Another date with The Sheik

Eddie (The Sheik) Obeid returns to ICAC on October 28 ... Circular Quay leases under the microscope ... Has Carl (Sparkles) Scully's payback time arrived? ... Macquarie Street gumshoe Alex Mitchell exhumes the details  

Obeid: more jaw-dropping allegations

HOW the mighty have fallen.

Factional overlord and premier-breaker Eddie Obeid has quit the NSW Upper House, been expelled from the NSW Labor Party and the Independent Commission Against Corruption has found he acted corruptly in a secret multi-million-dollar coalmining deal.

The Director of Public Prosecutions is poring over the evidence and the findings to see whether Obeid and his accomplices, including former mineral resources minister Ian (Sir Lunchalot) Macdonald, will face criminal charges.

If charges are laid they will be heard in the lead-up to the next State election on March 28, 2015.

Obeid's notoriety will continue to make headlines for another 18 months. Premier Barry O'Farrell's Coalition is depending on it. 

Just when you thought ICAC had completed its forensic search of Obeid's labyrinthine business empire, a new inquiry is listed for three weeks starting Monday, October 28.

It will examine three sets of allegations against The Sheik in the period he was minister in the Carr government and then the chief influence-peddler during the premierships of Morris Iemma, Nathan Rees and Kristina Keneally.

Operation Cyrus covers allegations that, between 2000 and 2011, Obeid misused his position as an MP to attempt to influence other public officials to exercise their official functions with respect to retail leases at Circular Quay, without disclosing that he, his family or a related entity had an interest in some of those leases.

It is also alleged that during the same period, certain public officials improperly exercised their official functions, with respect to retail leases at Circular Quay, to benefit Obeid or his family.

Operation Meeka will deal with allegations that, between 2005 and 2008, Obeid misused his position as an MP to attempt to influence other public officials to make decisions favouring Direct Health Solutions Pty Ltd, without disclosing that he, his family or a related entity had an interest in that company.

Operation Cabot will examine allegations that, between 2007 and 2008, Obeid misused his position as an MP to influence other public officials to exercise their official functions with respect to the review and grant of water licences at Cherrydale Park, without disclosing that he, his family or a related entity had an interest in the licences. It is also alleged that during the same period, certain public officials improperly exercised their official functions with respect to the review and grant of the water licences at Cherrydale Park in the Hunter Valley.

The grazing property was bought by an Obeid family company, Locaway Pty Ltd, in September 2007 for $3.65 million.

A Clayton Utz report commissioned by the O'Farrell Government in 2011 recommended that ...

"Eddie Obeid's status as a former minister for mineral resources, his position within the then government, and the circumstances surrounding Locaway's purchase of Cherrydale Park are grounds to justify further investigation."

Fish and chips to go

An Obeid café at Circular Quay

Between 1999 and 2003 Obeid was not only minister for mineral resources (coal), but also minister for fisheries (fish and chips) when he had a direct involvement with the Sydney Fish Market, the monopoly supplier to hotels and restaurants in the Sydney metropolitan area.

The star witness at the Operation Cyrus hearings will be former Cabinet minister Carl Scully.

He told Fairfax Media's Kate McClymont that after the Carr Government had completed an exhaustive tender process of lucrative Circular Quay leases in 2000, Obeid had sought an extension to one of them - but did not tell him of his family's involvement. 

Scully said: 

"I flatly refused this request. This was not well-received and ... Eddie became quite angry. It was only after I left politics that an allegation was made to me that Eddie had, at the time in question, a direct commercial interest. If the allegation is true, then it would explain the overreaction to my decision."

Scully felt the full force of Obeid's revenge in 2005 when Carr resigned. First to nominate was Scully who had been promised Caucus support by Obeid and his chief henchman Joe Tripodi.

Twenty-four hours later, Scully was forced to pull out of the race when Obeid's all-powerful Terrigal sub-group withdrew its numbers and gave them to Iemma.

Scully's vow to bring "sparkle" to the government spluttered and fizzled.

A practising solicitor between 1983 and 1990, "Sparkles" stayed in parliament until October 2006 when he resigned and disappeared off the radar.

His return to the limelight is the talk of Macquarie Street.

By agreeing to testify about Obeid's activities Scully has inadvertently put pressure on other former ALP ministers to come clean about the repeated scandals that eventually led to the electoral armageddon in March 2011, when Labor's primary vote plummeted to a 100-year low of 25.5 per cent.

At the next Obeid public examination a retired NSW Supreme Court judge and old boy of Riverview, Assistant Commissioner Anthony Whealy QC, will preside in place of Commissioner David Ipp QC.

Counsel assisting will be Ian Temby QC, who was the first ICAC commissioner (1989-1994), with Ben Katekar as his junior.

After graduating from Sydney University, Whealy's legal career began at McHutchinson Kessel & Co before moving to Freehill Hollingdale & Page.

One of his colleagues at Freehills was solicitor Frank Nugan, later to gain infamy as the co-founder of the Nugan Hand Bank, an institution linked to the CIA with a zealous interest in money laundering, drug-running and arms trafficking.

Whealy was later to say:

"He (Nugan) was the only ex-Freehillian, so far as I know, who has been exhumed – to this point of time."

Whealy's further exhumation of Obeid's Macquarie Street career at the ICAC in a week's time promises to be a main attraction on the pre-Christmas calendar. 

Journalist and columnist Alex Mitchell is author of Come The Revolution: A Memoir, NewSouth Books 2011.