In and out of Eddie’s office … Secrets of the safe … Walking ATM out of service … Map of Tasmania – the sad case of Adrian Hall … NSW ODPP at conferenceville … Trying to digest the Robert Xie trial … Another round to Chris Dale
THE public relations work that The Australian is doing for the corrupt Obeids is impressive.
Having missed the story about how Eddie and his adorable offspring enriched themselves, courtesy of being attached to the NSW government teat, the newspaper and other Murdoch tissues have gone into overdrive about the beastly ICAC.
Eddie & Sons are suing the state of NSW, former ICAC commissioner Ipp and a host of others, including counsel assisting Geoffrey Watson, claiming that corruption findings against them were not made according to law.
We’re talking here about:
In addition, the Obeids want ICAC’s pending reports arising from Operations Credo (Australian Water Holdings) and Spicer (electoral funding) permanently stayed.
In relation to Jasper much contention surrounds maps of the coal tenements that ICAC found in a search of the Obeids’ offices in Drummoyne.
These were departmental maps of the coal areas and were presented as evidence that the Obeids had access to confidential government information.
At first, the Obeids said the maps were planted. Now, they are saying that ICAC has no proof that they were taken during ICAC’s raid, that there is no video footage of maps being found and removed.
The Australian’s legal affairs hack, Christopher Merritt, described this argument as, “more subtle but potentially just as deadly”.
Whatever.
Strangely, the Obeids are also complaining that documents ICAC filmed in the raid lay outside the terms of the search warrant relating to Jasper.
One of the documents was advice from the solicitor general sent by the crown solicitor to the department of premier and cabinet concerning a public-private partnership proposal being pushed by the Obeids’ Australian Water Holdings.
So the maps were either planted or were never there, while the government’s legal advice was there, but should not have been discovered.
Which begs the question – what is advice to the government from the solicitor general doing in the Obeids’ safe?
Meanwhile, ICAC got a very nice shot in the arm from Supremo Robert McDougall when he dismissed an action by Jeff McCloy, the Newcastle property developer and walking ATM to Liberal politicians.
Like Eddie Obeid, McCloy wanted the inquiry into election funding closed down, at least as far as the pending report might concern him – on the grounds of commissioner Megan Latham’s alleged apprehended bias.
McDougall said McCloy’s case had a number of repeated “problems and fallacies” and the use of ICAC transcript was “quoted selectively and out of context”.
“A rational consideration of the transcript of the whole of Mr McCloy’s evidence, which puts the matters complained of into their proper context, shows that he was treated was scrupulous fairness by the commissioner, and given every opportunity by her to state his position.”
There were other bits, such as:
The plaintiffs made “no real attempt to come to grips” with the central issue … Submissions were “selective and out of context”. One was a “beat-up”.
Not a good outcome for McCloy’s brief Ian Faulkner and solicitor John Trew of Toomey Pegg.
The judgment is here and the judgment summary here.
Now, the former Newcastle mayor can sit back while he waits for the Operation Spicer report where he might find the proper characterisation of his habit of secretly slipping brown paper bags stuffed with cash to Liberal politicians.
Flags were at half-mast throughout Van Diemen’s Land following Justice Stephen Estcourt’s order striking Launceston brief Adrian Hall off the jam roll.
In December last year, Estcourt found Hall guilty of filching a miserable $2,600 from his employer, Grant Tucker’s law shop in Launceston.
Really, Hall should have had an award for keeping his pilfering so modest, compared to other lawyers who go in for the big bite – e.g. Keddies.
So come December a year later, the Legal Profession Board of Tassie had Hall up before the court seeking an order that he be struck off. Estcourt obliged and in the process repeated much of what he said at the sentencing for the thefts.
There were numerous glowing references, including one from a Federal Circus judge.
Adrian’s downfall seems to be related to his narcissistic personality disorder (DSM-V), “a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, sense of entitlement and need for admiration”.
He saw himself as more of a partner of the Tucker law shop, rather than an employee, and hence entitled to snaffle cash out of the till, i.e. the top drawer of his desk.
The judge described this as a “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander approach to his employment”.
The assertions of his good character “amount in reality to no more than a lament”.
The good stuff was not sufficient to outweigh the bad stuff (it never is) and so he was sent down.
Previous news on Hall:
The NSW ODPP held its annual solicitors conference last week, on the anniversary of the Lindt Café siege.
Bail was not on the program, nor the Cunneen affair. However, the internal unit set up to deal with ICAC’s Obeid and other references has lost a couple of lawyers, so things may be further delayed.
The big topic was the Robert Xie case, where after a massive nine month trial, and 11 days of deliberations, the jury failed to reach a verdict. Senior crown Mark Tedeschi gave a dissertation of the case to the conference, for the better part of an hour.
However, he will not be running the retrial of Xie next year. Tanya Smith, who was Tedeschi’s junior, is now in the prosecuting box seat with Kate Ratcliffe her junior.
There’s a good outline of the trial here, pointing to some of the difficulties in the prosecution case.
Former Clutz partner Chris Dale has had another win in his case against the big law shop for dropping him from the partnership in 2005.
The High Court has turned down Clayton Utz’ special leave application seeking to overturn VicAppeal’s decision upholding a Protean split of the trial.
This means Dale will not be required to answer questions relating to unproven (and potentially unlawful) conduct during the proceedings.
Walker told Geoffrey Nettle and Michelle Gordon at the outset:
“Your Honours, this presents as the decidedly unattractive prospect of special leave being granted for an interlocutory decision as to procedure in a particular case in peculiar circumstances.”
He added that the orders are, “directed to preventing cross‑examination by the asking of questions to elicit relevant evidence”.
The judges couldn’t see to much of a problem, saying that none of the proposed grounds of appeal raised a question of principle of general application and that VicAppeal’s reasons are not attended by sufficient doubt.
You can read all about it here
This is the latest hard fought win for Dale. He got an injunction against zillionaire barrister Alan Myers appearing for the defendant and an order for his costs.
Some of the issues at the trial go back to the way the firm handled the Rolah McCabe tobacco litigation and the leaking of embarrassing internal firm documents, which found that two of the partners involved in the litigation had behaved unprofessionally.