Two years after taking the stand at an Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) inquiry, former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian has been found to have engaged in serious corrupt conduct.
Ms Berejiklian is the ICAC’s latest high-profile casualty, but she’s not the first.
The former premier joins a long list of powerful political careers derailed by the nation’s longest-running corruption watchdog.
The first big scalp
In 1992, Liberal leader Nick Greiner became the first premier to be brought down by the ICAC, just three years after he’d fought for its establishment in 1989.
He claimed the “jobs for the boys” scandal which was his undoing, was “politics”, not corruption.
The ICAC disagreed, it found him “technically corrupt” for misusing his position as Liberal Party leader to secure independent MP Terry Metherell’s resignation from state parliament, to achieve a political advantage.
Mr Greiner was later cleared of wrongdoing by the Court of Criminal Appeal.
The bottle of Grange
In April 2014, then Liberal premier Barry O’Farrell fell on his sword over what he described as a “massive memory fail” in the ICAC witness box.
While under oath, he denied being given a bottle of 1959 Grange Hermitage by Australian Water Holdings executive Nick Di Girolamo as a gift, in the wake of his 2011 election victory.
Mr O’Farrell resigned in spectacular fashion the following day, after learning a thank you note he’d written about the wine would be tendered to ICAC as evidence.
The former premier said at the time he still didn’t recall the gift, but “as someone who believes in accountability … I accept the consequences of my actions”.
He maintained the gift had not swayed his treatment of a public private partnership sought by Australian Water Holdings, which was at the centre of the ICAC’s investigation.
ICAC later found “there was no intention on Mr O’Farrell’s part to mislead”.
The revolving door of Liberal Party resignations
With the Liberal Party still punch-drunk from the shock of Mr O’Farrell’s resignation, just weeks later the ICAC forged ahead with public hearings into an explosive illegal political donations scandal involving the Liberal Party’s 2011 election victory.
Weeks of evidence in Operation Spicer provided explosive revelations.
It uncovered party slush funds set up to skirt laws that banned developer donations, blatant cash bribes and secret schemes to launder dirty money.
By the end of the public inquiry, the political careers of no fewer than 10 Liberal MPs, including two ministers, would be in tatters.
Then-police minister Mike Gallacher and energy minister Chris Hartcher resigned, forced to sit on the crossbench after coming into the frame of ICAC’s inquiry.
Eight other Liberal MPs caught up in the scandal also resigned from parliament or were forced onto the crossbench.
Chris Spence and Darren Webber
Member for Wyong, Darren Webber, voluntarily withdrew from the Liberal Party in February 2014, after moves were put in motion to suspend him and fellow MP Chris Spence, over ICAC’s allegations of soliciting money for favours between 2009 and 2012.
A company called Eightbyfive was allegedly set up as a slush fund for prohibited political donors to secretly funnel money to Mr Webber and Mr Spence, the member for The Entrance.
Andrew Cornwell
The ICAC found Charlestown MP Andrew Cornwell paid his tax bill with a cheque from Hunter Valley property developer Hilton Grugeon.
Mr Cornwell and his wife originally gave Mr Grugeon a gift of a painting, but the inquiry was told the developer had called him asking if he could buy the generous gift.
The former Charlestown MP was implicated at the same time as Tim Owen, and was the government whip until he resigned from the Liberal Party and moved to the crossbench.
Tim Owen
The Liberal MP for Newcastle quit parliament in August 2014, following admissions he accepted money from Nathan Tinkler’s Buildev.
Liberal Party campaign staffer, Josh Hodges, admitted he knew his work on Mr Owen’s campaign was being bankrolled by Buildev, and was told to issue fake invoices to development firms for consultancy work, totalling about $10,000.
Garry Edwards
The member for Swansea became the eighth member of the NSW Coalition government to step aside or resign as a result of Operation Spicer.
Former developer and Newcastle Lord Mayor, Jeff McCloy, told the corruption watchdog he gave Mr Edwards $1,500 cash for raffle tickets, and another $10,000 in cash for his campaign before the 2011 election.
Mr Edwards announced in August 2014 he would stand aside from the parliamentary Liberal Party and sit on the crossbench, following the admission.
