Two years after taking the stand at one The investigation by the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) has found that former NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian engaged in serious corrupt conduct.
Berejiklian is ICAC’s latest high-profile political victim, but not the first.
The former prime minister joins a long list of powerful political careers derailed after being investigated by the country’s oldest corruption watchdog.
NSW Premier Chris Minns says he does not believe members of parliament should automatically resign or be suspended amid an ICAC investigation.
Here are some big names that have been researched, with mixed results.
The first great political scalp
Nick Greiner established the ICAC in 1992, and then it would be his undoing.()
In 1992, Liberal leader Nick Greiner became the first prime minister to be ousted by ICAC, just three years after campaigning for its creation in 1989.
He claimed the “boy jobs” scandal that was his undoing was “politics”, not corruption.
The ICAC disagreed, finding him “technically corrupt” for misusing his position as leader of the Liberal Party to secure the resignation of independent MP Terry Metherell from state parliament, to gain political advantage .
The Court of Criminal Appeal later found Mr. Greiner guilty.
The bottle of Grange
It was Mr. O’Farrell’s testimony under oath about a 1959 bottle of Grange that led to his resignation.)
In April 2014, then Liberal Prime Minister Barry O’Farrell fell on his sword for what he described as a “massive lapse of memory” in the ICAC witness box.
While under oath, he denied that Australian Water Holdings executive Nick Di Girolamo gifted him a bottle of 1959 Grange Hermitage following his 2011 election victory.
Mr O’Farrell resigned in dramatic fashion the following day, after learning that a thank-you note he had written about the wine would be handed over to the ICAC as evidence.
The former president said at the time that he still did not remember the gift, but “as someone who believes in responsibility … I accept the consequences of my actions.”
It maintained that the gift had not influenced its treatment of a public-private partnership sought by Australian Water Holdings, which was at the center of the ICAC investigation.
The ICAC later cleared him of any wrongdoing, finding “there was no intention on Mr O’Farrell’s part to deceive”.
Eddie Obeid and Ian MacDonald
Eddie Obeid became a frequent face in the ICAC witness box.()
Between 2012 and in 2014 disgraced former Labor power agent Eddie Obeid became a frequent face in the ICAC witness box, his conduct coming under the microscope in multiple separate inquiries into corruption.
In 2013, the ICAC found that he and former resources minister Ian Macdonald had engaged in corrupt conduct when they conspired to rig the tender process for a mining exploration license over Obeid’s family farm in the Bylong Valley, which netted them a $30 million windfall.
Both have served prison terms for criminal convictions following ICAC investigations.
Ian Macdonald was nicknamed “Eddie’s left testicle”.)
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