“I did the only thing I could,” she says, as we drive past the little church hall in Carrington where the Labor branch used to meet. She replaced the sitting member Bryce Gaudry, who’d been in Parliament 16 years without much troubling the scorer. The Liberals cut 1800 education jobs in 2012 under Barry O’Farrell. Jodi McKay stood firm. “I remember putting my hands up to my face,” McKay says, “and thinking, ‘Oh my God, I am crying in ICAC’. ci-dessous. I am disappointed; he’s still making excuses. You can’t change things from the outside.” There is “no way” she would be parachuted in again, she tells me. "To walk past this would be to accept an impossibly low standard in government.". Led by Jodi McKay following her election as leader of the Australian Labor Party (New South Wales Branch) and NSW Leader of the Opposition on 29 June 2019; the shadow ministry was announced on 3 July. I believe good government is about caring for people – whether you seek a job, decent healthcare, a good school for your child, dignity and independence in retirement, and, an environment that future generations can enjoy, I was born and raised in the country town of Gloucester. "They think that if everybody just stands back out of the way, the market will fix everything - we in Labor know that just entrenches privilege and inequality," Mr Albanese said. Tinkler’s strategy was two-fold. “We made a commitment to each other that we would do what we could to try and clean up politics in NSW,” she says. One of them was Jodi McKay. Since that campaign, donations from developers had been made illegal in NSW so McKay took steps to ensure she wouldn’t be compromised again. Now the tables have turned. Owen was forced to admit he kept the $10,000. Today, I represent Strathfield, one of Sydney’s most multicultural areas. Barry O’Farrell was forced to resign as premier. At one of her branches, in the old dockside suburb of Carrington, all 40 members resigned, led by Wran-era stalwart Arthur Wade, who said nobody wanted “that girl”. The next day, Owen was ambushed by McCloy’s barrister. “Towards the end of the discussion,” she tells me, “he started talking about how hard it was going to be for me to win the election.” It was an odd segue. In evidence to the commission he denied ever offering McKay a bribe, but said he had donated $50,000 to a group called the Newcastle Alliance Group “to get rid of her”. “It is a window into how corrupt certain sections of the Labor Party had become,” says Greg Combet, the former federal Labor minister who represented a Newcastle electorate. A BIRTHDAY-timed holiday turned into a bigger celebration for Hunter Minister For politicians, that moment of truth comes when self-interest comes face to face with what is right and in the best interests of the people they are elected to represent. Eight members of his Liberal government have quit the party and are sitting on the cross benches, awaiting political sentencing. “What was in this for Buildev? The flyers falsely claimed that 1000 trucks a day would trundle past their houses because of McKay’s support for a container terminal. In the contest for Newcastle at the 2011 NSW election were two star recruits: McKay, a newsreader and journalist for the local television station, and her Liberal opponent, former RAAF officer Tim Owen. But why go back to the bear pit, I ask as we head back down the freeway to Sydney, after all that has happened? Federal Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese also addressed the convention, criticising his federal counterparts and saying the Liberal Party "always revert to type". You couldn’t go anywhere in Newcastle without seeing Owen’s face; he seemed to have an endless supply of cash. “You are a developer.” She says Tinkler replied: “I have hundreds of employees. Ms Berejiklian has repeatedly denied wrongdoing, saying she was not aware of Mr Maguire's dealings despite ICAC-broadcast phone intercepts of their conversations. “That her own colleagues would conspire to defeat Jodi McKay, a competent cabinet colleague, in an election, in favour of the Libs, in order to grant favours to a property developer, is just extraordinary.” Former Labor premier Kristina Keneally describes it as the ultimate act of political betrayal. Straight out of Gloucester High, she scored a job in the library at Newcastle’s NBN TV and within months was offered a cadetship on the proviso she’d work with a voice coach to iron out the Gloucester twang. Jodi McKay is the Labor Leader in NSW. It had been in the planning for years and all they needed was Roozendaal’s signature. At a public debate at Newcastle City Hall in March 2011, just weeks before the election, McKay was pitted against the Opposition’s Hunter spokesman, Mike Gallacher, who would go on to be Police Minister. McKay was parachuted into the electorate in 2007 when the then premier, Morris Iemma, intervened to ensure her preselection. It got to the point where I knew I was going to lose but there was no way I was going to bend.”. “I just don’t feel comfortable here anymore,” she says. "We've heard (Ms Berejiklian) knew exactly what Daryl Maguire was doing - she knew and did nothing (and) has turned a blind eye to misconduct for six-and-a-half years. Former premier Nathan Rees, who elevated her to cabinet, says she was impressive from the outset. "Our mission will always start and finish with jobs," Ms McKay said. “I just will not do that because if I go in through the National Executive I’d just be perpetuating what has always been wrong with the party.”. Finally, she got him on the phone. She went with Labor. I believe good government is about caring for people – whether you seek a job, decent healthcare, a good school for your child, dignity and independence in retirement, and an environment that future generations can enjoy. Owen’s life is in tatters. It sits empty, just as it has since the steelworks closed 15 years ago. What the audience didn’t know, and McKay suspected, was that Buildev had donated money to Gallacher. