Former South Australian MP Fraser Ellis sentenced for deceit but claims he didn’t act in a ‘criminal manner’

A defiant former MP insists he is casual and reckless but not a criminal after being convicted of fraudulently claiming almost $5000 from a parliamentary allowance.

Fraser John Ellis, 34, was sentenced to 10 months in prison on Thursday, only for it to be suspended on the condition he agreed to a good behaviour bond.

Outside Adelaide Magistrates Court, the former Liberal MP said he respectfully disagreed with the court and did not believe his actions “arose to a level of criminality”.

The former member for Narungga, which covers the Yorke Peninsula west of Adelaide, was found guilty of four counts of deception in 2024 and acquitted on another 19 counts.

Prosecutors challenged that decision and in July, the Court of Appeal found Ellis guilty of three more offences.

Phone, travel and diary records showed the offending covered 20 nights of claims from the country member’s accommodation allowance between December 2018 and May 2020, totalling $4676.

The first-term MP quit the Liberal Party when charges were laid but retained his regional seat as an independent in 2022.

He ran third to One Nation’s Chantelle Thomas in March’s South Australian election.

The charges stemmed from a corruption watchdog’s investigation into parliamentary expenses, which also triggered the resignations of two ministers and two parliamentary office holders.

Magistrate Simon Smart said the process for claiming the allowance was “founded on the trust and honesty of claimants as members of parliament”.

“Your offending, therefore, was a clear breach of that trust,” he told Ellis.

“The claims were not mistakes but deliberate falsehoods ... and deliberate misrepresentations.

“The issue at trial was whether you had intentionally deceived another and whether you had been acting dishonestly in benefiting yourself — the finding in each instance was that you had.”

Ellis had repaid the claims but “your lawyer has frankly acknowledged that the repayment of those monies cannot be treated as an act of contrition,” Smart said.