Former NSW MP Ian Macdonald stayed free of charge at the Obeids' ski lodge, the ICAC has heard. Source: AAP
FORMER NSW Labor minister Ian Macdonald has been labelled a "crook" at a corruption inquiry, for allegedly scheming with the Obeid family to create a highly lucrative coal mining tenement in the NSW Upper Hunter.
On a sensational day of evidence at the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC), counsel assisting the commission, Geoffrey Watson, SC, took Mr Macdonald through 40 pieces of evidence allegedly linking him to dodgy dealing in 2008.
The ICAC is probing whether the now disgraced former minister rigged a tender process for coal exploration licences in the coal-rich Bylong Valley, 150km west of Newcastle, and how his former Labor colleague, Eddie Obeid, stood to gain.
It has been alleged the Obeid family, who owned property over the critical Mt Penny tenement, were in line to profit up to $100 million from their links to coal mining in the area.
Mr Watson put to Mr Macdonald on Tuesday that he was a "crook" for scheming "with Eddie Obeid and his family".
"You agreed with them to create the Mt Penny tenement, and you agreed to do that because they asked you to," Mr Watson suggested.
"They wanted to make a financial benefit, and you were facilitating them doing that, isn't that the truth?" he then said.
Mr Macdonald replied, "That's an absolute lie and just said for the benefit of the Fairfax press".
Earlier, Mr Macdonald admitted phoning Moses Obeid on July 8 2008 and reading him a list of 12 coal companies likely to be invited to bid on the controversial coal tender process.
He conceded that he convened an "urgent" departmental meeting to get the list on July 7, but said there was "no way" it had been done at the request of Moses Obeid.
The inquiry heard that less than a week after giving Moses the list, Mr Macdonald stayed and ate for free at the Obeids' ski lodge at Perisher.
"On Sunday, 13 July, 2008, did you go down and take the hospitality of the Obeid family at their place at The Stables?" Mr Watson asked him.
"Yes," Mr Macdonald replied.
The inquiry was told Mr Macdonald had restaurant bills in Perisher of $166.50 and $638.50, which were paid by the Obeids.
It heard that it usually cost $700 per night for the public to stay at the ski lodge.
Mr Macdonald said he didn't pay the money back to the Obeids because it was "hospitality".
In his second day on the witness stand, the ex-MP also denied instructing senior staff to create the Mt Penny tenement over land owned by the Obeid family.
He said he knew the Obeids owned land in the Bylong Valley, and he was upset when he found out it was on the Mt Penny tenement.
Mr Macdonald also told the ICAC he could not explain how a confidential government map ended up in the Obeids' office at Birkenhead in Sydney.
He admitted requesting the map from the department and receiving it in June 2008.
Mr Macdonald has previously told the ICAC it was just "by chance" the Mt Penny mining tenement was created over the Obeids' land.
Mr Macdonald's evidence is due to continue on Wednesday before Commissioner David Ipp.
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