for the Liberal Party.

While the election was a disaster for the Liberals, Smith provided them with their only gain, winning the seat after Davies was overtaken by Labor on the primary vote.

On 19 September 2013, he was forced to use his tiebreaking vote to carry a motion to suspend Opposition Leader Daniel Andrews for disorderly conduct.

This ensued when Andrews accused Smith of bias when Smith ordered the removal of posters showing Liberal-turned-independent Geoff Shaw—whose vote was keeping the Coalition in office as a minority government—alongside government ministers, but ruled Premier Denis Napthine's claims of incompetence on the part of the previous Labor government were in order.