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.

Profile: Larissa Waters

Humanitarian leader Mahatma Gandhi was famously quoted saying “be the change that you wish to see in the world,” but few manage to live this message as thoroughly as Green’s Senator Larissa Waters. The 37 year old environmentalist and feminist is taking Australia’s future into her own hands. After 10 years of practicing as a lawyer, the Brisbane environmentalist and feminist decided that too many Australian laws were sub-par in too many areas, and that she would be the one to step up and call for change, if that was what it took.

“It was a few years of trying to tell people ‘yes, I agree that environmental destruction is terrible but you have no legal rights to stop it’. Just realising that whilst I loved practicing the law that the laws weren’t strong enough to do what I thought they should be able to do. So I figured ‘Well, you’ve got to get into parliament to change those laws. So here I am,” she explained in an interview in the open air kitchen of her flawless rooftop Paddington office.

“I had to wait for about 18 months for them to find a place and to do a refurbish because this is an old bank building so they had to do quite a bit of fixing it up and then they wanted to put in all this nonsense security stuff so I had to wait for this office but I’m really glad that I waited. We used a local architect who is very into eco-friendly design, so we’ve used all locally sourced fabrics with no toxic components and recycled camphor laurel, which is obviously a weed species. We’ve tried to have a green office in the little ‘g’ sense of the word,” she said, her eyes gazing over my shoulder to take in the breath-taking city view.

In the August, 2010 Federal Election Waters was elected into the senate becoming the only Greens senator for Queensland. Waters is in the minority being one of 31 women in the senate and of only nine senators for the Australian Greens party. 

Reminiscing about how much she loved practicing law Waters admits that while she enjoys her work in politics she’s still not your typical politician.

“In terms of the parliament itself, it’s full of old, grey, slightly chubby men who are relatively well off. It’s very much a stereotype of privilege,” she laughed, her legs crossed towards me on the comfortable retro-flower printed orange and khaki brown lounge. A light lipstick mark was left on her mug as she sipped her black coffee before going on to detail the ongoing battle for gender equality still present in our community.

“We’re making gains in female representation. We’re at about 30% now in parliament which is better than it used to be but it’s no 51% which is what we are in the normal population figures. You can certainly sense that the institutions itself has some inherent sexism but we’re gradually changing that.
 But it looks in recent times that we’ve taken some significant steps back with only one woman in cabinet now and with the assistant minister for women saying that she’s not a feminist and bizarrely the Prime Minister saying that he is because he’s got three beautiful daughters,” she said.

Not surprisingly more than half of Waters’ staffers are female, something that her office manager, Dominic Jarvis, says is probably a mix of chance and Waters’ manner of leading by example.

“I think it’s just how it fell this time. But I do, I think there’s something to it,” he said.

Waters’ passion for the environment has been prevalent throughout her life. In her first speech as senator she spoke about her early moves towards environmental activism.

“I won the environment prize at Rainworth State School in grades 4, 5 and 6, and my sense of injustice was ignited in my early teens when reading David Day’s Whale Wars about the international whaling fights of the 1980s. At 14 I turned vegetarian because of my love for animals and later for ecological reasons, and have continued that decision for 20 years now,” she said.

The deep respect for the environment that is so prevalent in both Waters’ personality and political career stemmed from the teaching of her parents at an early age.

“My folks have always been nature lovers and bushwalkers and kind of respected that it’s our role as human beings to look after the planet and that we’re not worth more or less than other creatures.


We’re just part of an ecosystem and need to live in harmony and pass it on to future generations in ideally a better condition than what it is. I guess I just grew up believing that and it’s just always been something that I’ve felt and wanted to work to try to see happen,” she said.

Waters is further making an impact on future generations by guest lecturing for university students in Brisbane and, like her parents, influencing her daughter with her beliefs at a young age.

“She’s a beautiful little girl and she’s really funny because she comes out saying things like ‘we have to save the reef from Tony Abbott’ and things like that,” said Vandeleur.

From the “Earth Choice” dishwashing tablets sitting in the eco-friendly kitchen to taking time when she has none to speak with university students about the issues that are important to her, there’s no doubting the fact that Waters lives and breathes the example of change that she hopes the world will follow.