Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

I also rise to take note of answers given by Senator Bob Carr to questions asked by Senator Abetz. The question here today really should be: how much of what is happening in New South Wales today could have been avoided had Eddie Obeid not been appointed to the ministry? Yesterday evening on the ABC program Four Corners we heard Mr Carr saying:

It's breathtaking, the wreckage that he has done—a single person who we saw as a marginal figure, someone lurking in the corridors, never to be taken that seriously, could produce this. Well there's something epic ...

You bet you're right, Senator Carr! Had you not promoted him to the ministry and supported him and sponsored him and done all those things, one really wonders whether we would be seeing the worst scandal since the Rum Corps in New South Wales. Also in last night's Four Corners interview Senator Carr said:

I remember he did a very big Lebanese fundraiser in about 1988. So he must've been … He must've been a personality but some time he emerged from the semi-darkness and began to get a special prominence.

Somebody that is just there, in the background et cetera—did not really know him, did not really know much about him et cetera. Funny about that, because in 1988, the very same year, there is Mr Obeid's company donating to Mr Carr's Maroubra campaign. Funny about that—did not really know him, but there he was donating to him.

Then in 1988, the very same year, for then Minister for Planning and the Environment Carr the issue arose about the Valhalla stables lease. Funny about that—all at the same time he is trying to paint the picture that he did not really know him, he was somebody in the darkness, but here we have then Minister Carr after he met Eddie Obeid twice as minister for the environment during the caretaker period for the 1988 election campaign over changes that Mr Obeid was seeking for his Valhalla stables snow-lease development. Yes, we all know about the snow lease and snowfields in other recent revelations, but Mr Carr could never explain the briefing note from the then director of the National Parks and Wildlife dated 3 March 1988 with respect to Valhalla stables and the difference between what was on the public record and his recollection. This briefing note, in part, said:

The minister requested the service, reviewed the request—

that is, the request from Mr Eddie Obeid—

with a view to providing alternatively worded provisions that could meet the requirements of the lessee.

When we see Mr Carr being thanked by Mr Obeid in his maiden speech, it is little wonder. Why was he made a cabinet minister and why, as my colleagues have said so correctly, did Mr Carr go out of his way to make sure that he became a cabinet minister? It was, as Morris Iemma correctly said, 'for services rendered and support given'. As Senator Faulkner said on yesterday evening's Four Corners: 'He'—Eddie Obeid—'ran Labor governments in New South Wales. That's what he did.'

Of course, he was promoted. He was promoted to the ministry of 1999, and from 1999 to 2004 Bob Carr was asked on at least nine occasions, in the New South Wales parliament and other places, about the behaviour of Mr Obeid. On every one of those occasions, Mr Carr stood by Mr Obeid—whether it was repeatedly about Mr Obeid's pecuniary interest disclosures or whether it was about the Oasis Liverpool development or whether it was about Mr Obeid's involvement in the company related to one of the Keating piggery companies. All along Mr Carr never gave any answers. All he did was stand by his little mate. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.