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/jodi-mckays-moment-of-truth-at-icac/story-e6frg8h6-1227114531230, Will $4.4 billion be provided in the federal budget for building stages 2 and 3 of…, By IAN KIRKWOOD THE potential for a Newcastle container terminal led to a rowdy exchange…, By IAN KIRKWOOD Crakanthorp welcomes new interest in terminal NEWCASTLE MP Tim Crakanthorp is scheduled to…, © All Rights Reserved Container Terminal Policy in NSW, How Container Terminal Policy Developed in NSW, Latest Correspondence commencing March 24 2017, Federal and NSW government are all talk and no funds – Australian Financial Review, Port growth fires debate – Newcastle Herald, Pushing the container case – Newcastle Herald, Revisiting a port of call – Newcastle Herald, Editorial – Another planning strategy – Newcastle Herald, Foley rues missed port chances – Newcastle Herald, OPINION: Restrictions may be unlawful – Newcastle Herald. McKay scraped home in 2007 but it left her battered and bruised. “You can’t donate,” McKay says she told Tinkler. Hi, I’m Jodi McKay. “I didn’t know Jeff [McCloy] from Adam, I don’t think I had ever met him formally at that time.” Really, you got into his Bentley, he handed you $10,000 in cash, and this didn’t arouse some curiosity about who he was? Wills admitted Tripodi was hatching a deal to work for Buildev after the election. Wills produced thousands of anonymous flyers titled “Stop Jodi’s trucks” which were distributed in McKay’s electorate in the weeks before the election. And then thinking, ‘I finally know what is going on’.”, Then came an overwhelming sense of relief, and by the time Tinkler’s barrister started to cross-examine her she’d composed herself. Raised in the small town of Gloucester in country NSW, Jodi was an award-winning Newcastle journalist before moving into the private and non-for-profit sectors. Executive and non-executive director for leading not for profit health, research and science organisations, corporate communications director, journalist in television, radio and print media. Inner metropolitan. Only NSW Labor will reinvest in our schools and TAFE. It was like Christmas at the Rineharts. That was just the way things were done.’ It is a failure to have thought at all about what was happening – and using some kind of conventional wisdom to justify it – that gets people into trouble.”. It was, ICAC heard, a bribe. THE Newcastle Knights fans are making their way to the stadium for the last game of a glum year, a season in which the embattled businessman Nathan Tinkler forfeited ownership of the team. There were several things that stood between Tinkler and a shipload of cash. McCloy is one of Newcastle’s richest men and one of its most prominent developers. He was in the process of buying the club, a move McKay supported, and she agreed to meet him over this issue. Tinkler wanted to build a coal-loading terminal, despite its close proximity to houses at Mayfield and despite the fact he didn’t have the necessary approvals or a lease on the land fronting the port. “There is a strong moral fibre in Jodi,” he says. I wanted to show them that I didn’t devalue the contribution they had made to the Labor Party.”, McKay and the current NSW Premier Mike Baird started in parliament together and, despite being on opposite sides, became friends. He took it from her. It was a lie. Or will they wilt? Former state MP Jodi McKay, 45, has been chatty and relaxed on the drive up from Sydney but now, stopped at a set of lights near Hunter Stadium as flag-waving fans saunter past, her arms are crossed, her lips are pursed and she’s retreated into herself. An ICAC lawyer asked: “If I told you we’ve got pretty good information that there were three people behind this [orchestrated campaign against you], the Tinkler Group, Miss Anne Wills and Mr Joe Tripodi, what would you say in response?” For a moment she couldn’t say anything. People who I trusted turned against me.” This place had been her home for 25 years. "They think that if everybody just stands back out of the way, the market will fix everything - we in Labor know that just entrenches privilege and inequality," Mr Albanese said. Authorised by Bob Nanva, 377 Sussex Street, Sydney. Master of Public Administration (MPA) (Sydney). She encouraged the party's faithful to look beyond the coalition travails and remind themselves of the government's "bungled projects", a budget "propped up by easy money from privatisation" and its failure to care for the vulnerable. She told the Newcastle Herald she was “absolutely disgusted with Tim and what has happened.” Owen admits this has placed a great strain on his marriage and the relationship with the rest of his family. She said she didn't take the "big talker" ex-MP seriously when he discussed his business activities with her or his attempts to clear $1.5 million in debt. It was an extraordinary revelation. Ms Berejiklian has repeatedly denied wrongdoing, saying she was not aware of Mr Maguire's dealings despite ICAC-broadcast phone intercepts of their conversations. I also don’t pander to influential powerful people.”, So why did McKay do the right thing when so many of her political colleagues didn’t? I was born and raised in the country town of Gloucester. “When you ask, ‘Why didn’t you see it back then?’ the most common response is, ‘Oh everybody was doing it. In the ICAC hearings, Tim Owen was found to have taken tens of thousands of dollars worth of illegal donations from Tinkler’s company, Buildev, and also from the former Lord Mayor of Newcastle, Jeff McCloy. Early in 2011, someone from Buildev called to say Tinkler would like to discuss the Newcastle Knights. McKay is making a political comeback. He admitted he and McCloy met in Hunter Street, Newcastle, and that when he got into McCloy’s Bentley the developer handed him an envelope of money. According to the ICAC evidence, Tinkler effectively had both sides on his payroll. After a week in which th premier's clandestine five-year "close personal relationship" with ex-Wagga Wagga MP Daryl Maguire - now under the ICAC spotlight - was exposed, Ms McKay on Saturday addressed the 2020 NSW Labor convention in Sydney.