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Saturday, 22 November 2008

Corruption rife in the State of NSW

9/10/2008 11:11:00 AM.  | Alan Jones

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Those who've been driving the RailCorp train have been sacked and we're changing the driver.

The Government will now do it.

Yet this is the same Government that on the same day yesterday was confronted with unprecedented corruption at the Labor dominated Wollongong Council.

There is a connection.

RailCorp has been before ICAC for months and months, a mammoth investigation.

Indeed, so many employees and contractors appeared before ICAC in the ICAC RailCorp hearings that ICAC's taken the unusual step of staggering the release of its findings over several months.

But one employee was able to get away with $650,000 from RailCorp, even though the management was warned about her four years ago in an internal corruption report and did nothing.

She just went on to defraud RailCorp of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Another bloke was found to have stolen $2.4 million from RailCorp.

ICAC found that in the past three years RailCorp had awarded almost $20 million of work improperly allocated to contractors.

$3 million had exchanged hands in direct financial benefit.

ICAC have made corrupt findings against 21 people and are seeking advice in relation to prosecuting 23.

The Government is now saying it's going to take charge of this corrupt entity.

No talk about improving rail services. No talk about changing the culture.

The union bosses are saying that the changes are fantastic.

No wonder.

They'll be able to run rings round the Government. But that's not the issue.

The Government is now decorporatising RailCorp and virtually saying to the public, trust us, we'll manage this corrupt outfit and get it back on the rails, pardon the pun.

Yet on the same day we learn that ICAC Commissioner Cripps QC said, "To establish actual corrupt conduct within five levels of a New South Wales public sector organisation as has occurred with Wollongong City Council is without precedent".

In other words, unprecedented corruption at the Labor dominated Wollongong Council.

Yet there's a massive Department of Local Government; the very government that says it will now manage the corruption in RailCorp couldn't monitor the corruption at Wollongong Council in which some of its own senior figures were involved.

The ICAC Commissioner says the level of corruption within Wollongong Council is unprecedented.

Yet the former Mayor of eight years and the current Member for Keira, David Campbell, now a Minister in the Government and the current Member for Wollongong, Noreen Hay say they knew nothing.

But local Labor MPs are still yet to fully and publicly detail their dealings with the people who've been found guilty of corrupt conduct.

And what's more, the people of Wollongong aren't being given a chance to have local government elections and throw the Labor Party out of its administration.

Instead Macquarie Street have put in an administrator, wait until the dust settles, the electorate might forget and their Labor mates can run the show again.

It beggars belief that on a day when we learn of unprecedented corruption at the Labor dominated Wollongong Council, the Labor Government which couldn't prevent that is now telling us that it will better manage the rail administration in this State which seems corrupt from its head to its toes.

I hate using the word, but it's depressing to think that this is happening in the name of government.

Remember, sex, lies, deals and development approvals in Wollongong Council could only flourish because the Government in Macquarie Street turned a blind eye to that corrupt framework.

Because remember, the Wollongong Council prospered sex, money and personal relationships in deciding development outcomes, and the State Government's Department of Planning ticked off the development approvals.

At what point does Macquarie Street say, we'd better give the electorate a chance to decide if they want someone else to run the State.

COMMENTS

Thursday, 09 October 2008

Wollongong Council was the most corrupt ALP led Council in our History. ICAC didn't go far enough they stopped short by only calling Oxley in at the last moment, he was giving confidential information to a number of developers and they say he was only pro developement and not acting corruptly. Why wasn't Hay, Campbell & other ALP members of Parliament not called by ICAC. Because they know it would haven risen to the top of the ALP (Sussex Street).

Posted by: alex ford, Minto Heights

 

Thursday, 09 October 2008

Good points Alan. I also think the case of Hamidur Rahman needs to be reopened. I understand, thanks to your post this morning, that NSW is struggling to find pathologists to work in their empty labs. Hamidur's case does not need a lot of work. It was ruled an accident when the Department of Education held back information relevant to the case. The apparent cover up that followed needs to be looked at. Senior government ministers may have been involved in the cover up. School students still risk

Posted by: Happy Fun Ball, Carramar/Sydney

 

Thursday, 09 October 2008

ICAC haven't done their job as alex ford points out - there would be a trail leading all the way to the top! ICAC have only chosen some to take the rap - the rest would be covered by the independent body - scrap ICAC why on earth does it exist if it doesn't do it's job especially involving cases of corruption involved in Railcorp and Wollongong Council! Sack the lot!

Posted by: RS ****, Sydney

 

Thursday, 09 October 2008

I am perplexed as to why the ICAC's taken the unusual step of staggering the release of its findings over several months??? It smells of political interference on what is supposed to be an independent watch dog.

Posted by: A Narchy, The Hills

 
 

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