Time after time Edward Moses Obeid, with his Order of Australia pinned to his lapel, would march imperiously down the corridor to the hearing room of the Independent Commission Against Corruption as yet another inquiry enveloped both him and his family.
Eddie Obeid, once the most powerful politician in the state, never did get the concept of political morality.
Eddie Obeid leaves Darlinghurst court after being found guilty of misconduct in public office. Photo: Ben Rushton
„Personally, I don’t give a damn,” he told the media in June 2014 after being found corrupt once again. He threw in for good measure that there was only a „one percent” chance he would ever be prosecuted for hiding his family’s interest in lucrative café leases at Circular Quay.
Earlier that day the corruption watchdog had found Obeid had acted corruptly in concealing his family’s interest in the harbourside café leases, he was also found to be corrupt in the manner he had gained water concessions for the family’s country property near Mudgee, and also for lobbying for a health company in which his family had a hidden interest.
That rainy June day, members of the media watched as his top-of-the-range black Mercedes – bought from the $30 million profits from a corrupt coal deal – glided into the driveway of his Hunters Hill mansion.
Alighting from the car, he gave the corruption watchdog a serve, claiming that he was merely a misunderstood businessman just trying to get ahead and that the ICAC was „an arena where they want to throw allegations without any evidence and my family has been the victim of ICAC’s continual inquiries.”
He had already been found to have been corrupt over a lucrative coal exploration licence granted right on top of his Mount Penny farm. One of the most telling moments during that inquiry came when Obeid was grilled about how he had managed to „squirrel away” the funds needed to maintain his lavish lifestyle while on a backbencher’s salary.
„Don’t ‘squirrel’ me!” hissed Obeid. „I’ve spent more money than you have made in a lifetime.”
In his report on the Circular Quay cafés, Assistant Commissioner Anthony Whealy, QC, a retired Supreme Court judge, delivered a brutal assessment of Obeid’s venality.
The Labor kingpin’s failure to reveal his family’s interest in the cafes showed only too clearly „the moral vacuum at the core of his political being.”
Using the same argument as the one the former MP later employed before the jury in his criminal trial, Obeid told ICAC that his lobbying was on behalf of all tenants at Circular Quay, not just his family.
Commissioner Whealy dismissed Obeid’s claims of altruism. Describing his actions as „grubby”, the commissioner found that „no amount of window dressing or pretence can disguise or conceal this unpleasant reality” that Obeid was advancing „his family’s financial interest.”
It was the familial greed of the Obeid clan which eventually brought them undone. In 2012 Obeid’s middle son Moses was trying to avoid paying the City of Sydney a court-ordered sum of $12 million for secretly selling their flagpoles offshore.
When he claimed he didn’t have the money to pay, documents were tendered to the court to show that Moses Obeid had obtained a mortgage for his Vaucluse house by submitting documents to the bank claiming that he had assets of $11.3 million including a $700,000 share of a company, Circular Quay Restaurants.
Obeid’s son was over a barrel. He’d either lied to the bank about his assets or he was lying to the court about his lack of assets.
Whichever way it was, the court stoush with the council prompted the Sydney Morning Herald exposes of the Circular Quay cafes and the Mount Penny coal deal.
The Obeids failure to pay what they owed was the beginning of the end for the man known as He Who Must Be Obeid.
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/eddie-obeid-guilty-verdict-beginning-of-the-end-for-former-labor-powerbroker-20160628-gptxuy.html
