Former NSW Mines Minister, Ian Macdonald, has told ICAC that it was
by chance
that he issued a mining license to land owned by Eddie Obeid.
This is the same former minister who repeatedly ignored his department’s advice to take a “more cautious” and “orderly” approach to the tender. Instead, Macdonald explicitely excluded many large coal companies from the tender, and only allowed a select group of small mining companies to bid, including Obeid’s Monaro Coal.
Some chance. Pull the other leg Macdonald.
The facts:
- Macdonald as Minister explicitely ignored his department’s advice and deliberately put out a tender that would reduce the returns the taxpayer would receive from the mining lease
- One of the select bidders was Eddie Obeid
- Eddie Obeid was a close friend of Ian Macdonald.
As Counsel to ICAC Geoffrey Watson said:
A relationship of patronage and dependence had grown between Mr Obeid and Mr Macdonald.
No comment needed. The facts are being given voice by this ICAC inquiry. Strangely, the ABC covered it in less salient detail on their TV News, despite having plenty of time devoted to it.
blogstrop
11 Feb 13 at 7:44 pm
Am surprised he didn’t blame Tony Abbott.
I am the Walrus, koo koo k'choo
11 Feb 13 at 7:45 pm
But Australian sportsmen and women are drug cheats!
Forester
11 Feb 13 at 7:49 pm
Thank goodness that has been cleared up then.
Grey
11 Feb 13 at 8:06 pm
As lucky as a shareholder in a burnt printing plant.
H B Bear
11 Feb 13 at 8:20 pm
OK, OK …. it was by chance.
But how many times did you have to pin the wheel before Eddie’s number came up?
Leigh Lowe
11 Feb 13 at 8:23 pm
Look over there.
Footballers are taking Milo and Vitamin C!
Leigh Lowe
11 Feb 13 at 8:25 pm
I remember McDonald as a former student revolutionary from Victoria, leader of the very militant Maoist faction at LaTrobe University in the early seventies, with the very high public profile that went with all the demos, blockades and occupations. There was a famous 1971 newspaper photo of him and then Minister for the Navy, Don Chipp, grappling over a cricket bat on the latter’s front lawn following some protest.
From student revolutionary to Labor politician is not an unusual trek, but McDonald was a little different. For starters the LaTrobe academics – normally repelled by student militants in person, no matter how much they claimed to share their political ideals – fawned on McDonald as an authentic voice of student protest, he was feted, invited to dinners, professors and lecturers hanging, as they say, on his every word. I remember overhearing a professor of history bloviating along the lines that while the average militants were misguided and destructive riff-raff, McDonald was a genuine selfless visionary.
On the other hand, his revolutionary student comrades, while they admired his physical and mental energy, tended to dislike and distrust him for what they perceived – accurately or not – as his egotism and ambition. My own impression of him at the time, fair or not -is summed up in the term ‘plausible’.
I would emphasise that these are only my impressions of McDonald as a very young man and may have no bearing whatever on his character today. He is also, of course, innocent until proven guilty. It will never the less be interesting, as the investigation unfolds, to see who might have had the better grasp of his character back then, the student rabble or the intellectuals paid from the public purse for their superior sensibility and perspicacity.
Des Deskperson
11 Feb 13 at 8:38 pm
Des
a ha ha ha ha ….you gotta be joking
“McDonald was a genuine selfless visionary”.
Well what the fuck happened to him or was he a conman even back then?
Aliice
11 Feb 13 at 8:44 pm
You should know Des – never to trust anyone who is best described by the word “plausible”. It means they are verbally almost convincing but something doesnt quite ring true.
Aliice
11 Feb 13 at 8:46 pm
Quite so. See also one Eric Roozendaal.
Rabz
11 Feb 13 at 8:48 pm
It wus just by chance that I had just picked the still smoking gun beside the fallen body, your honour.
It appeared to be suicide and I was just attempting to prevent him from doing it twice
JamesK
11 Feb 13 at 8:49 pm
Roozendahl – slimy little something he was
Aliice
11 Feb 13 at 8:51 pm
Allocation of mining leases are generally on first come first served basis, but if the department is unwilling to grant a licence based on other “factors”, then it is limited in its actions.
I recall the lifting of a pegging ban some decades ago in WA and the department contacted me to about the bona fides of some applicant (company will remain nameless). Department did not really want to award the licence to the “applicant” and basically wanted to know why none of the kosher explorers (diamonds) applied for the ground. My reply was that it was moose pasture and not worth pegging.
If another bona fide explorer had also pegged the same ground as the “applicant” did, then the lease would have been awarded to the bona fide explorer and not the “applicant”.
Irrespective of whatever, the law remains paramount and the licence was granted to the “company” of interest, the “applicant” because no one else had pegged it. It happens.
But being a former employee of the NSW mines department, the description of chance as the reason for the awarding of a mining lease is, er, extremely unusual, in that either its first in first served, or at ministerial discretion if there are competing applications.
Chance means luck of the draw and if the department had serious misgivings about the process and the identity of the connections, then you can be quite sure that chance had more chance of winning at the casino then getting the mining lease.
Louis Hissink
11 Feb 13 at 8:57 pm
Can we leave aerie out of it? The poor sap can’t even register a second hand car.
