When Richard met Eddie

In 1999 George Richard Torbay contested and won the NSW seat of New England as an independent.
In 2013 he intended to stand for Federal Parliament as a National Party candidate.
On the 20th March he suddenly resigned from the NSW Parliament and from the Nats, allegedly because his relationship with Eddie Obeid has been referred to ICAC. He also resigned as UNE Chancellor.
Richard and Eddie Obeid came into contact early in his political career and the Torbay-Obeid connection was so well-known it was raised in parliament over 5 years ago.

The Green Left on the 23rd June 1999:

“On January 19, around 100 protesters constructed four tripods on Timbarra Road. Police panicked at the size of the protest and reacted violently, arresting 12 protesters. In early May, more than 100 protesters blockaded the access road between Tenterfield and the mine site. Ross Mining and its government supporters are moving to clamp down on the campaigners. A delegation of Tenterfield local government leaders, Ross Mining executives and local MP Richard Torbay are to meet with NSW resources minister Eddie Obeid later this month. Torbay threatened: "I support people's right to protest in an orderly manner, but I am concerned that protesters seem intent on disruption, regardless of the merits of the mine. I will be working hard to change the laws to protect companies that are doing the right thing." Ross Mining admits that it plans to use 700 tonnes of cyanide each year to extract gold from the mine. One gram of cyanide is the lethal dose for humans. The mine will also use 75 tonnes of caustic soda and 60 tonnes of hydrochloric acid to extract 50,000 ounces of gold, worth $20 million a year. These chemicals represent a significant environmental threat to the region because the mine is on a highlands, which feed into the Clarence River.”

Part of a Melinda Pavey MLC motion listed in the NSWLC Notice Paper for 27^th February 2007:

“That this House further notes:

(b) the continued close relationship of the Honourable Eddie Obeid as a strategist with the Member for Northern Tablelands, Richard Torbay’s Independent Party,

(c) that the Honourable Eddie Obeid was instrumental in Labor’s decision not to run in the Dubbo by-election last November, deserting the local ALP membership and providing back door support to Richard Torbay's candidate Dawn Fardell,”

Granny Herald on 23rd November 2008:

“He said politics is tougher and crueller than he had anticipated. During one campaign, he says, some Nationals apparatchiks played the race card, suggesting to anyone who'd listen that he was related to unpopular Labor right-wing number cruncher Eddie Obeid, also of Lebanese background. "I had to remind them that there were lots of people from Lebanon I wasn't related to."

Tony Abbott's 'Australians for Honest Politics Trust' may come under the legal spotlight

Former One Nation Co-founder states intention to sue Liberal Party Leader Tony Abbott

Making sure that one remnant of the Howard era, NGO gag orders, never surfaces again

Introduced into the Australian Senate on 13 March 2013:

A Bill for an Act to prohibit Commonwealth agreements from restricting or preventing not-for-profit entities from commenting on, advocating support for or opposing changes to Commonwealth law, policy or practice, and for related purposes.

The Bill engages and promotes the right of freedom of expression as set out in Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Right (ICCPR). The Bill will prevent the Commonwealth from including clauses in agreements that prevent or restrict NFP entities from advocating on Commonwealth policy issues.

What will the Australian Press Council do about this?

The Daily Telegraph's blatantly false Page One headline of 18 March 2013

Mr Denmore ‏@MrDenmore

Oh, the author of The Tele's carbon collapse fiction is our friend Steve Lewis, he of Ozcar and Ashby fame.

Mr Denmore ‏@MrDenmore

The Tele's source for the 'carbon collapse' are unnamed 'experts'. Odd as the share market is at a 4-year high and business confidence is up

Yesterday morning I happened on these two tweets and this snapshot on Twitter. Given New Limited's involvement in the current hysteria surrounding the Federal Government's response to the 2011 and 2012 independent media reviews, I went to that day's issue of The Daily Telegraph and this is what I found. The Daily Telegraph's Steve Lewis and Phil Jacob are asserting that: New data from the corporate regulator reveals insolvencies have hit a record high over the past 12 months, led by widespread failures in manufacturing and construction, which accounted for almost one-fifth of collapses. The Australian Securities & Investments Commission reports there were 10,632 company collapses for the 12 months to March 1 - averaging 886 a month - with the number of firms being placed in administration more than 12 per cent higher than during the global financial crisis. While the high Australian dollar is seen as the main factor behind manufacturing closures, experts say the carbon tax is adding to increasing cost burdens for many firms struggling to stay afloat. The first problem with this statement is that it is plain wrong. The "10,632" figure does not come from a twelve month period ending on 1 March this year - this total is for the 2012 calendar year. A clue for these two journalists might have been found in the fact that the data set was released on 18 February 2013. What The Daily Telegraph journalists also do not say is that in the total figure quoted almost half of these external administration/insolvencies occurred before the introduction of the 'cabon tax' and, that prior to the tax, in February-March 2012 there were 2,137 insolvencies which made this the highest combined figure for two consecutive months in a data set which begins in 1996. As for the more than one business is going the wall every hour in Australia found in text in the snapshot above - I suggest that The Daily Telegraph invest in new batteries for the office calculator as that Page One assertion is wrong on so many levels. So what else in that Lewis-Jacob article is open to question? Well, let me start with Grain Products Australia the country’s only manufacturer of caramel and dextrin and one of only two wheat starch and gluten manufacturers. A company in liquidation since 11 March this year and one the journalists try hard to mold into a carbon tax victim. Over six months before the introduction of the carbon price, this company went into voluntary administration citing the high cost of wheat and what were then solely state electricity charges. That leaves Penrice Soda Holdings the only Australian soda ash manufacturer. It was quoted by the Lewis-Jacob team as saying that the reason it was ceasing local raw material quarrying and importing its soda ash was that the carbon tax was effectively the straw that broke the camel's back. However, a little basic fact checking would have shown that last February it told its shareholders and the Australian Stock Exchange that the factory closure was reflecting deteriorating demand conditions in soda ash and quarry material markets as well as impacts from a high Australian dollar. There was not one word about the carbon tax. Finally, the biggest whopper these two journalists told about the business sector in 2012 which is this line; with the number of firms being placed in administration more than 12 per cent higher than during the global financial crisis. The Global Financial Crisis began in 2007-08 and did not lose momentum until 2009-10. Even the most mathematically challenged News Limited employee would realise that the business external administration/insolvency totals for those years far exceed the 2012 total which The Daily Telegraph is currently treating as an end of days event. So what will the Australian Press Council do about a newspaper which so distorts the facts and journalists whom I'm told now know that they have based their 10,632 company collapses on a dodgy premise? Why its twenty-three members will pretend that they never saw or heard of this article - unless a member of the public makes a formal complaint. UPDATE: The Leader of the Opposition makes the mistake of relying on the Lewis-Jacob article during the House of Representatives Question Time on 18 March 2013. A reliance the Minister for Industry and Innovation and Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, Greg Combet, notes during that same Question Time: ...over the last couple of days the Leader of the Opposition, the New South Wales government and the Daily Telegraph have been misleading the public yet again about the impact of carbon pricing. Yesterday it was a false claim about electricity prices in New South Wales. Today the Daily Telegraph is back with ridiculous claims about economic catastrophe, repeated here today in the very first question by the Leader of the Opposition—there seems to be some commonality of approach that we are witnessing. The Telegraph story today takes the misuse of statistics, hysterical headlines and distortion of facts to levels that would have done Pravda proud during the height of the Cold War.