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RUBY:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ruby Jones. This is 7am.

This Saturday, the longest-reigning Coalition Government in the country heads to the polls.

Dominic Perrottet hasn’t been Premier of New South Wales for long, but he’s hoping to extend the coalition to a historic 16 year term in office, despite a torrent of scandals and resignations dogging his government.

When thinking about how to cover an election in New South Wales, we thought there was only one way to do it justice.

So today, national correspondent for The Saturday Paper, Mike Seccombe, on every scandal and resignation we could fit into a single episode.

It’s Thursday, March 23.

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RUBY:

So, Mike, this weekend, New South Wales goes to a state election and the Coalition — so the Liberals, the Nationals — they’ve been in power in New South Wales for a long time, for 12 years, making them the longest running Coalition Government in any part of the country. So to begin with, could we go back to when it was that they actually took power, back in 2011, what kind of campaign did they run and what were they promising?

MIKE:

Well, you're right. There was a landslide win for the coalition in 2011 under Barry O'Farrell.

Archival tape – Barry O’Farrell:

“Thank you. Thank you so very much.”

MIKE:

And it was largely built on the promise of integrity in government. Especially following the appalling levels of corruption we saw in the latter days of the previous Labor government with Eddie Obeid, etc.

Archival tape – Barry O’Farrell:

“We are determined to implement our policies, to end the rorts, to restore confidence to government in this state once again. And it won't be easy. It won't be done overnight, not after the neglect, the complacency, the missed opportunities, and the lack of investment in infrastructure.”

MIKE:

So that was the promise. But since then it seems the more things change, the more they stay the same. If you just measure it by the sheer number and variety of incidents of corruption, misbehaviour, and malpractice, and the number of resignations, the last 12 years of the New South Wales Coalition Government has been truly exceptional. We've lost two premiers and a host of lesser figures, who've left politics as a consequence of investigations by the Independent Commission Against Corruption, ICAC. And we've had a whole bunch more fallen to scandals of various kinds, you know, financial, sexual, factional, you name it. So there's been an awful lot of it.

RUBY:

Okay. So let's go through some of those scandals. How soon was it after Barry O'Farrell won that election in 2011, that the first Coalition politician went under?

MIKE:

Six months, six months after the election in September 2011. O'Farrell lost his first MP.

RUBY:

Right. So what happened?

Archival tape – Reporter:

“The O'Farrell Government is facing its first scandal six months into its term. Nationals MP Steve Cansdell has resigned…”

MIKE:

Well, it was a guy named Steve Cansdell, and he was a Nationals MP on the mid-north coast of New South Wales. A bit of a nonentity really, despite eight and a half years in office. And it's fair to say probably the most notable thing about Cansdell’s entire career was its end.

Archival tape – Reporter:

"The parliamentary Secretary for police was caught out trying to put one over them."

MIKE:

He stepped down after admitting that he'd signed a false statutory declaration over a speeding fine.

Archival tape – Steve Cansdell:

“I encourage someone to take the rap for a speeding fine. I signed a statue of declaration saying I was not the driver.”

MIKE:

By the scale of New South Wales corruption, it was a pretty minor one. But it did earn him this ignoble place in the record books as being the first to go. But only the first of very, very many, thanks largely to the work of ICAC.

RUBY:

Yeah. So this all kind of really kicks off after ICAC — the Independent Commission Against Corruption— starts to make investigations into the Coalition Government. What kinds of conduct did the commission uncover?

MIKE:

Well, perhaps the first thing to say here is that ahead of the 2011 election, very few people doubted that Labor would lose. It was always going to be a bloodbath. A large cohort of people in the Liberal Party cheated anyway.

So what the former counsel assisting ICAC Geoffrey Watson exposed three years after the election, I might say, was a complex web of relationships involving dozens of MPs, their staff, business figures from the Central Coast and the Hunter Valley.