Tiny Dancer
11 Feb 13 at 9:00 pm
“Eric”
Tiny Dancer
11 Feb 13 at 9:02 pm
Speaking of Government tenders, has Conroys decision in the national broadcast contract been fully scrutinised by the ABC ?
The LNP are gunna run out of retired judges with all the enquires that need to be held.
jumpnmcar
11 Feb 13 at 9:04 pm
Hope he gets the Gordon Nuttall treatment.
jumpnmcar
11 Feb 13 at 9:10 pm
H B Bear
11 Feb 13 at 9:12 pm
Des, I knew him quite well when he worked for the Australian Union of Students in 1973. I think his title was Education Vice President.
I agree with your assessment. He was very plausible, jovial, quite good company, but nobody really trusted him. He was backed by the Maoists, but was about as much of a Maoist then as he is now. Ambition was always the driving force, and he could never quite conceal it.
Macca would have accepted backing from anyone, he just ended upon the Left because he managed to get them onside at a time when that was a quick path to office.
johanna
11 Feb 13 at 11:24 pm
That slimy little ponce? He has the dubious distinction of being chased around the table and then jobbed by the horrendous Belinda Neale at a Young Labor conference.
Popular Front
12 Feb 13 at 6:37 am
SamuelJ – are you sure Obeid has anything to do with Monaro Mining ? I thought I read somewhere that MM pulled out of the process after their application suddenly became known to Obeid connections.
And Louis – this was not a ML but an EL and very different to metal exploration titles because the Dept (taxpayers)had invested in much coal drilling already on that land under a Crown EL. So the Dept was well aware of the potential value. It should have been released in a normal public tender process. As was the ShenhuaWatermark EL SE of Gunnedah in 2008 where the Govt got $300Mn out of Shenhua as key money with a few hundred millions to come later.
Shenhua not happy now.
Wazsah
12 Feb 13 at 7:05 am
Oh God I wish I had clip to watch of that…a gem.
Roozendaal the slimy ponce running away around a table from the inimitable wrath of Belinda “Boy” Neale.
Aliice
12 Feb 13 at 8:46 am
It was all the fault of that notorious druggie, Don Bradman.
(Or was it Tony Abbott, or Evonne Goolagong? or Phar Lap? or Walter Lindrum? or Roy Cazaly? or Ken Rosewall? or John Landy?)
Up The Workers!
12 Feb 13 at 9:40 am
I’m surprised no-one’s come up with a better nursery rhyme! ‘Ian McDonald had a scam, ee, I, ee, eye, ouch”. Next line, anyone?
Nuke Gray
12 Feb 13 at 10:33 am
Wazsah
Oh this is becoming murkier by the day – and the EL/ML point is taken – the point is that the process is not all that democratic whatever which way you like to look at it.
Louis Hissink
12 Feb 13 at 11:07 am
How about something that begins:
Macca’s buddies had a farm
Ee-i-ee-i-o
And on that farm they had some coal
Ee-iee-io
With a …
Better stop there before Sinc gets sued.
johanna
12 Feb 13 at 11:10 am
E-I-E-I-O! Evil Insider Eddie Is Obeid/Obeyed! NOW it finally makes sense! A porkie here, a porkie there, everywhere a porkie!
Nuke Gray
12 Feb 13 at 11:51 am
An early article from the SMH that reveals much of the shady side of the coal licensing scene from half a decade ago.
“And on that farm he had some mates” – KATE MCCLYMONT – 26 May, 2012
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/and-on-that-farm-he-had-some-mates-20120525-1z9xc.html
Wazsah
12 Feb 13 at 12:00 pm
It seems that Coal Seam Gas Mining licences may have taken over as the favorite method of rewarding deserving folk for “services” rendered or promised.Some of the licence-awarding frenzy that has been evident in Queensland and currently underway in NSW might suggest that Eddie and Ian were just a little ahead of their time.And this time it also appears that the Feds are keen to get into the game.
Lew
12 Feb 13 at 12:01 pm
Christ Almighty. How did we manage to get to this level of moral corruption?
And what are the chances of it being dealt with, rather than swept under the carpet?
Winston Smith
12 Feb 13 at 12:23 pm
Lew – I am not aware of any circumstances in CSG exploration remotely like this Upper Hunter coal scandal before ICAC. If you know of something, we are all ears. CSG in Australia was pioneered by companies like Arrow, a decade ago now. I am not aware any of the State Govts had invested much in early CSG exploration – although everybody knew coal mines could be infested with dangerous methane gas. If you or anybody believe there has been corrupt awarding of CSG exploration rights – you could always inform ICAC.
Wazsah
12 Feb 13 at 12:58 pm
Winston,
It’s always been like this ever since the Rum Corps days. It’s good old egalitarianism in play and subservience to the god of getting summathang for nuddin’.
Louis Hissink
12 Feb 13 at 1:02 pm
The ICAC doesn’t have jurisdiction in Queensland but I’m happy to leave any investigation to Campbell Newman.
Lew
12 Feb 13 at 1:04 pm
Weve got to build “social Readjustment Facilities (hard labour camps or gulags) to correct the politicaly correct comrade alp crooks ,and any one else who is a threat to decency and ggod government,perhaps a minimum “readjustment “period of 30years might get a lot of them off the streets ,!
Borisgodunov
12 Feb 13 at 1:11 pm