Bridie Jabour theguardian.com, Thursday 10 April 2014

Former NSW cabinet minister tracked by corruption commission as he visited former planning minister Tony Kelly

Former New South Wales Labor minister Joe Tripodi arrives at the Independent Commission Against Corruption. Photograph: Daniel Munoz/AAP

The former Labor minister Joe Tripodi has denied he changed a New South Wales cabinet minute so it recommended the approval of a project that would have made the Obeid family and federal Liberal senator Arthur Sinodinos, among others, tens of millions of dollars.

The Independent Commission Against Corruption (Icac) is investigating Australian Water Holdings (AWH) and its bid to secure a public-private partnership (PPP), despite the opposition of the government-owned corporation Sydney Water.

A cabinet minute that was doctored in favour of AWH is part of the inquiry and, when Tripodi entered the witness box on Thursday, counsel assisting Icac, Geoffrey Watson SC, said the doctored minute “had the hand of Tripodi all over it”.

Tripodi said “big slabs” of notes he had given on the minute were inserted in the document but he did not authorise the altering.

“I wasn't involved in this at all,” he told the commission.

Tripodi was also accused of driving last year to Wellington, NSW, and the home of the former planning minister, Tony Kelly, who approved the doctored minute, to “get their story straight” on AWH.

Watson alleged Tripodi turned off his phone so he could not be tracked, but forgot his sat-nav was still on, so the commission was able to track his movements.

Kelly had earlier told the commission Tripodi showed up unannounced on his doorstep with a hamburger and a coffee and they discussed what their former colleagues were up to.

Tripodi told the commission he was in the area visiting a friend, William Ning, and had gone to Kelly’s to find out more about lucerne as a favour to Ning, who wanted to export it.

“My telephone wasn’t off that day, it was actually in the car, it was an issue driving out there because I thought I didn’t have my phone but I did. It was in the back seat,” he said.

Tripodi turned the phone on again near the Blue Mountains and said that was because he saw it in the back seat of the car.

Tripodi also recounted a meeting with the former premier Kristina Keneally in her office.

The commission had previously asked Keneally if she had met Tripodi in the “powder room” of the premier’s office.

Keneally laughed at the question, saying there was a bathroom in the premier’s office but not a “powder room”, and not even her husband entered it.

Tripodi said towards the end of the meeting Keneally had gone into the bathroom “to prepare herself” and he had stayed on the couch. They had briefly continued talking before he left.

“Kristina Keneally and I were on a unity ticket about the issue of private provision of infrastructure in NSW,” he said.

Tripodi told the commission he had asked Eddie Obeid Sr if his family had an interest in the company because Obeid had asked him a few times how the “[AWH chief executive Nick] di Girolamo matter was progressing”.

"On one occasion, I said to him, Eddie, you and your family don't have any commercial interest in this? He said no, no, [Eddie Obeid] Junior's giving Australian Water a hand up in Queensland," he said.

Icac: Joe Tripodi denies changing cabinet minute in AWH's favour | World news | theguardian.com