The Independent Commission Against Corruption has made some mistakes in its 34 years of existence but the case of MP John Sidoti is a reminder that, all too often, criticism of the institution is based on naked self-interest and sour grapes rather than high principle.
Sidoti took to the floor of NSW parliament on Tuesday to launch a broadside at the ICAC which he said was better suited to a “communist regime” than NSW.
He urged Opposition Leader Chris Minns to reform the ICAC if he wins government. “This Frankenstein’s monster is out of control and nobody is safe. Reform the beast before it takes a bite out of you, too,” Sidoti said.
He said the ICAC suffered from “incredible institutional pride” and “will not let go of a matter, even when it is clear that the matter does not fit the definitions required under its Act”.
Not coincidentally, Sidoti made these comments in a debate on a motion to suspend him from parliament because of the findings of corruption the ICAC made against him last month.
The ICAC recommended consideration be given to charging Sidoti with misconduct in public for a prolonged campaign, from 2013 to 2017, to change zoning rules in the City of Canada Bay Council in a way that was “entirely directed to his private interest in increasing the development potential of his family’s growing number of properties in and around the Five Dock town centre”.
Sidoti used his status as the local MP, the ICAC said, to influence councilors to act in his family’s interests and broke public trust by claiming he was acting at all times in the interests of his constituents and the community when he was not.
Sidoti used his speech to rerun many of the arguments which he made during the ICAC’s public hearings last year. He said, for instance, that in pushing for the rezoning which favored his parents’ property he was just acting as a “dynamic, hardworking and passionate advocate for his community”.
But the ICAC found Sidoti could not identify any shopkeepers who had asked him to intervene and the rezoning he was advocating was “inconsistent with what the local chamber of commerce was advocating to CCBC”.
Sidoti’s speech was full of contradictions. On the one hand, he said the ICAC’s decision had robbed him of his “dignity, career, reputation and future prospects”.