Dodgyland in a nutshell

Where are we now with ICAC's revolving door of shamed politicians? ... Will there be public executions? ... Pressure from Liberals to defenestrate ICAC ... Slimmed down Big Man speaks out ... McCloy's capers 

Senior Liberal Party bagman Paul Nicolaou

CITIZENS of the premier state are suffering terrible symptoms of withdrawal now that the daily theatre of ICAC's operations Credo and Spicer have given way to the quiet, internal slog of report writing. 

The parade of MPs, ministers, premiers, captains of industry and lawyers is over four now, as Commissioner Megan Latham sifts the tons of evidence and comes to conclusions about corrupt conduct. 

Credo is about Australian Water Holdings and whether people with an interest in the company sought to illegally obtain benefits from, and adversely affect the functions of, the State owned Sydney Water Corporation. 

The Obeids (again) and former ministers Joe Tripodi and Tony Kelly were in the frame along with former Colin Biggers & Paisley managing partner Nick Di Girolamo. 

Tripodi and Kelly already have been found in earlier investigations to be corrupt.  

Operation Spicer focused on the the payment of illegal donations to politicians. The evidence, even without the final findings, have produced a string of scalps: Liberal MPs Tim Owen and Andrew Cornwell quit parliament, while 10 other Liberals have been rusticated to the cross bench, including former ministers Chris Hartcher and Mike Gallacher. 

Obeid: The One Percent

In Canberra Arthur Sinodinos remains sidelined. 

ICAC's emphasis has been on the way the Liberal Party washed illegal donations in breach of the Election Funding, Expenditure and Disclosures Act. 

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THE populace wants public executions - particularly they would like to see on the scaffold Eddie Obeid and Ian Macdonald - the two crook former ministers who were neck deep in the shady dealings over the Mount Penny coal tenement. 

Obeid boasted he had legal advice that there's a "one percent chance" he'll be prosecuted over the manipulation of the coal tenement to his benefit. He also said:  

"The way ICAC runs its inquiries, I do not take them with a grain of salt. I believe in our judicial system and when that goes before a court and a judge where we can provide evidence equivalent to ICAC and the DPP, if they want to take it up, I will then take it seriously. 

It is all media spectacle. It is all Hollywood-style. It is all about grabbing media headlines. It likes to prove it is worth the money the government spends on it. I am a believer in anti-corruption bodies but they've got to run it seriously and not defame people and not grill people when they don't have any real evidence." 

Obeid and his ilk were perfectly content when ICAC had a long winter of hibernation under Barry O'Keefe and Irene Moss. David Ipp and Megan Latham are cut from different cloth and ICAC under their reign has been on the pace. 

From within the Liberal Party there is concern that ICAC is not doing what is supposed to be doing - keeping the Labor Party out of office. 

Now that the worm has turned, party claqueurs have demanded ICAC hold its inquiries in camera and only hear evidence that can be admitted in court. 

A parliamentary committee chaired by former attorney general Greg Smith is looking at whether ICAC's "processes" can be improved to ensure prosecutions go ahead. 

Liberal headkicker Senator Bill Heffernan said that the Canberra based party slush fund the Free Enterprise Foundation had become "besmirched" and that anyone who had "desecrated" the reputation and purpose of the FEF "should have their nuts cut off". 

This is not the first time serious consequences for "nuts" have been raised in the context of ICAC's corruption investigations. 

Graham Cubbin, an independent director of White Energy, which was supposed to be buying Cascade Coal for $500 million, started asking questions about whether the Obeids had a secret interest. 

A telephone intercept picked up a conversation between Cascade Coal shareholders John McGuigan (a former global chairman of Baker & McKenzie) and wheeler-dealer Greg Jones, with McGuigan saying: 

"This prick Cubbin … he's going to have his nuts on the f***ing quarter-mast." 

Former ICAC commissioner Ipp has warned the pollies not to touch a hair on ICAC's head: 

"I do not think that I am overstating the position by saying that any attempt to change or even tinker with ICAC's functions and powers would be no less than a tragedy."   

He accused the police and prosecutors of refusing to do the work to ensure that prosecutions would result from ICAC's work, telling the parliamentary committee: 

"There is no reason why the police or the [Director of Public Prosecutions] should not do the gathering and assembling work required once an inquiry has been completed. 

The fact is that they refuse to do so. This refusal is something that should be investigated, not adding on to ICAC's duties work that is alien to its basic raison d'etre."

DPP Lloyd Babb agreed that ICAC should not be concerned with gathering admissible evidence, which could "fundamentally alter" its nature and risk making it "just another law enforcement agency".

He would like ICAC to produce an admissible witness statement in the first instance, so witnesses did not have to be reinterviewed later.

Admissible evidence was examined by the ICAC parliamentary committee in 2010, with this conclusion: 

"The Committee recommends against amending the Independent Commission Against Corruption Act 1988 to make assembling admissible evidence a primary function of the Independent Commission Against Corruption." 

NSW Attorney General Brad Hazzard has warned that the public could lose confidence in ICAC unless criminal prosecutions followed its findings.

Meanwhile, Eddie is still banking that the odds in his favour are 99:1. 

