Ian Macdonald and former CFMEU boss John Maitland are facing a retrial over a coal exploration licence given without a tender to a company linked to Maitland.
Former minerals minister Ian Macdonald and union boss John Maitland are accused of engaging in misconduct over the granting of a mining exploration licence near Singleton.
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The nation’s most notoriously corrupt politician, former Labor minister Eddie Obeid, is set to return to prison after a judge found him guilty over his role in a rigged tender for an exploration licence which delivered a $30 million windfall to his family.
A guilty verdict was also delivered against former resources minister Ian Macdonald,72, and Obeid’s middle son Moses, 52.
Moses Obeid (left), Ian Macdonald and Eddie Obeid (right).
Credit:Sydney Morning Herald
Justice Elizabeth Fullerton, who heard the case without a jury, has said she was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the three had conspired with the effect Macdonald “wilfully breached” his duties as a minister of the Crown in order to provide a financial advantage to the Obeid family.
Last modified on Fri 14 May 2021 16.02 EDT
Standing on a hill overlooking the sprawling maze of paddocks heâs worked all his 71 years, Ian Moore rattles off the names of Nationals MPs heâs supported in the Upper Hunter during his 50 years as a member of the party.
Col Fisher, the local MP for 18 years from 1970, lived just over the hill from Mooreâs farm in Jerrys Plains, a tiny village west of Singleton. Fisher was âan honourableâ man, he remembers. So too George Souris, who held the seat from 1988 until his retirement in 2015. âA gentleman,â Moore says.
More recently though? Of Michael Johnsen â who resigned in March in the wake of accusations he raped a sex worker in the Blue Mountains in 2019 â accusations he strenuously denies â the less said the better. And Dave Layzell, the candidate preselected to replace Johnsen at next Saturdayâs byelection? Well, heâs just not sure.
Year-long criminal trial of Obeids and Macdonald finally ends
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The marathon criminal trial which for the past year has embroiled two former ministers of the Crown, Eddie Obeid and Ian Macdonald, has finally come to an end.
Justice Elizabeth Fullerton, who has been hearing the case without a jury, thanked all the parties for the âconsiderable workâ in the year-long trial in which 38 witnesses appeared and more than 6000 pages of exhibits were tendered.
Moses Obeid (left), Ian Macdonald (centre) and Eddie Obeid (right) are on trial.