And it all came out across about nine weeks, of just riveting public hearings in mid 2014, in which various developers and others gave evidence about how they'd given illicit donations to the Liberal Party.

Archival tape – Reporter:

“Investigators linked to the independent corruption watchdog, have raided the offices of two Liberal MPs on the state's central coast.”

Archival tape – Reporter:

“Two other MPs have already admitted taking money in envelopes from the mayor”

Archival tape – Reporter:

“I gave him $1500 out of my wallet, I hoped it would help him with his campaign”

MIKE:

In fact, one developer, Jeff McCloy, said in his evidence, and I'm quoting here, “they all come to see me for money. I feel like a walking ATM some days.“

Archival tape – Reporter:

“How do you have any cash left, Mr. McCloy?”

Archival tape – Jeff McCloy:

“Come on, guys.”

Archival tape – Reporter:

“And while Mr. McCloy says he feels like a walking ATM, he denies he's done anything wrong.”

MIKE:

Those hearings wound up spelling the end of the Resources Minister, Chris Hartcher, who was fairly central to the whole thing, and a bunch of other MPs. And these were Darren Webber, and Chris Spence.

Archival tape – Reporter:

“The MPs solicited payments in return for favours”

MIKE:

Marie Ficarra…

Archival tape – Reporter:

“...solicited a donation from the property developer Tony Murphy.”

MIKE:

Mike Gallagher…

Archival tape – Reporter:

“…part of a plot to hide payments from a development company controlled by mining magnate Nathan Tinkler.”

MIKE:

Andrew Cornwell…

Archival tape – Reporter:

“...took everyone by surprise today, announcing his resignation”

MIKE:

Tim Owen…

Archival tape – Reporter:

“... it is highly likely the prohibited donors did contribute”

MIKE:

Garry Edwards…

Archival tape – Reporter:

“...was asked if there were any other political campaigns he'd supported…”

MIKE:

Bart Bassett…

Archival tape – Reporter:

“...accused of taking an illegal $18,000 donation”

MIKE:

and Craig Bowman.

Archival tape – Reporter:

“He vowed to stay on, but the Premier forced him to walk.”

MIKE:

So yeah, quite a list.

RUBY:

It is quite a list but it is also not the end is it Mike. What about the Premier?

MIKE:

Well, the big one, of course, was that O’Farrell himself, and the trail that led to those illegal campaign donations, began with another investigation that started with the involvement of the corrupt Labor powerbroker Eddie Obeid in an infrastructure company named Australian Water Holdings, which stood to make tens of millions of dollars if it could secure a government contract.

Now, many people think of the Obeid scandal as a Labor scandal, but it actually claimed Liberals as well. The story is that the Chief Executive of Australian Water Holdings, Nick De Girolamo, was a major donor to the Liberals. Arthur Sinodinos, the former chief of staff to Prime Minister John Howard, and at that time the Treasurer of the New South Wales branch of the Liberal Party, was installed as chairman of the board of this company on $200,000 a year.

Anyway, the investigation proceeded and in the end there was no corruption finding against either of those two men. But in giving evidence to ICAC, Barry O'Farrell, then premier, was asked about a $3,000 bottle of wine that was sent to his home. He denied having received it.

Archival tape – Barry O’Farrell:

“My evidence could not have been clearer. I did not receive a bottle of 1959 Grange, I did not receive… Excuse me. Excuse me. Can I…”

MIKE:

And then ICAC pulls out a handwritten note saying “Thank you” from Barry O'Farrell to Nick Di Girolamo.

Archival tape – Barry O’Farrell:

“I still can't recall the receipt of a gift of a bottle of 1959 Grange. I can't explain what happened to that bottle of wine, but I do accept… I do accept that there is a thank you note signed by me.”

MIKE:

Now, there was no suggestion of any quid pro quo here for the Penfolds Grange, nor that O'Farrell's failure to recall was anything other than an oversight. But nonetheless, he'd given false evidence to ICAC, and having been shown the handwritten letter, Barry claimed that he'd had a, quote, “massive memory fail”, unquote.

