Barry O'Farrell Resigns

Today’s announcement that NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell has resigned comes as just the most recent in a long history of parliamentary scandals. From sexual harassment accusations to misused union credit cards it’s beginning to make us wonder exactly how much of this shady business is going on behind the closed doors of Australia’s Parliament House. 

It all started to crumble for Mr O’Farrell on when we was called to give evidence at the Independent Commission Against Corruption’s (ICAC) Sydney hearing into the relationship between Australian Water Holdings (AWH), Sydney Water, and the state's politicians. On Tuesday Australian Water Holdings head, Nick Di Girolamo told the enquiry that he had given Mr O’Farrell a $3,000 bottle of 1959 Grange wine as a gift in congratulations for ending "16 long, hard winters in opposition". Di Girolamo told the hearing that he had received a “thank you” note from O’Farrell shortly after O’Farrell had received the gift. 

Later Tuesday afternoon Mr O’Farrell denied that he had received the gift saying that in his 19 years of politics he had not received many gifts over the declarable value and that if he had received the bottle of Grange he would have remembered it. 

The scandal came to a close on Wednesday morning as Mr O’Farrell resigned from his position as premier after the ICAC revealed a hand written thank you note for the Grange signed by O’Farrell. 

Shortly after the announcement was made on Wednesday morning Greens member for the New South Wales Parliament John Kaye released a media statement making no secret of his feeling about the news. 

“What has happened is bigger than ICAC and Australian Water Holdings. It goes to the heart of the political system in NSW where major parties do the bidding of the big end of town,” he said.

In a phone interview later in the day MP Kaye made statements saying that this incident wasn’t something that was limited to the Liberal Party. 

“The Coalition has shown that it is not that much different to Labor when it comes to scandals. It’s been going on for at least 16 years in New South Wales and it’s time for the next premier, whoever that might be, to step in and clean up the culture of lobbying,” he said.

 

With a long standing history of dodgy dealing MP Kaye was quite right that all sides of politics have been responsible for their fair share of scandal. The NSW Labor party have had their own scandals, famously the resignation of former NSW Health Minister John Della Bosca who resigned after a sex scandal he was involved in was uncovered in September of 2009. 

“I’ve made some poor decisions, I have taken the consequence of those decisions. I’ve resigned my job as Health Minister and as Leader of the Government in the Legislative Council,” he said at the time.

MP Kaye is outraged over the seemingly constant string of scandals within the NSW government.

“New South Wales Politics is sick. The loss of a liberal premier, after the loss of many Labor premiers shows that there is something deeply wrong with the very foundation of politics in New South Wales. The flood of gifts that Mr O’Farrell received shows that there are far too many people out there trying to buy favour with the premier,” he said. 

It’s not just NSW that has dealt with dishonesty in Parliament House. Less than five months ago independent member for Redcliff Scott Driscoll resigned after he was found guilty of contempt and misleading the parliament about his financial interests by the ethics committee. Driscoll dishonestly told he had resigned as president of a retail lobby group in meeting that was later found to have never taken place. Subsequently Driscoll also failed to inform the parliament of income that he and his wife were receiving from the lobby.  

But the deceit goes much further than state politics and even becomes juicer as we look into some of the most recent scandals in federal politics. A hot topic at the moment is the sentencing of former MP Craig Thomson after he was found guilty of misusing his union credit card to pay for unsolicited expenses including escorts.The ordeal that started with an inquiry in 2008 ended with a 12 month prison sentence with a two year suspension of nine months in March of this year. 

From accepting bribes to buying your own perks with government money Australian politics is littered with claims of corruption and dodgy doings. The resignation of New South Wales Premier Barry O’Farrell certainly wasn’t the first resignation in Australian politics caused by being caught out for wrong doing and it probably won’t be the last.