Former Premier On Corruption Charges

Sydney Morning Herald

Friday November 7, 2008

Robert Taylor and Roy Gibson - with AAP

THE former West Australian premier and Labor star Brian Burke, his business partner Julian Grill and the former state Labor minister Norm Marlborough were charged with corruption yesterday.

The former chief of staff to the Carpenter government fisheries minister Jon Ford, Nathan Hondros, 34, was also charged with corruption and disclosing official information.

The first day of Parliament for the new Barnett Liberal-Nationals Government was overshadowed yesterday when the state Corruption and Crime Commission laid the charges.

The CCC said the charges related to investigations into development plans for Smiths Beach, south of Perth, land rezoning at Whitby in Perth's south-eastern outskirts, and lobbying around the pearling industry.

Burke, 61, whose lobbying activities dogged the government of the former Labor leader Alan Carpenter, was charged with five counts of giving misleading evidence to the Smith's Beach inquiry into developments in December 2006, one count of corruption relating to his dealings with Hondros while lobbying on behalf of a pearling company, and two charges of disclosing official information.

It is believed one of those charges relates to a draft policy document concerning the pearling industry and the other over information concerning a land release at Whitby.

Grill, 68, who is currently on trial charged with giving misleading evidence in the Smiths Beach inquiry has now been charged with corruption and disclosing official information while Marlborough has been charged with two counts of giving false evidence to the Smiths Beach inquiry.

Marlborough was dumped from the Carpenter cabinet and quit Parliament after the CCC Smiths Beach hearings revealed his close relationship with Burke.

It is believed the corruption charges relate to Burke and Grill's promotion of a Labor Party "dream team" of future candidates, among them Hondros, whom they were dealing with on behalf of pearling company, NorWest Pearls.

During a CCC hearing in March last year, evidence was given that Burke told Hondros that he could be one of 12 young people chosen for preselection to breathe new life into the Labor Party and take it through the next 15 years.

Burke allegedly said that if the party did not promote the dream team, Labor would be long-term f---ed.

The corruption charge carries a maximum of three years imprisonment and the disclosing official documents charge carries a two-year maximum penalty. The misleading evidence charges carry maximum jail terms of seven years.

CCC director of operations Nick Anticich said the commission referred the evidence to the Director of Public Prosecutions before the charges were laid.

Grill's lawyer Steven Penglis said in a statement: "He is very disappointed at the charges and that it has taken the commission this long to lay them, given that the public hearings they mentioned were held from October 2006 to February last year".

"The charges will be vigorously defended."

Burke declined to comment and Marlborough, 63, did not return calls. A lawyer for Hondros, David Moen, said the charges would be defended.

The four have been ordered to appear in Perth Magistrates Court on December 12.

WA STINK

Former ministerial chief of staff

One charge of corruption and two of disclosing official information.

Brian Burke

Former West Australian Premier

One charge of corruption, five of giving false testimony and two of disclosing official information.

In 1994 and 1997 jailed for defrauding the state over his travel allowance and stealing from the Labor Party, a charge that was later quashed.

Julian Grill

Former minister

Charged with one count of corruption and one of disclosing official information.

Expelled from the WA Labor Party in June 2005 for making a $5000

donation to the National Party in the lead-up to the 2005 state election.

Norm Marlborough

Former minister

Two charges of giving false testimony.

Resigned from parliament in 2006 following the release of taped phone

calls he had made to Burke.

© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald

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