And the next day, April 16, 2014, he resigned as premier, having served just over three years.

Archival tape – Barry O’Farrell:

“I accept the consequences in an orderly way. A new Liberal leader will be elected to take on the position of Premier of New South Wales. Thank you.”

RUBY:

We'll be back in a moment.

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RUBY:

So Mike, in 2014 NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell, who came into power promising to end corruption, resigns over a gift from a developer, which is quite the turn of events. But this — unfortunately for the LNP — wasn’t the end of the Coalition's struggles was it. So tell me about what happens next, once Mike Baird takes over as Premier, because Baird also didn't last long in the role did he?

MIKE:

No, you're right. He didn't last that long. He didn't last as long as O'Farrell did. He resigned in 2017, and it wasn't due to ICAC in his case, but to a whole series of contentious decisions which saw his and his government's poll numbers fall sharply.

First, there were the lockout laws, which were intended to stop drunken violence everywhere except Star Casino, which was exempt, so that was a bit dodgy. Then he controversially backflipped on a ban on greyhound racing, which didn't go down well with the Nationals. And then there were other factors too, like WestConnex, some unpopular council amalgamations, privatisations in general, because the punters tend not not to like privatisations.

He resigns and he's replaced by Gladys Berejiklian at the start of 2017. And she appeared competent, she appeared committed, she appeared straight. And for a while it seemed like things would get better.

Archival tape – Gladys Berejiklian:

“...that the next government in New South Wales will be the Berejiklian-Barilaro Government.”

RUBY:

But that's not what happened, is it? Because Gladys Berejiklian, of course, ended up embroiled in her own ICAC scandal?

MIKE:

She did. And it seems to me like this is where just about everyone in this story ends up. But she she she didn't end up falling to ICAC until she'd already lost a few more Ministers to scandals of their own.

In March 2021, Labor's Trish Doyle used parliamentary privilege to allege that a Coalition MP had raped a woman in the Blue Mountains in 2019, and the same day she did that, the Nationals’ Michael Johnson announced he was taking leave and stepped aside from his role, while he was under police investigation.

Now no charges were ever laid, but it was revealed that he had sent hundreds of explicit text messages to a sex worker, some of them while he was actually sitting in the parliamentary chamber, and one inviting her to meet him at parliament. So that was him.

Next, it was the member for Kiama, Gareth Ward. Back in 2017, he came out with a rather bizarre story about being the target of a mugging in New York City when he was seeking a massage. And then years later he was charged with alleged historical sexual offences against a boy in 2013 and a man in 2015. Ward was gone from the Liberal Party. He, I should say, denies the allegations. And he's currently standing at this election as an independent.

And then, of course, there was Daryl Maguire. He first came under the microscope for suspect property dealings involving Canterbury Council. And while that was being investigated by ICAC, they found other stuff and they started a new investigation. And as part of that, they had phone taps, which revealed that Maguire was Gladys Berejiklian's secret lover.

Archival tape – Gladys Berejiklian:

“I was advised late yesterday afternoon the Independent Commission Against Corruption will today release a public statement in which it will state it is investigating allegations made about me concerning matters relating to the former member for Wagga Wagga.”

MIKE:

And so with that, of course, Berejiklian resigns.

Archival tape – Gladys Berejiklian:

“Thank you again for giving me the honour of being your premier. Thank you very much.”

RUBY:

Okay. And I suppose that brings us to the current premier, Mike Dominic Perrottet, who is standing for re-election this coming weekend. But over the past few years Perrottet has faced his own scandals, hasn't he? There was his deputy, John Barilaro, and everything that happened around his appointment to a trade role. Then there was the Nazi birthday costume that Perrottet wore, and then more recently, there were these stories about Perrett’s own brother being investigated for branch stacking. So, I mean, it seems like things have been coming pretty thick and fast for his government in the last few weeks as we get closer and closer to polling day.

