NSW Labor’s corrupt past is proving hard to keep buried with opposition minister Tania Mihailuk being sacked this morning after a parliamentary speech earlier this week raising links between party rival Khal Asfour, convicted criminal Eddie Obeid and Labor identity Bechara Khouri, with whom Asfour — then Bankstown mayor — met in 2016.
The decision by NSW Labor Leader Chris Minns — revealed to 2GB shockjock Ben Fordham — raises questions about Labor’s commitment to integrity and its ability to avoid repeating the dark years of its last term in office, which saw staggering levels of corrupt conduct involving Obeid and another former minister, Ian Macdonald, and continuing prosecutions of former ministerial colleagues Joe Tripodi and Tony Kelly, as well as links with a Chinese billionaire that persisted well into its years in opposition.
Mihailuk has been accused of using parliamentary privilege to attack Asfour, who will head NSW Labor’s upper house ticket at the March 2023 election, following a brawl over seats caused by a redistribution that abolished the seat of Lakemba. Mihailuk is in the neighbouring seat of Bankstown.
It’s only last month that Mihailuk herself was targeted by internal enemies with the leaking to News Corp of claims of her being “abusive” and “intimidating” to staff. Minns stood by Mihailuk at the time. He now says Mihailuk failed to respond to his demand that she not use parliamentary privilege to raise corruption allegations about colleagues.
Asfour — who strongly rejects Mihailuk’s claims and invited her to repeat them outside Parliament — is currently mayor of Canterbury-Bankstown, a council formed from the merger of Canterbury and Bankstown councils.
Canterbury Council was a cesspit of property developer-led corruption uncovered by the NSW ICAC in its “Operation Dasha”, which ensnared former Liberal MP Daryl Maguire. ICAC found three former officials had engaged in “serious corrupt conduct” and referred possible charges against them to the Director of Public Prosecutions, as well as possible charges against others, including Maguire.
The integrity spotlight has been firmly on the NSW Coalition in recent years, not just with Maguire, the resignation of Gladys Berejiklian (the subject of a continuing inquiry by ICAC), and the recent John Barilaro scandal, but with the finding by ICAC of serious corrupt conduct by former Liberal MP John Sidoti in relation to property development in Five Dock.
In comparison, Labor’s Chris Minns has been able to project a fresh image untainted by the years of corruption and chaos when Labor was last in office. But allegations about Asfour reflect the danger for all parties in drawing on former local councillors as state candidates.
Such was the state of corruption and untrustworthiness in local property development approval processes in Sydney that the state government in 2017 removed all significant planning decisions from the control of local councils in the city, substituting expert local planning panels.
Even local councillors with integrity and a commitment to the public interest have found it difficult to avoid becoming embroiled in corruption investigations, particularly when they are in the Labor or Liberal parties and can be targeted by state MPs, party enemies, party-aligned lobbyists or “fixers” pushing the interests of property developers.
Labor’s problem is that, given its track record, it cannot be given even the slightest benefit of the doubt when it comes to corruption. It must be seen to be completely transformed from the bad old days of the 2000s. It’s hard to see how the sacking of Mihailuk fits that requirement.
Opposition minister? Presume you mean shadow minister? Very odd mistake.
How many times do ‘politics’ writers here need to have the pointed out?
Most mammals learn from experience so what species are employed?
Looks like the ‘few rotten apples’ we are often told about, as some excuse for not doing much about them, have spread their rot throughout the barrel, exactly as expected and predicted in the old proverb. And so the few who are not corrupt are exposed to attack from all sides and can be picked off easily if they dare say a word about it. What a great choice big-party NSW politics offers its voters: corruption Liberal-flavour, or corruption Labor-flavour.
It’s worth noting how this continues despite the much-vaunted NSW ICAC. Either the commission makes little difference, or things would be even worse without it. But either way, it is clearly not able to clean up NSW.
Good article or response to article. And it is not just bad big party politics tht have nothing to offer the people of NSW. The minor ones are useless and self-interested, even if they are not corrupt. Take the NSW Greens. The wet lettuce leaves of NSW politics.
Mate. She was not a minister. And sacked? She’s still being paid very well to represent her constituents. Sacked is when you haven’t a job anymore. Like Prince Harry. .
Bernard, some context is required. Mihailuk is not lily white. She’s made a lot of enemies within the party over many years and is worried about her future. She’s never shown any interest in exposing corruption until her preselection was threatened, and then she does it under parliamentary privilege, sledging a political rival.
I note that Asfour has referred her allegations to the Independent Commission Against Corruption. So your claim that this episode “raises questions about Labor’s commitment to integrity and its ability to avoid repeating the dark years of its last term in office” doesn’t stack up. Her sacking is about imposing party discipline 6 months before an election, nothing else.
Yes, this is a gift for the rotten NSW Government. They can’t believe their luck now. They had internal staff rumblings against Tania Mihailuk and now she goes on the attack against a Canterbury local councillor.
This Canterbury Bankstown LGA sounds a nightmare of Trumpean proportions. It is. I hate to say it. It is an area plagued with ethnic conflicts and lobbying. It is a middle ring area of Sydney ripe for the interest of Property developers. It has 2 or 3 main highways and rail lines. Declining manufacturing industry ripe for re-development as medium to high density apartments. Few large scale parklands to cool the place down and prevent the sort of housing development that has afflicted much of both inner city and western Sydney – 2 extreme ends, geographically and demographically.
The story of Mihailuk is a continuation of the John Newman-Phuong Ngo saga that tore apart the Cabramatta-Fairfield-Liverpool areas in the 1990s. This time it is with descendents of Old “New Australians” as represented by Tania Mihailuk and New “New Australians” represented by Khal Asfour with its more numerous Middle Eastern, Islamic and South Asian and even Central Asian populations.
Minns is gutless and I don;t like him. His judgement is poor. He comes across as ineffectual. He is too timid against the interests of the morality police and opposed voluntary assisted dying. I would like to know how he voted in the marriage equality plebiscite. Probably “No” but lucky as it was a federal issue he didn’t have to muddy his hands on that one.
I despair of Sydney. A once great place reduced to a triumvirate – plus-one of sports gambling, unnecessary stadia development, residential development and ethnic politics where a member of a said ethnic group is forced to pick a side – and not necessarily Labor either.