Bart Bassett
The member for Londonderry resigned after ICAC commissioner Megan Latham announced new evidence had emerged to widen the inquiry’s scope, to examine whether Nathan Tinkler’s firm Buildev tried to influence Mr Bassett.
Mr Bassett rejected the allegation but said he did not want the issue to “become a distraction” for the party or the government.
Craig Baumann
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Craig Baumann, the Member for Port Stephens, became the 10th scalp from the ICAC investigation into illegal Liberal Party donations.
In the ICAC witness box he admitted to making false declarations to cover up donations developers Hilton Grugeon and Jeff McCloy made to his 2007 election campaign, even though developer donations were not banned at that stage.
Marie Ficarra
Marie Ficarra voluntarily stood down as a member of the parliamentary Liberal Party, after she was implicated in the same donations scheme as Mr Hartcher, Mr Webber and Mr Spence.
She is alleged to have solicited a $5,000 bribe.
Ms Ficarra denies the allegations, and says her record against developers, lobbyists and speaking out against corruption is well documented in NSW Parliament.
Two years later in 2016, ICAC handed down its report, finding nine of the MPs had either acted with the intention of evading political funding laws, or knowingly solicited developer donations.
Only Ms Ficcarra was spared an adverse finding by the corruption watchdog.
The ICAC recommended the Director of Public Prosecutions consider charging both Chris Hartcher and Andrew Cornwell, but neither of those prosecutions eventuated.
The report into Operation Spicer also recommended charges against former Labor Minister Joe Tripodi, but more on him in a moment.
While the ICAC has made adverse findings against more Liberal MPs than Labor MPs, only former Labor MPs have been prosecuted and sent to jail for wrongdoing exposed by the corruption watchdog.
Disgraced former Labor powerbroker Eddie Obeid tops the list, followed by the man Labor colleagues nicknamed “Eddie’s left testicle” — former resources minister Ian Macdonald.
Between 2012 and 2014, Obeid became a frequent face in the ICAC witness box, his conduct coming under the microscope in multiple separate corruption inquiries.
In 2013, the ICAC found he and Macdonald had engaged in corrupt conduct when they’d conspired to rig the tender process for a mining exploration licence over Obeid’s family farm in the Bylong Valley, netting them a $30 million windfall.
The former Labor kingmaker is currently serving a prison sentence of at least three years and 10 months for his role in the scheme, while Macdonald was sentenced to a maximum of nine-and-a-half years behind bars.
Obeid had already served three years in prison for misconduct in a public office, charges which were laid after a separate ICAC investigation exposed his dodgy business dealings at Circular Quay.
Macdonald has since been sentenced to 14 years and six months in jail for corruptly handing a mining licence at Doyles Creek to a company chaired by former union boss John Maitland, in a deal that was the focus of ICAC’s Operation Acacia.
Those findings were handed down in 2013, the same year the watchdog found Macdonald had acted corruptly by accepting the services of a sex worker “Tiffanie”, in return for arranging meetings between executives from a state-run power company, and disgraced businessman Ron Medich.
More former ministers fall from grace
In 2022, former factional Labor power broker Joe Tripodi and Tony Kelly were hit with criminal charges as a result of Operation Credo, the same inquiry which sealed the fate of Barry O’Farrell.
It found that in 2010, Tony Kelly, his chief of staff, and Mr Tripodi doctored a cabinet submission in favour of Australian Water Holdings, to the benefit of Obeid and his family.
They, along with Obeid, were charged with misconduct in a public office, in a case still before the courts.
It was the first time Mr Tripodi and Mr Kelly had faced criminal charges, but not the first time they’d been found corrupt by ICAC.
Mr Kelly had faced adverse findings over a multi-million-dollar property deal at Currawong Beach, made in the dying days of the Keneally government.
Mr Tripodi, on the other hand, was found to have acted corruptly by no fewer than three ICAC inquiries.
Two of the corruption findings were linked to his dealings with Obeid, while the other involved the leaking of cabinet information, and a smear campaign run against former Labor MP Jodi McKay to benefit mining magnate Nathan Tinkler.