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.
Even as prosecutors in 2016 charged the Obeids over the coal deals, This potential conflict of interest has now made her the target of an ICAC inquiry and caused her resignation.
While NSW can count on the ICAC to keep politicians honest,the weakness of the procedures for investigating corruption at the federal level is,by contrast,an open invitation to abuse.
It is extraordinary that the federal Parliament has any hesitation ihat paid for his legal bills in a defamation case.
The privileges’ committee,to which the issue has now been referred,must insist that politicians cannot hide the source of personal payments behind blind trust structures. Doing otherwise would open up a door for corruption for federal versions of Eddie Obeid.
More broadly,the case of the Obeids again shows the urgency of creating a serious federal integrity commission to look at how federal money is spent. The Auditor-General this week reported on the lack of transparency in a $2.3 billion regional grants program. It asked why a quarter of the money was paid to projects in major cities.
Corruption is so hard to weed out because some politicians have a vested interest in keeping it secret. The conviction of the Obeids,however,shows that justice can win through.
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