The sentencing on Thursday of former ALP ministers Eddie Obeid and Ian MacDonald for their roles in a corrupt scheme to acquire a $60 million coal mine is a historic event in NSW’s battle against corruption.
It is now more than nine years since the Independent Commission Against Corruption started its investigation into the complicated transactions which in 2009 allowed Obeid and his son Moses to rig the state government tender for the Bylong Valley mine and hand it to a company in which they were secret shareholders.
The crime was extraordinary,not just for the amount of money involved,but also for the sophisticated subterfuge employed by the Obeids and Macdonald,who was then mining minister.
TheHerald’s Kate McClymont can claim a share of the credit for bringing to light this crime and another somewhat simpler corrupt Obeid scheme involving leases to cafes at Circular Quay.
Obeid has already served a three-year jail term for the latter,but it has taken much longer to build a case for the Bylong mine matter because of its complexity.
Too often,white-collar criminals can beat prosecutors because there is no smoking gun,just an impenetrable paper trail. In 2014,after the ICAC made its findings,Obeid boasted contemptuously that the evidence would not “stand up in a court of law”.
But in this case,although the wheels of justice did grind slowly,they have ground exceeding fine. Eddie Obeid was handed a sentence of three years and ten months,Moses three years and MacDonald five years. Justice Elizabeth Fullerton of the Supreme Court said all three were “fully aware” of their obligations and the offences were of “objective seriousness”.
Yet while this is an important victory it also highlights the need for constant vigilance in the fight against corruption.
Some politicians commit conduct that raises questions as to whether they still appear not to understand basic rules about disclosing potential conflicts of interest and acting in the public interest when discharging their duties.
In the same year that the ICAC held its public inquiry into the Obeids,Liberal MP Daryl Maguire started the business deals that are the subject of the ongoing ICAC inquiry into whether he breached public trust.