With friends like these ...
At 11.50am on Thursday, September 12, 1991, MPs from the two houses of the NSW Parliament - the Legislative Assembly and Legislative Council - met in a joint session to approve the millionaire businessman and Lebanese newspaper owner Eddie Obeid as the state’s newest Labor MP.
He was the ALP head office’s candidate to succeed Jack Hallam, the former agriculture minister and leader of the opposition in the upper house…
The opposition leader, Bob Carr, jumped to his feet saying: ‘’I propose Edward Moses Obeid, OAM, as an eligible person to fill the vacant seat.’’…
Obeid’s political career was sponsored by Graham Richardson, the former NSW ALP general secretary who became a senator and a senior cabinet minister in the Hawke and Keating governments…
Richardson had met the owner and publisher of the Arabic-language El Telegraph during the late 1970s and was impressed by his willingness to donate to the ALP and by his bountiful hospitality…
...someone else crafted Obeid’s inaugural speech… He gave public thanks to his supporters, starting with Richardson and including Carr, Wran, Della Bosca, Loosley, Michael Easson, the federal parliament speaker, Leo McLeay, upper house MPs Johnno Johnson and Deirdre Grusovin and former attorney-general Terry Sheahan…
At 11.50am on Thursday, September 12, 1991, MPs from the two houses of the NSW Parliament - the Legislative Assembly and Legislative Council - met in a joint session to approve the millionaire businessman and Lebanese newspaper owner Eddie Obeid as the state’s newest Labor MP.
He was the ALP head office’s candidate to succeed Jack Hallam, the former agriculture minister and leader of the opposition in the upper house…
The opposition leader, Bob Carr, jumped to his feet saying: ‘’I propose Edward Moses Obeid, OAM, as an eligible person to fill the vacant seat.’’…
Obeid’s political career was sponsored by Graham Richardson, the former NSW ALP general secretary who became a senator and a senior cabinet minister in the Hawke and Keating governments…
Richardson had met the owner and publisher of the Arabic-language El Telegraph during the late 1970s and was impressed by his willingness to donate to the ALP and by his bountiful hospitality…
...someone else crafted Obeid’s inaugural speech… He gave public thanks to his supporters, starting with Richardson and including Carr, Wran, Della Bosca, Loosley, Michael Easson, the federal parliament speaker, Leo McLeay, upper house MPs Johnno Johnson and Deirdre Grusovin and former attorney-general Terry Sheahan…
