Criminal charges should be pursued against former New South Wales Labor ministers Eddie Obeid Sr, Joe Tripodi and Tony Kelly over their “serious corrupt conduct” in trying to unlawfully win a water contract for personal enrichment, the state’s Independent Commission Against Corruption has found.

Operation Credo found that in 2010 Kelly, then a cabinet minister, his chief of staff Laurie Brown, and Tripodi doctored a cabinet submission in favour of Australian Water Holdings and to the benefit of Obeid and his family.

The original cabinet minute recommended rejecting a proposal from AWH that it enter into a private-public partnership with the government to provide water infrastructure.

The doctored cabinet minute – presented to cabinet by Kelly – approved the proposal.

Brown admitted to Icac that he had deleted facts from the original cabinet minute that showed the state-owned Sydney Water would be hundreds of millions of dollars worse off if AWH’s proposed public-private partnership were accepted.

The doctored cabinet minute was removed from consideration at the insistence of the then premier, Kristina Keneally, and was never put to the government.

Had the proposal been accepted, $60m of state money would have flowed to Obeid, his family, and associates.

Eddie Obeid Sr was a secret shareholder in AWH and his son worked for the company. Between 2007 and 2010 he personally lobbied three premiers to accept the proposal “when he knew that the advancement of those interests would financially benefit the Obeid family”.

Icac said Kelly, Brown, Obeid and Tripodi had all engaged in “serious corrupt behaviour” and recommended the public prosecutor consider pursuing all four for the “common law criminal offences of misconduct in public office”.

Icac found the “highly deceptive” corrupt practices of the men was designed to enrich Obeid. Tripodi was “doing Eddie Obeid Senior’s bidding”, Icac said, and Kelly “was knowingly and improperly acting in accordance with what he understood to be the wishes of Edward Obeid Senior”.



Arthur Sinodinos, the federal minister for industry, innovation and science – and formerly chief of staff to the prime minister John Howard – was deputy chairman of the AWH board at the time. No corruption findings were made against him in the report.



Operation Credo held hearings between 2012 and 2014.

While he was not a subject of investigation, the former Liberal premier Barry O’Farrell was forced to resign after giving misleading evidence to the inquiry over the gift of a $3,000 bottle of wine from the AWH chief executive Nick Di Girolamo.

Credo made no adverse findings against O’Farrell or Di Girolamo.

The findings of Operation Credo are the second corruption findings against Kelly, and the third against Tripodi.

Kelly acted corruptly in backdating a document authorising the government’s purchase of Currawong cottages at Pittwater. The Labor government was in caretaker mode and was not authorised to make the purchase at the time he signed the document.

Criminal charges were recommended against Tripodi for leaking a confidential government document in an effort to win favour with the mining magnate Nathan Tinkler, who has since gone bankrupt.

Tripodi was also found to have acted corruptly when, as a minister, he failed to disclose to his cabinet colleagues his knowledge that the Obeid family had a financial stake in cafe leases at Circular Quay.

Obeid is now in jail, serving a five-year sentence for misusing his position as a member of parliament over the cafe leases scandal. And he faces another criminal trial over mining licences in the Bylong valley. Obeid may face yet another trial if Credo’s recommendations are taken up by the DPP.

The NSW premier, Gladys Berejiklian, welcomed the Operation Credo report.

“The NSW government has a zero-tolerance approach to corruption and we have implemented a range of measures to reflect this,” she said.

“The reconstituted Icac will deliver a stronger anti-corruption agency with clear powers to investigate, expose and prevent corruption.”

Late Thursday, Eddie Obeid Senior released a statement in response to the Operation Credo report:

“Edward Obeid Senior strenuously denies the adverse findings made by Independent Commission Against Corruption to the effect that between 2007 and 2010, he misused his position as a member of Parliament to promote and/or advance the interests of Australian Water Holdings, at a time when he knew that the advancement of those interests would benefit the Obeid family in the event that a member of the Obeid family or an Obeid family entity acquired shares in Australian Water Holdings.”

