Junk Explained: What The O’Farrell Just Happened?
"This has clearly been a significant memory fail," the NSW State Premier said, after resigning over a $3000 bottle of wine this morning.
Quick backtrack: the Independent Commission Against Corruption is currently investigating Australian Water Holdings, and its attempt to corruptly secure a deal with the state-owned Sydney Water to deliver water infrastructure to Sydney’s North West. The deal would have made millions for people linked to the company, including Labor’s disgraced Eddie Obeid and several members of his family, and the Liberal senator Arthur Sinodinos, who stood down as Assistant Treasurer in March as a result of the findings.
Yesterday morning, NSW State Premier Barry “lockouts” O’Farrell got involved. The former CEO of Australian Water Holdings, Nick Di Girolamo, told ICAC that he’d had a $3000 bottle of Penfolds Grange delivered to O’Farrell in April 2011. While Di Girolamo claimed it was simply a show of congratulations for “finally getting into office”, counsel assisting the inquiry, Geoffrey Watson, SC, accused him of “trying to butter Mr O’Farrell up”.
Yesterday afternoon, Mr O’Farrell himself was due to give evidence. Obviously, he had to answer a few pointed questions instead. O’Farrell never declared the gift on the pecuniary interests register, and flat-out denied receiving the bottle of wine — a rare Shiraz which dated back to his year of birth and was somewhat ironically “last of the three ‘hidden’ or ‘secret’ Granges” created by winemaker Max Schubert. Unfortunately for O’Farrell, there was a record of a 28-second phone call between him and Mr Di Girolamo on the evening of April 20, and a courier receipt dated April 22 2011, from the AWH head office to Mr O’Farrell’s Roseville home.
“I wouldn’t know about this phone call duration 28 seconds,” Mr O’Farrell said. “What I do know is if I received a bottle of 1959 Penfolds, I do think I’d know about it.” In a statement released on Tuesday, he also denied that the receipt proved anything at all. “That document only shows AWH were billed for the pick-up of an item from their offices at Bella Vista,” the statement reads. “The document does not show the item was ever received by me or my wife on either Wednesday 20 April or Thursday 21 April or Good Friday 22 April or at any other time. No-one was at my home from mid-afternoon Thursday 21 April through to late Easter Sunday. We were holidaying in Queensland.”
Except then this morning, the plot thickened. A note from the Premier showed up, thanking the Di Girolamos for all their support. (Feel free to read that underline as a winky-faced emoji.)
PRO-TIP: Don’t thank people for bribes with handwritten notes with your name signed at the bottom.
— Brendan Maclean (@macleanbrendan) April 16, 2014
The note, written in his hand, on his stationery, and signed by him, is a pretty irrefutable piece of evidence that O’Farrell either attempted to lie to AN ENTIRE COMMISSION AGAINST CORRUPTION, or is terrible at memory.
When resigning this morning, he chose the latter excuse — because a bottle of wine will do that to you.
“I’ve been advised overnight that this morning at ICAC a thank you note from me in relation to the bottle of wine will be presented. 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 actions,” he said in a statement to the press this morning.
“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. And that is that as soon as I can organise a meeting of the parliamentary Liberal party for next week I will be resigning the position and enabling a new Liberal leader to be elected, someone who will then become the Premier of NSW.”
Prime Minister Tony Abbott calls the resignation “honourable”, and praised O’Farrell for being a “great servant” of the Liberal Party. “Obviously, as we now know, he innocently, inadvertently misled ICAC yesterday and he has taken the utterly honourable step of resigning as Premier.” What a hero.
@dannolan yeah he’s House-of-Cardsed this whole thing from the beginning.
— Ben Jenkins (@bencjenkins) April 16, 2014
All this over a bottle of wine that wouldn’t have been very good anyway. “This vintage is getting a little past its best and should have been drunk by now,” writes Fairfax’s wine critic Huon Hooke. “If I was Barry O’Farrell, I’d have tried to swap the ’59 for a ’55.”