Rub
04-12-2009, 12:35 PM
Whats going on north of the border?
From Fairfax Media...
http://images.theage.com.au/2009/12/04/946065/lf_newsouth-300x368.gif
Discredited, despised, but still pulling all the strings
KNOWN as He Who Must Be Obeyed, Eddie Obeid is the most powerful politician in the state, yet a check of parliamentary records show the 66-year-old backbencher has not made a single speech in Parliament for the past seven years.
The mystery for NSW voters is how the wordless Obeid and his equally controversial right-wing colleague, Joe Tripodi, wield such extraordinary power that they can make - and unmake - premiers.
Thin-lipped with fury yesterday, Nathan Rees said of the duo: ''Should I not be Premier by the end of this day, let there be no doubt in the community's mind, no doubt, that any challenger will be a puppet of Eddie Obeid and Joe Tripodi.''
If the ferocity of his words by some miracle escaped his party or NSW voters, he repeated the sentence word for word.
The power of Obeid and Tripodi stems from their ability to ''branch stack'' - that is, muster foot soldiers to become members of ALP branches.
In 1996, for instance, Tripodi delivered almost $7000 to ALP headquarters to stack a branch in south-west Sydney. With that money, he was able to pay for 500 new memberships.
By controlling Labor Party branches, the pair can determine who is preselected for local councils and for Parliament.
Their reputations as ''can do'' men also encourages business figures and developers to make donations to Labor through them. And with money comes power.
Labor ministers have told the Herald that the pair have threatened their ministries in the past, and even their seats, for perceived disloyalty to the backroom men.
Through their vice-like hold over the party, they have also withstood controversies that would have destroyed the careers of less powerful people.
Eddie Obeid's reputation as a wheeler-dealer extraordinaire has long been a worry to Labor. A former cab driver turned property developer and ethnic press barron, he pulled off an amazing deal in the fortnight before becoming an MP in 1991.
Having bought a property in Clovelly for $875,000 on Wednesday, the very next day he had sold it to the Housing Department for $1.1 million.
In 1994, Obeid found himself in business with Paul Keating's controversial piggery partner, Al Constantinidis, for whom Obeid went guarantor on a million-dollar loan.
He also joined the late disgraced stockbroker Rene Rivkin to buy the Offset Alpine printing press from Kerry Packer. Investors in the company reaped a small fortune when the overinsured printing premises were destroyed by fire in 1993.
Quite separately, Obeid has had bad luck with fires - two of his premises and two houses have gone up in flames.
The accident-prone Tripodi, 42, has the backing of powerful figures including the property developer Pat Sergi, who was named in the Woodward royal commission as a key member of the Griffith mafia. While an MP, Tripodi had shares in Sergi's company, which bought and sold government land, including Housing Department property.
Over the years Tripodi has been referred to the Independent Commission Against Corruption several times: for his shareholding in Sergi's company; his alleged sexual assault of a Democrat staffer; his personal friendship with Joe Scimone, a former Wollongong Council officer against whom corruption allegations had been made and who was appointed to a position within Tripodi's portfolio; and over his alleged involvement in the Orange Grove affair. In each case ICAC found no evidence of wrongdoing by Tripodi.
One minister likened the betrayal, treachery and naked ambition - revealed so starkly by yesterday's events - to the fall of the Roman Empire.
So damaging is the battle between Left and Right that the Labor caucus Christmas party was cancelled last night ''because we did not think we could be civilised enough not to come to blows with one another'', a minister said.
Source: The Sydney Morning Herald
From Fairfax Media...
http://images.theage.com.au/2009/12/04/946065/lf_newsouth-300x368.gif
Discredited, despised, but still pulling all the strings
KNOWN as He Who Must Be Obeyed, Eddie Obeid is the most powerful politician in the state, yet a check of parliamentary records show the 66-year-old backbencher has not made a single speech in Parliament for the past seven years.
The mystery for NSW voters is how the wordless Obeid and his equally controversial right-wing colleague, Joe Tripodi, wield such extraordinary power that they can make - and unmake - premiers.
Thin-lipped with fury yesterday, Nathan Rees said of the duo: ''Should I not be Premier by the end of this day, let there be no doubt in the community's mind, no doubt, that any challenger will be a puppet of Eddie Obeid and Joe Tripodi.''
If the ferocity of his words by some miracle escaped his party or NSW voters, he repeated the sentence word for word.
The power of Obeid and Tripodi stems from their ability to ''branch stack'' - that is, muster foot soldiers to become members of ALP branches.
In 1996, for instance, Tripodi delivered almost $7000 to ALP headquarters to stack a branch in south-west Sydney. With that money, he was able to pay for 500 new memberships.
By controlling Labor Party branches, the pair can determine who is preselected for local councils and for Parliament.
Their reputations as ''can do'' men also encourages business figures and developers to make donations to Labor through them. And with money comes power.
Labor ministers have told the Herald that the pair have threatened their ministries in the past, and even their seats, for perceived disloyalty to the backroom men.
Through their vice-like hold over the party, they have also withstood controversies that would have destroyed the careers of less powerful people.
Eddie Obeid's reputation as a wheeler-dealer extraordinaire has long been a worry to Labor. A former cab driver turned property developer and ethnic press barron, he pulled off an amazing deal in the fortnight before becoming an MP in 1991.
Having bought a property in Clovelly for $875,000 on Wednesday, the very next day he had sold it to the Housing Department for $1.1 million.
In 1994, Obeid found himself in business with Paul Keating's controversial piggery partner, Al Constantinidis, for whom Obeid went guarantor on a million-dollar loan.
He also joined the late disgraced stockbroker Rene Rivkin to buy the Offset Alpine printing press from Kerry Packer. Investors in the company reaped a small fortune when the overinsured printing premises were destroyed by fire in 1993.
Quite separately, Obeid has had bad luck with fires - two of his premises and two houses have gone up in flames.
The accident-prone Tripodi, 42, has the backing of powerful figures including the property developer Pat Sergi, who was named in the Woodward royal commission as a key member of the Griffith mafia. While an MP, Tripodi had shares in Sergi's company, which bought and sold government land, including Housing Department property.
Over the years Tripodi has been referred to the Independent Commission Against Corruption several times: for his shareholding in Sergi's company; his alleged sexual assault of a Democrat staffer; his personal friendship with Joe Scimone, a former Wollongong Council officer against whom corruption allegations had been made and who was appointed to a position within Tripodi's portfolio; and over his alleged involvement in the Orange Grove affair. In each case ICAC found no evidence of wrongdoing by Tripodi.
One minister likened the betrayal, treachery and naked ambition - revealed so starkly by yesterday's events - to the fall of the Roman Empire.
So damaging is the battle between Left and Right that the Labor caucus Christmas party was cancelled last night ''because we did not think we could be civilised enough not to come to blows with one another'', a minister said.
Source: The Sydney Morning Herald