A Sydney mayor was “provided benefits”, including a series of overseas trips, by property developers in return for decisions that favoured their interests, the Independent Commission Against Corruption has heard.
On Tuesday Icac opened its public hearings into the alleged conduct of Canada Bay mayor and former federal and state Labor party candidate Angelo Tsirekas.
The hearings are part of an investigation into whether Tsirekas accepted developer-funded trips overseas to Shanghai and Lebanon as an “inducement or reward” for approvals of a high-rise development in the inner-west suburb of Rhodes.
Counsel assisting the inquiry, Jamie Darams, opened the public hearing by saying the ongoing investigation relates to a series of “interconnected” relationships between Tsirekas and property developers, consultants, planners and an accountant.
Tuesday’s evidence centred on one of those developers, I-Prosperity Group, which is now in liquidation. The inquiry heard two of its directors, Michael Gu and Harry Huang, were both in hiding after fleeing Australia in wake of accusations of misappropriating investors’ money.
Darams said Icac was investigating whether Tsirekas sought or accepted benefits from I-Prosperity Group as “inducement or reward for partially and dishonestly exercising his official functions” in relation to the Rhodes high-rise.
He outlined a series of overseas trips taken by Tsirekas and Joseph Chidiac, a friend of the mayor’s since 2010 and a contractor paid about $1.4m by I-Prosperity, to Shanghai, Lebanon and the United States between October 2015 and June 2019.
Darams told the inquiry that Icac would hear evidence showing that I-Prosperity paid for Tsirekas’s accommodation during a trip to Shanghai in January 2016, during which he was a guest at Huang’s wedding.
“To be clear, from November 2015 and June 2019, the evidence is expected to show Mr Tsirekas went overseas on 24 occasions and that on many of these occasions this was in the company of Mr Chidiac,” Darams said.
Darams told the inquiry that Tsirekas has not declared any potential conflicts from his relationships with Gu, Huang between Chidiac 2015 and 2019.
Tsirekas, who has taken a period of leave as mayor, has previously said he will defend himself against the allegations.
The inquiry heard evidence from Belinda Li, a Chinese national who helped to finance the high-rise proposal in Rhodes, who said she remembered being in Shanghai for Huang’s wedding with Tsirekas and Joseph Chidiac.
Li, who told the inquiry she lost about $5m after the collapse of I-Prosperity, had been closely involved in the day-to-day planning associated with the Rhodes development.
She remembered both Tsirekas and Chidiac being in Shanghai in January 2016 for the wedding, and taking them sightseeing.
“I remember taking them to have a play around in Shanghai [to] try some street food [and] local traditional locations,” she said.
While Tuesday’s evidence centred around I-Prosperity and its now defunct high-rise plans in Rhodes, the Icac inquiry, which spans a period dating back a decade to 2012, will also look into Tsirekas’s dealings with developers Billbergia and Prolet, as well as a series of allegedly favourable decisions made for friends and associates of the mayor.
Run by Irish brothers John and William Kinsella, development firm Billbergia has amassed significant development holdings within Rhodes between 2008 and 2019, as has Prolet, run by another pair of brothers, Joseph and Pierre Jacob.
Darams told Icac that between 2012 and 2016, Tsirekas voted in favour of resolutions linked to the two companies without making declarations about his relationship with either of them.
Darams said the inquiry would hear evidence that since 2012 Tsirekas had “attended dinners, lunches and other functions” with one of the Kinsella brothers, and that he had been friends with Joseph Jacob for about a decade.
He said the inquiry would also hear that Chidiac was engaged to provide services for Billbergia and was paid about $550,000 by the company between 2015 and 2018.
He also negotiated an agreement with companies associated with Prolet and the Jacob brothers to provide his services, again for substantial reward.
“The public inquiry will investigate whether Mr Tsirekas deliberately failed to declare or disclose his relationships with Billbergia, Prolet and Mr Chidiac and the reasons why he did that,” he said.
The wide-ranging inquiry is also investigating whether Canada Bay council’s former general manager, Gary Sawyer, “partially and dishonestly exercised his official functions and failed to disclose the nature of his relationship” with developers.
This article was amended on 27 April after an earlier version said Chidiac had received substantial reward for his work with Prolet and the Jacob brothers, whereas Icac heard he had negotiated an agreement to receive substantial reward.
