The ICAC on 30 August delivered the heads of three notorious councillors on a silver plate, with findings of “serious corrupt conduct,” and recommendations to the Director of Public Prosecutions to consider criminal charges that could see the miscreants jailed.
There could be no greater relief nor celebration for a succession of previous Directors of Planning at Georges River and the former Hurstville, current senior staff and former general managers and any unfortunate planner who found themselves on the wrong side of these deeply self-interested, dishonest and corrupt boofheads. This notorious threesome had poisoned confidence in development, and had been on the ICAC’s radar for more than a decade.
Chinese developers (one also a real estate agent) made payments to cover the councillors’ travel expenses, airfares, meals and luxury transfers on trips to China, some of which were known as “boys’ weekends,” where their hosts provided sex workers as well. The Commission has recommended that the DPP also consider charges against those developers.
ICAC found the three former councillors had engaged in serious corrupt conduct when they accepted trips to China, and tens of thousands of dollars, in return for supporting two large apartment developments in Hurstville. They were former Hurstville and Georges River councillors Vince Badalati (an ALP councillor), Con Hindi (a Liberal councillor, short for Constantine, and not Con Man, or Convict - yet) and a former Hurstville councillor Philip Ransom. The ICAC also found Hindi’s wife Mireille, gave false and misleading evidence.
The investigation found Badalati and Ransom were frequent visitors to China and Hong Kong between 2007 and 2018, a history so blatant that it’s hard to understand how it continued so long.
Hindi is no stranger to depaNews. As a councillor on the former Hurstville Council he had bullied and harassed planning staff and a succession of Directors of Planning, and on one occasion, when he objected to a report from the Director of Planning at the time to the Council recommending against what were claimed to be additions to a property owned by Hindi, but were essentially a demolition and rebuild, took defamation action against the Director.
It rolled on for some time, it was intended to intimidate and bully and but the vexatious defamation action was unsustainable. Hindi agreed to discontinue the claim, agreed not to commence any action arising out of the publication and provided a letter to the Director confirming with the withdrawal of all the allegations made against him, and tail firmly between his legs, concluded the letter with “I unreservedly withdraw any allegation that by publishing the report you defamed me or otherwise damaged my reputation.”
... and Hindi paid the costs.
Operation Galley found Hindi liked to keep it in the family. Amongst a variety of failures to disclose pecuniary interests, Hindi had failed to disclose his pecuniary interest in one of the sites through his wife’s interest in the development. Mireille Hindi, another real estate agent, was up for $500,000 commission from the sale of the $35 million site. The ICAC found that she had also given misleading evidence - not just implausible but “not capable of belief”- and had attempted to hide her involvement and her and her husband’s conflicts of interest by identifying her son on the Buyers Agency Agreement. She said it was a mistake, the ICAC disagreed and said her response was “fanciful”.
The ICAC found neither were credible witnesses, lied on several occasions, Hindi was “argumentative and rude”, much of his evidence was “not merely improbable but plainly nonsense”, and he “frequently made speeches that had little to do with the questions asked”.
He must have thought he was still standing on the floor of the Council trying to browbeat planners, he’d been doing that for years.
In June 2022 we published “What a refreshing change. A crook confesses at ICAC” after Badalati had given evidence to the Commission. Hurstville and Kogarah councils had merged to create Georges River in May 2016. They brought two high profile major players together - one Liberal, Hindi, and one ALP, Badalati - happy to help developers by overriding planning proposals from Council staff, and in doing so, they created an environment hostile to staff, particularly senior staff.
This explains why Georges River spent over $200,000 in 2019/20 on code of conduct complaints, more than $2.5 million to the date of that issue (22 June 2022) on legal costs with Operation Galley then into its third year of investigation, and another one $1.2 million budgeted 2022/2023 in anticipation of continuing costs.
ICAC investigations take far too long and need better resourcing. They can be slow and grinding affairs, but as the first witness, former Mayor Badalati confessed that on two occasions a developer had provided him with a bag of cash, once containing $70,000 and on the second occasion, $100,000. And, just to disprove the old maxim that there’s honour among thieves, he confessed that Hindi was there at the time and he received the same payments!
Badalati had taken defamation action against the Herald in 2019 when they published that he had accepted flights and accommodation from Chinese developers, and claimed he had paid for those himself. It was settled when the Herald paid him $100,000 in damages and legal costs, and published an apology. But while he was clearing his conscience and trying to balance the interests of his family watching this all rollout, he confessed that the trips had been paid for by the same developer who had given him $170,000. He agreed this was fraud.
Hindi also had taken defamation action against the Herald and received $65,000 in damages and his costs. More fraud.
The developer referred to them both as “Fat” and “Middle East”, accurate nicknames for Badalati and Hindi respectively from a developer who obviously thought “Dumb and Dumber” was already taken.
The photoshopped image we used at the start of this article was also used in the June 2022 issue, and while we love having fun with photoshopping, we’d clearly underestimated with those piles of $100 notes just how much cash this corrupt threesome was sharing.
But the ICAC found images on the phone of a developer that provide a proper perspective. We will spare you the images of the sex workers and the two daggy old white men, on a “boys’ weekend”, but how about this new take on money-laundering:
There are 11 recommendations to try to better manage corruption risks in the relationship between councillors and staff but none better than keeping councillors right out of any operational issues, planning or otherwise. And ensuring that a councillor’s role is limited to the development of planning instruments, by professional staff, who are not being bullied and harassed by them.
The report also notes on p159 that “The Keller Reviewer review on councillor conduct accountability in NSW recommended mandatory training for Councillors. The Commission supports education that will improve Council governance and support ethical decision-making.”
The Keller Review made more than 40 recommendations that were embraced by a previous Minister for Local Government - all but the recommendation for the establishment of a specific tribunal. It’s important now for the current Minister, the Hon Ron Hoenig, to continue that commitment and move on it as a matter of priority.
There are two other things for the new Minister to move on as a matter of priority.
The first is the undeniable need for significant improvements in the funding of the Office of Local Government to speed up investigations and conduct them properly (although it is unlikely even OLG at their worst wouldn’t have found here “the absence of any prior offending... and the lack of previous incidents of misconduct”), to be available and able to intervene in councils and straighten out behavioural issues before they get out of control and become a reliable and authoritative regulator.
The Minister was less than enthusiastic about supporting the additional funding being sought to do those things in the recent meeting of the Parliamentary Accounts Committee, but the OLG will continue to be an ineffective shell in the absence of funding to allow a flush of new people to replace those on the way out.
And second, the industry consensus on managing corruption risk by returning managerial positions which are now “senior staff” to be covered by the award and relevant Enterprise Agreements, and access to unfair dismissal in the Industrial Relations Commission. “No reason” termination has been specifically identified as unacceptable in two previous investigations (into Mid-Western and the former Canterbury Council) and making these employment changes will reduce the practice of councillors trying to intimidate GM’s to sack the Director of Planning, or the Council will sack them - something that occurs far too frequently.
