New South Wales will shortly have its fifth Premier in seven years following the bombshell resignation of Barry O’Farrell, who was today embarrassed by the emergence of a card in which he thanked Australian Water Holdings boss Nick Di Girolamo for a $3000 bottle of wine he yesterday denied having received. O’Farrell is the state’s second Liberal Premier to have been brought down by the exertions of the Independent Commission Against Corruption, Nick Greiner having fallen foul of an adverse ruling in 1992 involving a job offer to Liberal-turned-independent MP Terry Metherell. It now falls to the Liberal Party to find a replacement: without being too aware of the daily machinations of New South Wales politics, my immediate presumption was that the Treasurer, Mike Baird, would be the front-runner. However, I am seeing Gladys Berejiklian, Andrew Constance, Brad Hazzard and Jillian Skinner mentioned around the place.
There is one thing in BoF favor, AWH bid for the project was rejected, if accepted he would be in serious doo doos.
If Bazza was a cleanskins man (like me) he’d still be premier. This should be a lesson to wine snobs everywhere.
BOF has taken the fall for a reason. This is damage limitation. More investigation needed…
Patrick particularly if it comes with the box
[I’m not a wine expert but even i know a bottle of Penfolds is expensive up there with MOET and Chandon]
The latter are waaay cheaper than the former.
A pointed out by OL JRobertson, three sitting NSW Liberal MPs will be fronting up to ICAC in next two weeks
I bet Barry remembers drinking it too 😆 unless he’s still hidden it 😯
Tom:
That’s my view as well.
[If Bazza was a cleanskins man (like me) he’d still be premier. This should be a lesson to wine snobs everywhere.]
Safer to stick to beer. Takes a lot of Coopers to make an effective bribe.
Tom Hawkins
OL Robertson did a presser around 1.15pm
Tom
Spot on
Centre…who then is the Big One you refer to @149?
Do you know or just living in hopes if it is who I think you mean?
BOF even said yesterday his wife said there was no wine received.
What are the odds that neither husband or wife can recall such a highly personalised, stand-out gift?
[if he had actually remembered the bottle and everything around it, he would have known that all that evidence was available and a deliberate lie would be easily exposed.]
Easily exposed? He may have got through bullshitting about never having seen the bottle despite the invoice and phone call. I’m sure he intended to tough it out and would have survived with sections of the media helping rebuild his reputation.
What he wouldn’t have foreseen was the killer blow i.e. the card with his hand written thank you. Sending that may have slipped his mind (receiving the bottle would have NOT slipped his mind) but even had he remembered the card he wouldn’t have expected that it would be handed to the commission this morning.
Dave
Fatty has now done the right thing, which is a lot more than what many others have not done.
Sinodinos, you should be sent off!
*knock thy selves out 🙂
MTBW
He certainly would!
Its possible that Barry and wife are so use to expensive things that they had reached that stage where the cost of things didn’t matter.
When you earn good money and i mean seriously good money what sounds expensive to most of us becomes just another item.
Centre, the right thing would have been declaring the gift and then not misleading an ICAC.
Tom@202
His speech today seemed to me totally aimed at avoiding a perjury charge.
If he avoids such a charge, ICAC are making a rod for their back in future…..
It could be called the BOF defence in future.
ICAC facing a major hazard with this – in the public mind anyway – the man on the clapham bus.
One rule for tory premiers, others get the stuffing kicked out of them.
One thing from the Abbott presser is clear…sincerity does not come easily to this man when he is interviewed in this way.
His getting angry with the female reporter was pretty poor form I thought.
He is supposed to be ‘warm and charming’ in private, but all I saw was a cold blooded attempt at “praise the man but ignore the action” as a tactic.
His eyes appeared as cold and calculating as a cobra’s.
From the ABC article labelled ‘Timeline”
Time and context are important.
Brief excerpt:
[He {“O’Farrell] also tells ICAC he never wrote a letter of support for AWH in exchange for political donations.
He says when he signed the letter, a public-private partnership (PPP) between AWH and Sydney Water, he felt it had some merit.]
But …there is a small matter of a ‘gift’ of $3000 booze and the strange inclusion in his letter of thanks of:
[“Thanks for all your support”]
Why did he underline the word ‘all’?
Its not just a letter of ta for a bottle of booze, there is more.
Wonder what?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-16/why-barry-ofarrell-had-to-resign-as-premier/5394196
TH –
Why wouldn’t he have expected that? Nick di G had already made the claim that he had sent the bottle to BO’F and had received a response from BO’F. Why would BO’F have any reason to think that a handwritten note he had sent to NdG wouldn’t turn up? NdG was clearly not going to any effort to cover this up…
The whole thing points to the fact that he genuinely didn’t remember the bottle at all.
(Or that there is something much much bigger going on – that is a possibility and could explain why BO’F attempted to get away with the low probability play of outright lying).
