Sydney: A leading Australian politician resigned today after admitting to a "massive memory fail" when he told a corruption inquiry he never received a bottle of wine worth USD 2,780.
Barry O'Farrell, who leads Australia's populous
New South Wales state, told the Independent Commission Against Corruption
(ICAC) yesterday that he was never given the 1959 bottle of Penfolds Grange
Hermitage.But when advised that a thank you note he had signed would be
presented at the inquiry today, O'Farrell quit.
"I've accepted that I have had a massive
memory fail," he told reporters in Sydney."I still can't explain
either the arrival of a gift that I have no recollection of, or its absence,
which I certainly still can't explain."The ICAC has heard that Nick Di
Girolamo, then chief executive of a water company accused of expenses fraud,
sent the rare wine to O'Farrell shortly after he became premier in 2011.Di
Girolamo said the gift -- a 1959 vintage to mark the year of O'Farrell's birth
-- had been couriered to the Liberal Party premier's Sydney home to offer
"sincere congratulations" on his election victory.The inquiry has
been investigating how Di Girolamo's company, Australia Water Holdings (AWH),
was allegedly able to bill a state-owned firm for luxury travel, million-dollar
salaries and major political donations.It has been alleged that the company
stood to make up to Aus USD 60 million if its proposal for a public-private
partnership with the government was approved. The deal never went ahead.
O'Farrell said he believed the evidence he gave
the inquiry -- in which he strenuously denied ever receiving the lavish gift --
had been truthful, and in no way did he seek to mislead the commission.He said
he would formally resign at a meeting of the New South Wales parliamentary
Liberal Party next week, enabling the election of a new state premier.Prime
Minister Tony Abbott, who leads a Liberal/National Party coalition government,
said O'Farrell had "inadvertently" misled the corruption watchdog and
he maintained enormous respect for the departing premier."We are seeing an
act of integrity, an act of honour, the like of which we have rarely seen in
Australian politics," Abbott said.
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