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Four Corners: Mar 11

Four Corners analyses Eddie Obeid's rise and fall in New South Wales politics, and the corruption allegations.

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2013-03-08_0828Monday’s Four Corners features ‘The Enemy Within’ as reporter Marian Wilkinson analyses Eddie Obeid’s rise and fall in New South Wales politics, and the corruption allegations.

He was a Labor powerbroker, a kingmaker with an uncanny ability to bend people to his will. At the height of his power, Eddie Obeid could make and break Premiers. Now he finds himself at the centre of explosive corruption allegations that threaten his future, his family and the party that delivered him power.

This week, reporter Marian Wilkinson charts Eddie Obeid’s rise inside Labor’s most powerful faction, the New South Wales right. How did a Lebanese immigrant move from owning an ethnic newspaper business to become the most influential politician in the state?

Talking to Labor Party insiders – including senior political figures, staffers and public servants – Wilkinson examines the allegations made against Obeid and another former Labor minister, Ian Macdonald. With forensic detail, Four Corners lays out the details and timeline of alleged corrupt behaviour, setting it against the political events of the same period. The story reveals a party and a government being destroyed from within. It also makes it plain, as one former insider explains, that with Eddie Obeid flexing his power, the process of governing the State could be subverted for the benefit of a few.

“I formed the view when I left, that the Government was no longer acting in the public interest, it was acting in private interests, and if the public interest got a look-in it was purely by coincidence.”

Monday 11th March, 8.30pm on ABC1

3 Responses

  1. and even while the Obeid investigation goes his machine keeps going. I am quite sure that it is not just coincidence that Australian Water CEO Nicholas Di Girolamo was appointed a Director of Balmain Tigers in 2011….at just the same time that the developer Rozelle Village began lobbying to move the Balmain Leagues Club site to a Part 3A Development. The controversial development in Rozelle whose application is sitting with Premier Barry O’Farrell despite overwhelming public outcry.

    As Frank Sartor recently stated to ICAC that he was lobbied by both Eddie Obeid and Ian Macdonald to call in under part 3A the proposed Balmain Leagues Club Development.

    The development was then “called in”’ by former planning minister Tony Kelly, who has since been found corrupt by ICAC after backdating a letter, four weeks before the 2011 state election where Labor lost office.”

    Nicholas Di Girolamo has now been appointed as Chairman just as we learn that he was also responsible for lobbying Premier Barry O’Farrell in 2011 for the $800 million Wallarah 2 coal mine.

    Nic Di Girolamo, known in the NSW Liberal Party for his fund-raising, has been linked to former Labor powerbroker Eddie Obeid through his major shareholding in Australian Water Holdings. The ICAC, which has been investigating alleged corrupt coal deals involving Mr Obeid, has heard the Obeid family lent $3 million to Mr Di Girolamo to buy shares in AWH

  2. Anyone remember when the Labor Party/ALP used to represent the working class and was based around socialist principles. A fair go and fair shares for all?

    Funny how it turned into a corrupt, market based, business vehicle, with its members scrambling over each other to get their greedy snouts in the trough and grab what they can for themselves. Jeez most of them could have worked for Lehman in New York

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