The New South Wales corruption watchdog has ended its investigation into former Labor minister Tim Crakanthorp after concluding there were “no reasonable prospects” of finding his conduct was corrupt.
Crakanthorp was sacked from state cabinet in August after it emerged the Newcastle MP had allegedly failed to declare “substantial private family holdings” relating to his wife’s family.
Neither Crakanthorp’s wife nor her family were accused of any wrongdoing.
The matter was referred to the Independent Commission Against Corruption (Icac) after the premier, Chris Minns, sacked Crakanthorp from cabinet.
The premier had been made aware of several properties across the Hunter region that were owned by the minister’s family and had not been declared. Crakanthorp was the minister for the Hunter.
Icac announced it had “terminated” its preliminary investigation on Wednesday afternoon.
“As the Commission is satisfied that there are no reasonable prospects of finding Mr Crakanthorp’s conduct is sufficiently serious to justify a finding of corrupt conduct, it has terminated its investigation,” a spokesperson said.
The findings were contained within a report that was handed to the secretary of the Cabinet Office and Minns. Within the report are findings concerning Crakanthorp’s conduct in relation to the ministerial code.
“The report has been provided so that they are appraised of the outcome of the Commission’s investigation, the Commission’s findings and for the purpose of taking any action they consider appropriate,” the Icac spokesperson said.
The report has not been released publicly but a government spokesperson said there were “clearly public interest considerations in favour of disclosure of the Icac’s report”.
“The premier is taking legal advice on options for timely publication of the report,” they said.
The opposition leader, Mark Speakman, called on the premier to “take all reasonable steps” to release the report as quickly as possible.
“It is overwhelmingly in the public interest for premier Chris Minns to release the Icac report,” he said.
Crakanthorp was dumped from cabinet but the premier did not move to expel him from the state caucus. He said he would only do so if Icac began a formal investigation into the MP.
At the time, Minns said the Newcastle MP had “failed to comply with his obligations as a minister” by not declaring the properties, causing potential conflicts of interest for matters discussed by the cabinet and within his ministry.
“Mr Crakanthorp did not supply information about substantial private family holdings in the Hunter region until recently, when he should have, constituting a clear breach of the ministerial code,” Minns said.
Crakanthorp claimed he had resigned as minister and had self-reported the matter.
“I appreciate and firmly believe ministers must be held to the highest standards and would like to note that this oversight was identified due to my own self-reporting,” he said at the time.
Crakanthorp has been contacted for comment.
