THE AUSTRALIAN

One bottle topples Premier Barry O’Farrell

MARK COULTAN THE AUSTRALIAN APRIL 17, 2014 12:00AM

Barry O'Farrell enters the ICAC hearing yesterday. Picture: Ross Schultz Source: News Corp Australia

BARRY O’Farrell, the Premier of the most popular government in the nation, will resign after misleading a corruption inquiry over a $3000 bottle of wine, amid recriminations about the standards imposed on politicians by the corruption watchdog’s processes. The Liberal Party will choose Mr O’Farrell’s successor today at an early party meeting that ​appears to be an attempt to favour Transport Minister over Treasurer . The pair are the frontrunners for the premiership, with Finance Minister and Community Services Minister also interested, and Energy Minister eyeing the deputy’s position. Just three years after being swept to power on a promise of restoring integrity to NSW politics and with the biggest majority in the state’s history, Mr O’Farrell fell on his sword yesterday morning, declaring his failure to remember the gift of a 1959 vintage bottle of Penfolds Grange a “massive memory fail”. He was caught out when the Independent Commission Against Corruption unearthed a handwritten thank-you note he wrote to Australian Water Holdings chief executive Nick Di Girolamo for the wine, which a day earlier he had denied ever receiving. ICAC has been investigating AWH over its lobbying of both the previous Labor and current Liberal NSW governments to win a public-private partnership.

Mr Di Girolamo sent the wine to Mr O’Farrell in April 2011 as congratulations for his election victory a month earlier. Instead, it eventually ended his premiership.

Liberal MPs were in shock, with some even suggesting they would attempt to stop his resignation at today’s party meeting.

Even Opposition Leader declined to say that Mr O’Farrell should resign over the bottle of Grange, focusing instead on the Liberal Party’s relationship with lobbyists, despite Labor’s dealings with lobbyists having long been the focus of ICAC ​inquiries.

Former NSW Liberal premier , who resigned after ICAC found him to have been corrupt but later had the ruling overturned on appeal, said last night Mr O’Farrell had to resign but stressed that it had nothing to do with corruption. “I think his political judgment, then as mostly, has been very good,’’ Mr Greiner told ABC’s 7.30. “I think this is about politics, about political view, it’s not about ICAC, it’s clearly not about ​- corruption. “I think his judgment that his position was untenable, having given misleading or whatever evidence yesterday, and having found within 12 hours that it was untenable for him to go on is probably correct.”

Former NSW opposition legal affairs spokesman Andrew Tink, a close friend of Mr O’Farrell, yesterday called on the Premier to reconsider his resignation. “It is obvious that there is no corruption linked to this bottle of wine,” said Mr Tink, now an academic who served with Mr O’Farrell between 1999 and 2006.

“There is nothing that warrants the Premier standing down in my view, nothing. The worst that can be said here is that he ​failed to declare a gift. “It’s a firestorm that is developing around what is no more or no less than a failure to declare a bottle of wine, which is something that is corrected by amending the register. “When I was in parliament, when somebody failed to declare a gift they were allowed to amend the register so that the disclosure is made. And that is all that’s ​required here.”

Planning Minister , also a close friend of Mr O’Farrell, said his demise had been a case of him ​forgetting something from three years ago during the Liberals’ first three weeks in power. He said ICAC had changed its inquiries, first suggesting the issue was over a box of wine then changing it to a bottle. Mr O’Farrell had also been forced to deal with the matter only hours after returning from China on a trade mission. Mr Hazzard said the transition to government had been a “mind-boggling, difficult period”. Also, Mr O’Farrell’s father-in-law had died days before the wine arrived.

Like Mr Greiner, Mr O’Farrell came to power promising to ​restore integrity in public office and resigned over what, in retrospect, might be considered a relatively trivial matter. On Tuesday, Mr O’Farrell gave evidence to ICAC that he had not received the bottle ​because he would certainly have remembered such a generous gift, despite being presented with evidence of its purchase and delivery by courier to his home. Overnight, Mr Di Girolamo supplied ICAC with the thank you note Mr O’Farrell wrote to him, sealing the Premier’s fate.

Mr O’Farrell gave a press conference to announce his resignation just as ICAC was due to reconvene. “I still can’t recall the receipt of a gift of a bottle of 1959 Grange, I can’t explain what happened to that bottle of wine. But I do accept that there is a thank you note signed by me and, as someone who believes in accountability, in responsibility, I accept the consequences of my action. “The evidence I gave to the Independent Commission Against Corruption yesterday was evidence to the best of my knowledge. I believe it to be truthful and, as I said yesterday, it’s important that citizens deal with police, deal with the courts and deal with watchdogs like ICAC in a truthful fashion.

“In no way did I seek to mislead, wilfully or otherwise, the Independent Commission Against Corruption. But this has clearly been a significant memory fail on my part, albeit within weeks of coming to office, but I accept the consequences of my actions.” Two hours later, Mr O’Farrell returned to ICAC. Counsel assisting, Geoffrey Watson SC, said: “Mr O’Farrell, it’s in a pretty sad position we are now. I’ve got to ask you, why should the people of NSW, why should they not think that you didn’t give honest evidence yesterday, Mr O’Farrell?” Mr O’Farrell replied: “Well, I certainly tried to give … accurate evidence to the best of my recollection. Can I say, counsel, that in the days since I’ve been back from China when this matter was first raised with me by my counsel, it went from boxes of wine to box of wine to yesterday a bottle of wine.

“It went from a date that was allegedly in June to May then April then back to May and yesterday to 20 April. I gave this matter thought, I considered what I’d been doing and I gave yesterday my best recollection of that, of that which clearly was mistaken. “And, Commissioner, I certainly regret that.”

Additional reporting: Natasha Robinson

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