[When you earn good money and i mean seriously good money what sounds expensive to most of us becomes just another item.]
And forgot to declare the wine, even after all those years of NSW Labor MPs corrupt dealings washing through the media?
No, there’s more to this than just a dodgy memory.
Jackol – I want you on the jury when I’m found over a body holding a bloody knife.
Centre@214
The facts are he had no other alternative.
Its not a case of “doing the right thing”.
He blew himself out of the water yesterday and it all came together when the handwritten note was handed to ICAC this morning.
He ran out of viable alternatives.
Today is the bestest day since the election.
Abbott is finished. His presser today was a complete failure from a political pov.
He couldn’t string a sentence together & dribbled rubbish until it “occurred” to him to attack the questioner. Then he lost his bottle right there in front of the whole country.
The knives are being sharpened right this moment.
Gone by the end of the year
Tricot
The other day i mentioned someone who said fhat he has observed Abbott and his snake eyes on several occasions. He considers him a psychopath
[What are the odds that neither husband or wife can recall such a highly personalised, stand-out gift?]
That’s it! He drank it and didn’t tell his wife. Hence the cover-up.
Fessy
True there is no excusing it, if i was given such a gift i am pretty sure i would be impressed and remember who did it.
This whole saga is pretty damning, to think the Libs if they had remained clean could have govern for a generation.
confessions@212
Put slightly differently – Forgot they ever got the wine, but didn’t forget to phone a thank you, plus forgot they wrote a nice thank you note.
But didn’t forget Surfers Paradise?
[This whole saga is pretty damning, to think the Libs if they had remained clean could have govern for a generation.]
To remain clean they would have to be clean at the start, yes?
Dave re Macquarie
+________
I know as much about him as you do
I NEVER said he was corrupt,and as you said he was a honest man…but what I implied was that he would recognise some facts about the corrupt colony he came to in the time after the Rum Rebellion
but I like Sydney a lot…despite the endless political stench…just part of the scenery…remember Askin?…and so many others
perhaps it’s the water (terrible water though!)
K17 –
I’m just trying to understand the situation. If this is all just about a bottle of wine that BO’F failed to declare, then I’m inclined to believe that he did just forget the bottle and his responses. He has certainly paid a very high price for that.
However, if he deliberately lied as many here contend, to what end? The bottle itself and the link to NdG are not enough to warrant the obvious risk BO’F exposed himself to. For BO’F to do this would require much bigger stakes than anything we have seen to date would imply. Perhaps that is the case, and if so I hope it comes out.
Otherwise this Bottlegate affair will remain very perplexing to me.
Someone raises a good point in the SMH comments currently its a bottle of wine what other gifts have been offered.
This is potentially very ugly.
This threatens to make the Victorian government look good
http://media.smh.com.au/national/selections/ofarrell-had-no-alternative-carr-5354300.html
Bob Carr signing books at Dymocks
dave:
Yep, sounds like crap to me too.
Of course if he’s asked why the wine wasn’t declared, BOF will just say he forgot. End of story. But there’s got to be something else there.
Hopefully more will come out in the coming weeks.
silentmaj:
[Gone by the end of the year]
Well, it does seem to be the fashion.
Alas, I think TAbbott will be around till at least the next election.
Jachol
This is the interesting aspect as AWH bid was rejected thus the gift didn’t achieve its objective of winning them the contract.
[This is the interesting aspect as AWH bid was rejected thus the gift didn’t achieve its objective of winning them the contract.]
Presumably O’Farrell didn’t decide this personally.
The real question is what work he did behind the scenes to help AWH (if any).
The Royals are on their way to the Sydney Opera House. Meanwhile NSW dont have a Premier.
deblonay@231
Now you are being silly. Macquarie wouldn’t recognise much of Sydney from 200 years ago. Maybe government house, Mrs Macquarie Chair etc.
Mere facts like a population of over 4 million people from all around the world.
And an effective ICAC with real teeth.
Patrick,
By the looks of it and without knowing what else AWH do they didn’t seem popular with Sydney Water and i haven seen anyone suggest that changed.
This looks like a red rag to a bull
Vic
Apparently the Leader in the Upper House is greeting them.
Surprised it isn’t Tone’s daughters
victoria@239
The Governor was always the ‘senior’ greeter I think.
The National Party Deputy is probably ‘acting’ already – if he is around town that is.
mex
You are not nice!
Mike Gallacher? Also the Minister for Police and Emergency Services. LOL!
The GG and his wife will be there as well!
Everyone can criticise NSW all they like. But don’t tell me exactly the same isn’t happening in other states. It’s just that in NSW it’s dragged out into the open.
Kakuru,
Put together his poll numbers ( the worst new govt numbers in history), his gaffs, his inability to think on his feet & his poor political judgement = liability.
He’s finished.
Brian & Peta are planning a transition right now.
Who’s running the country? Because it sure ain’t Abbott.