Torbay's tilt at Canberra terminated by toxic Obeid - The Drum Opinion (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

22/03/13 12:21 PM

Torbay's tilt at Canberra terminated by toxic Obeid

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21 March 2013
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Alex Mitchell
This week independentturned-Nationals-candidate
Richard Torbay resigned
from his seat amid questions
over his links to Eddie
Obeid. Parliament will not look into the matter but the ICAC has a duty to investigate,
writes Alex Mitchell.
Richard Torbay, the long-serving independent MP for the Northern Tablelands who has
resigned from State Parliament, was always considered a "pro-Labor" independent.
He enjoyed the support and patronage of the ALP Upper House powerbroker Eddie
Obeid, a toxic association which has now ended his political career.
In the 1990s Torbay was a Labor man who became an energetic and popular mayor of
Armidale.
After attending an official function at the University of New England and hearing Torbay
speak, Labor MLC Franca Arena returned to Macquarie Street to report on the "bright star"
emerging in northern NSW.
She shared her enthusiasm with fellow Labor MLC Eddie Obeid who was immediately intrigued by Torbay's political popularity and his Lebanese ancestry.
As Arena tells it, Obeid flew to Armidale and the next she heard Torbay was standing at
the 1999 election as an independent.
The Sussex Street strategy at that time was to favour independents in electorates that Labor could not win. When the tactic was successful it denied the Coalition an extra seat and
provided Labor with ALP-leaning supporters on the cross benches.
Torbay won the Northern Tablelands as an independent in 1999, 2003, 2007 and 2011
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Torbay's tilt at Canberra terminated by toxic Obeid - The Drum Opinion (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

22/03/13 12:21 PM

while the ALP ran dead. Torbay easily defeated the National candidate on each occasion
and there were rumours - that were never proved - that Torbay benefitted from outside
campaign funding.
After premier Morris Iemma's victory in the 2007 election he promoted Torbay to the position of speaker. His elevation to the $220,000-a-year job seemed a fitting reward for his
regular support for most of Labor's legislation since 1999.
In the mainstream media, Iemma's decision was treated as a break with tradition and by
choosing a "neutral" speaker he won high praise. Most commentators predicted improved
standards in "The Bearpit" under the stewardship of speaker Torbay who was renowned
in his constituency as an Elvis Presley impersonator.
Obeid, the head of the "Terrigals" sub-faction whose members included Iemma, supported
the decision to give the independent MP the important ceremonial role because it would
maintain Labor's majority on the floor of the House.
Torbay has always vigorously denied that he was a Labor "stooge" but the suspicions have
persisted among embittered NSW Nationals.
When the Nationals announced last year that Torbay had been selected to stand as the party's candidate at the federal election against independent Tony Windsor in the seat of New
England, there was an eruption of anger across party branches on the far north coast and
in the hinterland of NSW.
After all, Torbay had denied the Nationals the Northern Tablelands seat for 14 years and,
as party members saw it, he was being gifted a winnable federal seat.
Nationals with long memories and private knowledge of Torbay's links with Obeid complained bitterly to party headquarters in Sydney. Party elders were summoned to a series
of private meetings to discuss Torbay's candidacy and, in the forefront of their deliberations, was the question: what will Windsor say about Torbay and Obeid during the federal
election campaign?
The decisions they took this week were ruthlessly precise: they stripped Torbay of his preselection, re-opened the process allowing Senator Barnaby Joyce to enter the race and sent
information to former Supreme Court judge, David Ipp QC, head of the Independent
Commission Against Corruption which is investigating the fall-out from the Obeid era in
NSW Labor politics.
In Macquarie Street Torbay was a popular and well-liked MP and an effective speaker. It
is almost unthinkable that Obeid's network of influence stretched to the speakership of the
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Torbay's tilt at Canberra terminated by toxic Obeid - The Drum Opinion (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

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state parliament.
The ICAC has a duty to investigate this new development by recalling witnesses and summoning others with any knowledge of the Torbay affair.
It is clear the Parliament won't investigate this matter, so the ICAC must.
Alex Mitchell is a former State Political Editor of The Sun-Herald and a former president of the
NSW Parliamentary Press Gallery. View his full profile here.

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