Investigation into the conduct of the local member for Drummoyne (Operation Witney)
- Findings
- 1
- Recommendations
- 15
- Published responses
- 10
- Report length
- 200 pages
Findings 1
Allegations are not findings. A commission's finding or opinion of corrupt conduct or misconduct is not a finding that a person is guilty of a criminal offence, and the commissions say so in their reports.
serious corrupt conduct
FindingThe Commission found that Mr Sidoti engaged in serious corrupt conduct by, between approximately late 2013 and February 2017, engaging in a protracted course of conduct, involving the use of his official position as a member of Parliament and the local member for Drummoyne, to try to improperly influence CCBC Liberal councillors, Helen McCaffrey, Mirjana Cestar and Tanveer Ahmed, to adopt and advance certain positions in relation to the Five Dock town centre that would benefit his family’s property interests in the area.
Recommendations 15
Recommendation 1
That the NSW Government, in consultation with NSW Parliament’s Legislative Assembly Privilege and Ethics Committee and Legislative Council Privileges Committee (“NSW Parliament’s designated committees”), amends the Constitution (Disclosures by Members) Regulation 1983 to require: the details of interests in trusts, including discretionary trusts and self-managed superannuation funds, to be disclosed as a standalone item the details of real property held by discretionary trusts, where a member of Parliament is a potential beneficiary, to be disclosed the details of the interests of immediate family members to be disclosed (noting the option to limit access to certain information for privacy reasons) the dispositions of interests to family members or other associates to be disclosed ongoing (within 28 days) requirements to update disclosures of interests, including for members leaving Parliament electronic databases to improve transparency of the registers.
Recommendation 2
That the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, the President of the Legislative Council and the relevant parliamentary departments jointly ensure that the guidance material for members of Parliament is updated to provide details about their disclosure obligations pursuant to the Constitution (Disclosures by Members) Regulation 1983 (pending implementation of recommendation 1).
Recommendation 3
That NSW Parliament’s designated committees include a clear, consistent and comprehensive conflict of interest definition in the Code of Conduct for Members. This review should include a consideration of the relevant definitions in the Ministerial Code of Conduct and any opportunities for achieving a consistent approach in regard to avoiding, recognising, disclosing and managing conflicts of interest.
Recommendation 4
That the NSW Government, in consultation with NSW Parliament’s designated committees, amends the Constitution (Disclosures by Members) Regulation 1983 to provide for the mandatory registration of conflicts of interest by members of Parliament via the creation of a register for this purpose (noting the option to limit access to certain information for privacy reasons).
Recommendation 5
That the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, the President of the Legislative Council and the relevant parliamentary departments jointly ensure that the guidance material for members of Parliament be updated to provide details about their obligations pursuant to clause 7 of the Code of Conduct for Members, on how to take reasonable steps to avoid, resolve and disclose a conflict of interest, and the registration of conflicts of interest (pending implementation of recommendations 3 and 4).
Recommendation 6
That the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, the President of the Legislative Council and the relevant parliamentary departments jointly develop and/or update specific training and guidance material about the proper and improper exercise of power by members and undue influence, in line with findings made by this investigation.
Recommendation 7
That the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, the President of the Legislative Council and the relevant parliamentary departments jointly develop and/or update specific training and guidance material about the improper intermingling of public resources with personal interests, in line with findings made by this investigation.
Recommendation 8
That the NSW Government considers the introduction of amending legislation to clarify that an applicable code of conduct in relation to a parliamentary secretary is a ministerial code of conduct prescribed or adopted for the purposes of s 9(3) of the ICAC Act.
Recommendation 9
That the NSW Department of Planning and Environment ensures any guidelines issued pursuant to s 23A of the Local Government Act 1993 regarding the lobbying of councillors include advice about: the nature and frequency of meetings between councillors and interested parties, including the need to ensure transparency around these interactions how and where to report concerns about lobbying practices the receipt of submissions outside of formal processes, including the transmission of material to specific councillors in a way that excludes other councillors and staff councillors’ attendance at staff meetings with parties interested in an outcome councillor representations to staff arising from lobbying interactions the lobbying of councillors by interested parties with whom they have a pre-existing relationship.
Recommendation 10
That the NSW Department of Planning and Environment updates the Model Code of Conduct for Local Councils in NSW to refer to any councillor lobbying guidelines and to reflect the substantive advice contained in the guidelines.
Recommendation 11
That City of Canada Bay Council (CCBC) adopts a policy regulating interactions between councillors and staff. The policy should cover councillor representations to staff arising from lobbying activities and the attendance of councillors at proponent meetings with staff.
Recommendation 12
That CCBC continues to provide conflict of interest training to councillors, at least on a biennial basis. The training should cover situations where councillors are lobbied by those with whom they have a relationship or association and the circumstances where this would give rise to a conflict of interest.
Recommendation 13
That the Department of Planning and Environment amends the Model Code of Conduct for Local Councils in NSW to generally prohibit councillors’ involvement in matters where they have a pecuniary or significant non-pecuniary conflict of interest, beyond exercising the general rights afforded to a member of the public. An exception should be made in circumstances where a councillor reallocates or delegates their duties, refers interested parties to the appropriate way of making a representation or makes a complaint due to becoming aware of improper conduct.
Recommendation 14
That the Department of Planning and Environment amends the Model Code of Conduct for Local Councils in NSW to include provisions about the appropriate role of council workshops. In particular, it should be made clear that workshops cannot be used to transact council business.
Recommendation 15
That CCBC continues to offer planning training to councillors during each term on their obligations under the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 , particularly regarding the consideration of planning proposals.
Published responses 10
24 month progress report - NSW Government
24 month progress report - NSW Parliament
24 month progress report - Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure (DPHI)
12 month progress report - update - NSW Government
12 month progress report - City of Canada Bay City Council
12 month progress report - Department of Planning and Environment
12 month progress report - NSW Government
Action Plan - City of Canada Bay City Council
Action Plan - Department of Planning and Environment
Action Plan - NSW Government
Coverage
This publisher
- Reports on investigations made public before 2016 are not online: the ICAC keeps only a summary for each, and copies must be requested from the ICAC. Those records hold the ICAC's published summary; findings and recommendations are not extracted.
- The ICAC copyright statement reserves all rights (fair dealing aside). OPAX keeps short verbatim finding and recommendation passages with links to the original report.
- Findings are read from the summary chapter of each report PDF. Where a finding's particulars run past the cited page only the finding statement is kept, and reports whose layout could not be read confidently are marked not_extracted.
- Agency action plans and progress reports are listed as documents; their contents (implementation status for each recommendation) are not parsed.
- Report PDFs without a text layer (scanned images, for example Operation Scania) are not OCRed; their findings stay not_extracted.
- Many pre-2016 summaries give only the month a report was made public; those records carry no date and a note with the month, because the schema holds day-level dates only.