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WHO is the "Big Man"? This has been one of the pressing issues under examination by Operation Spicer. 

Is it Newcastle boganairre Nathan Tinkler or is it the former Fatty O'Barrell, now slimline Barry O'Farrell? 

This is where Newcastle lawyer Hugh Thomson gets into the act. He was campaign manager for Newcastle Liberal MP Tim Owen, who has resigned in disgrace from the NSW parliament for accepting illegal donations from the property developing mayor of the city. 

Thomson is a former employed solicitor at Sparke Helmore in Newcastle and now works for construction group Dracon in Wallsend. 

The Liberals were pouring a lot of money and effort into winning seats in the Hunter that had previously been Labor strongholds and the coordinator of this siege in 2011 was hard right MLC Mike Gallacher - the recently scuppered Police Minister. 

O'Farrell: big man

On December 13, 2010 Thomson sent Gallagher a text message in relation to Owen's campaign for Newcastle, asking: "How's our big man going with the $120k?" 

Gallacher said he didn't receive the message. Thomson said the "big man" was Tinkler, whose Buildev construction business was a banned donor under the Election Funding, Expenditure and Disclosures Act, but nonetheless was channelling money to Owen and western Sydney MP, Bart Bassett.  

The former police minister said it was most likely the text was referring to Barry O'Farrell to arrange $120,000 from Liberal HQ. 

Earlier this month O'Farrell told ICAC that he wasn't the "big man" and since he has transformed from beefy to sleek, he hasn't been known as the "big man" for a long time. 

"What I do know is that in any meetings with Mr Gallacher he either called me Barry, he either called me 'boss' in that curious police jargon that uniformed police use, or, if someone else was present, he would call me premier." 

Tinkler: bigger

Chris Hartcher, another stood aside minister and right wing factional ally of Gallacher, gave evidence that the former police minister "constantly" referred to O'Farrell as the "big man". 

Thomson rolled over at ICAC and gave a statement implicating all sorts of Libs in "conniving" and illegal donations. He gave evidence under an "inducement" that it would not be used against him. 

That's a protection offered to all witnesses, so it doesn't really make much difference

Arthur Moses SC, for Gallacher, has been gunning for Thomson, saying his evidence has been "contaminated" by the inducement and that the Wallsend lawyer should not be believed. 

Barrister Arthur Moses (right), trying to save Mike Gallacher

This month Gallacher told the media scrum outside ICAC: "I know in my heart I am not corrupt." 

Counsel assisting Geoffrey Watson told commissioner Megan Latham that Thomson was right at the centre of the illegality. 

"I am able to say this because Hugh Thomson admits it." 

It will be interesting to see if the Law Society gets sufficiently stirred to lift a finger. 

*   *   *

THEN we come to property developer Jeff McCloy, the Bentley driving, recently resigned mayor of Newcastle. 

Ex-MPs Tim Owen and Andrew Cornwell admitted they took envelopes bulging with $10,000 in cash from McCloy. 

Recently cross-benched Liberals Garry Edwards and Craig Baumann also admitted to receiving cash from the Hunter region developer. 

McCloy is no stranger to using corruption and misconduct allegations and getting politicians to dance to his tune. 

In 2005 he made over 20 allegations to the Queensland Crime and Misconduct Commission against Mike Berwick,  the mayor of Douglas Shire in Far North Queensland. 

McCloy: envelopes of cash dispensed from his BentleyMcCloy has property interests in a Daintree and wanted to create a tourist resort in association with an aquaculture business. 

Berwick also operated an aquaculture business called Daintreee River Barramundi, on a property owner by his partner Jane King. 

McCloy complained that the council made decisions adverse to his business interests and that Berwick was conflicted. 

He engaged the services of Bob Baldwin MHR, the member for Paterson, an electorate just north of Newcastle. Baldwin's office compiled a 150 page dossier for McCloy about Berwick and the operation of his businesses - a couple of thousand kilometres away from Baldwin's Newcastle turf. 

Incidentally, Baldwin had secured an appointment to the Wet Tropics Ministerial Council. 

The CMC investigations established that in all instances McCloy's allegations were without substance.  

McCloy also launched a series of defamation actions against Berwick over the mayor's public statements. Some of these were successful, with the defendant's defamation insurers insisting on settlements with apologies. 

In March 2012 it was reported that McCloy was contemplating proceedings against Lake Macquarie Council, which had issued recommendations about rising sea levels that affected 10,000 people living close to the foreshore.   

Lake Macquarie: nothing to worry about

The council's new planning guidelines also affected a housing subdivision McCloy was proposing. 

The developer said he had studied the rise of sea levels on the internet and that the rate of the rise had slowed, so the planning restrictions were unwarranted. 

He recruited climate change denier Ian Plimer to tell the locals there was nothing to worry about. Of course, this was nothing to do with McCloy's self-interest: 

"This is not about me though; this is about the poor little property owner who has had hundreds of thousands of dollars knocked off the value of their property." 

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Commissioner Latham - reporting in January

IT'S going to be an anxious Christmas for a clutch of the Liberal Party's finest and the people running their party's cash registers. 

Megan Latham's reports covering the investigations for Operations Credo and Spicer won't be presented to parliament until late January.