More front than Mark Foys

Slender line-up of MPs put the lie to Obeid's ICAC evidence ... The requirement to notify commission of corrupt conduct has been ignored for years ... Hence Eddie and others have thumbed their snouts at the corruption fighting body ... Alex Mitchell reports 

"Mr Macdonald has never been in my office." Oops

WHEN the NSW Labor Party faction boss Eddie Obeid made the astonishing claim under oath that he had never visited the parliamentary office of his NSW Upper House colleague Ian Macdonald, the disgraced mines minister, just three MPs stepped forward to contradict his memory.

Obeid was giving evidence at public hearings of the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption on May 13, when he testified:

"Mr Macdonald has never been in my office in 20 years of me being in politics." 

The two dinosaurs of the NSW Labor machine, Obeid, head of the right-wing Terrigals faction, and Macdonald, leader of the "hard left" faction, for the better part of six-months have faced a gruelling ICAC inquiry into the awarding of lucrative mining licences and associated shenanigans. 

Commissioner David Ipp has concluded public hearings and will present the first part of his report to parliament in July. 

When ICAC re-assembled on May 20, two former Upper House MPs, Paul O'Grady (1988-1996) and Ian West (2000-2011), and one serving MLC, Lynda Voltz (2007-), testified that they had seen Macdonald going in and out of Obeid's office on numerous occasions.

"Coming and going, back and forth, all the time," is how O'Grady recalled it.

When asked how Obeid had got it so wrong, O'Grady used one of his grandmother's favourite expressions: 

"This bloke ... he's got more front than Mark Foys."

This is the old department store that is now the Downing Centre branch of the District Court. 

Ian West was more solicitous. He testified that Obeid ... 

"may have said that under some stress in the witness-box. I can't believe that he meant it ...

To me, it'd be like Sir Donald Bradman saying that he'd never been in the Australian cricket team's dressing room."

Ms Voltz said she went to Obeid's office after the Labor caucus sacked Nathan Rees as premier in December 2009 and found Macdonald in the room.

Counsel assisting Geoffrey Watson SC: "So you've literally been in the room at the same time as both of them?"

Voltz: "That's right."

Obeid's barrister, Stuart Littlemore, switched to damage control and clumsily said to O'Grady in the witness box: 

"Will you understand, please, that Mr Obeid's instructions are, yes, he was wrong. He accepts what you're quoted as saying in the newspaper as true, that he was wrong in his recollection of that period to which you refer, 1991 to 1995, that Mr Macdonald, his assertion that Mr Macdonald never visited. Do you understand that?"

O'Grady, West and Voltz are all associated with the "soft left" faction, otherwise known as "Fergusonites" - followers of the late Jack Ferguson, deputy premier in the Neville Wran era. 

Former members of this faction include the late Jeff Shaw, attorney-general 1995-2000, and John Watkins, former education minister and now CEO of Alzheimer's Australia.

Leading lights of Macdonald's "hard left" cell include federal minister Anthony Albanese and his wife Carmel Tebbutt, and former state MPs Joe Tripodi and Reba Meagher. 

Why did only three MPs give evidence to ICAC contradicting Obeid's evidence?  

There are 135 serving MPs in the NSW Parliament: 93 in the Legislative Assembly and 42 in the Legislative Council. Currently, about 40 are from the Labor Party and at least 30 of them were members during the relevant years when Obeid and Macdonald were factional chieftains. 

Section 11 of the ICAC Act provides that certain persons, including ministers of the crown and heads of government departments and statutory bodies, are under a duty to report to the commission any matter that the person suspects on reasonable grounds concerns or may concern corrupt conduct.

If any serving or former ministers or senior public servants heard Obeid's evidence and knew it to be incorrect, why didn't they inform ICAC and volunteer to give evidence?

We can't possibly believe that three low-ranking MLCs were the only Labor politicians who knew about the relationship between Obeid and Macdonald and their bustling inter-office trysts.

While the ICAC Act is explicit about the obligations of ministers, it is silent on the duty of MPs. They appear to be exempt.

Mark Speakman SC, Liberal MP for Cronulla, is chairman of the parliamentary ICAC committee, and it has the power to recommend changes to the Act.

A simple amendment would oblige MPs to inform ICAC of any suspicions of corrupt conduct by their colleagues. 

At present, they say nothing and obligingly contribute to the climate of cover-up.

Alex Mitchell is a former State Political Editor of The Sun-Herald and author of Come The Revolution: A Memoir (NewSouth Books 2011). His website is Come the Revolution.