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It is a coincidence so stark it feels like a taunt. For years, the NSW government and its powerful criminal intelligence agency, the NSW Crime Commission, have pursued the $30 million that disgraced NSW MP Eddie Obeid made from a corrupt coal licence deal.
Last April, outgoing Crime Commission boss Michael Barnes declared he had given up the chase. The passage of time, the destruction of records, and the Obeid family’s use of myriad trusts and corporations meant that a criminal confiscation case against the disgraced ex-Labor MP was deemed unfeasible.
Obeid, his son Moses and former Labor mining minister Ian Macdonald were jailed in October 2021 over the deal that netted Obeid $30 million for a coal tenement on top of the family’s farm at Mount Penny in the Bylong Valley. Eddie Obeid was released from jail last August.
But while the man is free, the money remains missing. As Obeid faced investigations and imprisonment, the funds were laundered through asset sales and complex family trusts set up in the names of Obeid, his wife Judy, and their nine children.
“There is not $30 million sitting in a pot somewhere that we can just go and snaffle,” Barnes lamented last year.
Now, Herald investigative reporter Ben Cubby reveals that a trust fund for the disgraced former politician’s family stands to make that exact sum, $30 million, from a secret share in a Bankstown development site.
Through a series of email chains and confidential documents, the Herald has revealed how the Obeid trust managed to obscure its interest in this development goldmine, located directly across from a soon-to-be-opened metro station.
The NSW Department of Planning has earmarked the site for a 20-storey residential tower under the state’s transport-oriented development strategy.
Frustratingly for those seeking to recover what Obeid owes the state, the trust utilised a “complex but lawful” accounting strategy to hide its tracks.
By transferring shares to an associate while retaining a beneficial interest through a private deed, the family effectively vanished from the public records of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. Even one of Sydney’s top silks, Arthur Moses, SC, was unable to connect Eddie Obeid to the lucrative site.
This sleight of hand has allowed the Obeid name to disappear from a project positioned to reap a windfall from the government’s planning strategy. It is a bitter irony that Obeid is set to benefit again from a decision on Macquarie Street merely months after walking free from Long Bay prison.
While the fact that this potential windfall matches the proceeds of the corrupt coal deal is a coincidence, it serves as a reminder of the funds Eddie Obeid still owes the state.
Following the Crime Commission’s admission of defeat last year, Premier Chris Minns rightly sensed the public’s indignation and vowed to provide the agency with whatever resources were required to launch a renewed bid to recoup the $30 million from the coal deal.
The government has backed those words with action, introducing legislation removing the six-year limitation on how far back the Crime Commission can investigate crimes and confiscate assets.
These legislative changes are long overdue. On Wednesday, the government appointed Stephen Dametto as its new Crime Commission chief. The Herald welcomes the appointment of Dametto, who has an extensive background in policing with the Australian Federal Police, and urges the chase for the Obeid fortunes to resume.
The question at the heart of all of this is “does crime pay?” The ledger is not yet balanced.
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