MIKE:

Well, that's quite right. I mean, the Barilaro story is the story that just keeps giving. There was a scathing report from the Auditor General that found he had been involved in the misallocation of grants from a $100 million bushfire recovery fund. And that report, incidentally, has recently been sent, guess where, to ICAC.

Then there was, as you mentioned, Barilaro’s appointment to a $500,000 job as the New South Wales Trade Commissioner in New York, in highly questionable circumstances. In the end, Barilaro was forced to relinquish the job, and Stuart Ayres, deputy Liberal leader and Minister for Trade, was forced from his job.

So there's a couple more. The member for Drummoyne, John Sidoti, won't be standing again at this election, having moved to the crossbench after ICAC began investigating his property dealings. We've seen the suspension from the party of Upper House member Peter Paulus, and his removal from the election ticket after he shared explicit photos of a fellow female Liberal MP.

We've seen the disendorsement of the Liberals Wyong candidate Matthew Squires, over his homophobic, Islamophobic and anti-vax posts on social medias. We've had a couple of other candidates called out for being climate change deniers. And then, of course, apart from all of that, we've seen the exodus of a whole bunch of MPs, not necessarily any of them having done anything wrong, but presumably reading the writing on the wall, who've just said they won't recontest. And that includes some very senior ministers Rob Stokes, Brad Hazzard, David Elliott, Victor Dominello. None of them is recontesting the election. I think you've got to say, all things considered, it's a pretty shambolic state of affairs.

RUBY:

Absolutely. And the result of it all, Mike, is that Labor, in opposition, have been able to run this campaign saying that they are the party of integrity now, and they want to clean up the state. Which is interesting because there are echoes in that statement of what we heard from Barry O'Farrell back in 2011. And I just wonder, does it seem to you like this isn't necessarily about whichever party is in power, it's about the politicians – is this kind of behaviour now endemic to the NSW political system?

MIKE:

Well, famously, Geoffrey Watson, when he was involved in the ICAC investigation of the Labor Party, said that it was corruption worthy of the Rum Corps, way back in history. And the other thing that Watson said to me was he was always astounded by just how quickly the forces of corruption seem to transfer from one party to the other when government changes. So people wanting to bring influence to bear on governments, they just walk both sides of the street, you know, when Labour is in power, they’re closer to Labor, when the Liberals are in power, vice versa. So, that's just the facts of life in New South Wales. It seems that both major parties, at least, continue to be tainted, you know, time after time after time.

RUBY:

And so I mean given everything that we've been talking about then Mike, what do you think is actually going to happen on the weekend? Who's going to win the election?

MIKE:

Look, you'd be a mug to give a prediction wouldn't you? Especially after Scott Morrison's, you know, miracle “election”.

But I can tell you what the polls seem to be saying. A few months back, they were suggesting that Labor would romp it in. They seem to have tightened up. The suggestion now seems to be that it could be a Labor minority government with a whole bunch of minor party and independent people holding the balance of power. I'm not making a firm prediction, but I think that looks the most likely outcome.

RUBY:

Well, we'll know soon. Mike, thank you so much for your time.

MIKE:

Thank you.

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RUBY:

Also in the news today…

A group of LGBTI rights activists were attacked by a mob in Sydney at a speaking event featuring One Nation politician Mark Latham.

The activists from Community Action for Rainbow Rights were peacefully demonstrating against Latham, who has been vocal in his view against discussion of gender diversity in schools.

Both the activists and police were attacked with glass bottles and other projectiles.

AND

26 per cent of the world’s population doesn’t have access to safe drinking water, according to a new report launched by the United Nations this week.

The UN World Water Development Report 2023 also said that 46 per cent of the world’s population lacks access to basic sanitation.

The report says demand on water is increasing, and climate change will cause an increase in seasonal water scarcity.

I’m Ruby Jones. This is 7am, I’ll see you tomorrow.

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