An investigative journalist has told the criminal trial of former Labor ministers Eddie Obeid and Ian Macdonald that her expose of land acquisitions by the Obeids and their associates in an area where a coal exploration licence was subsequently granted was one of the more “momentous” in her career.

Journalist Anne Davies, now with the Guardian, was working for the Sydney Morning Herald in May 2010 when her article “Coal down below: how rich is his valley” was published.

Journalist Anne Davies was the last witness in the long-running trial of Ian Macdonald, Eddie and Moses Obeid.Credit:Nick Moir

Ms Davies revealed that then Labor MP Eddie Obeid and his family had paid $3.65 million for Cherrydale Park in the Bylong Valley. The journalist revealed the Obeids’ associates had snapped up neighbouring properties not long before the government’s announcement of a tender for a coal exploration licence in the vicinity.

Ms Davies, the last prosecution witnesses in the long-running criminal trial, told the court that Moses Obeid flatly denied organising for his childhood friend Justin Kennedy Lewis to buy a neighbouring property. He was quoted in the article expressing surprise at his friend’s farm purchase.

Moses was “outraged” at her suggestion that they were buying farms “under the cover of somebody else’s name,” she said. In the article Eddie Obeid not only denied any knowledge of coal in the valley at the time of purchase but when asked about the prospect of mining, he said, “I personally wish it would never happen.”

Moses Obeid (left), Ian Macdonald (centre) and Eddie Obeid (right) are on trial.Credit:Sydney Morning Herald

The Crown case is that the Obeids were untruthful in what they told Ms Davies and that the reason why the farms were purchased was because Macdonald had leaked confidential information about the proposed coal tender which the Obeids used to their advantage.

Two years later, while the trio were embroiled in a corruption inquiry, Moses and Eddie Obeid offered a different explanation to journalists from The Australian.

The Obeids admitted orchestrating the purchase of the neighbouring properties. They claimed in the article in The Australian on 29 December 2012 that it was a “defence” strategy to fend off possible coal mining by Anglo American which had an exploration licence in the area.

Justin Kennedy Lewis bought Coggan Creek, a property near the Obeids.

This “threat to the farm” led to Eddie Obeid facilitating a meeting between Moses and Macdonald, he told the paper.

Obeid, 76, his son Moses, 51, and Macdonald, 71 have pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiring to commit misconduct in public office over the alleged rigging of the 2009 tender for the coal exploration licence which covered the Obeids’s rural property.

Contemporaneous file notes taken by the Obeids’ then solicitor, Chris Rumore, show that Mr Lewis was introduced to him by the Obeids in November 2008 as the person they had found to buy Coggan Creek.

Mr Rumore gave evidence that the Obeids had already arranged for other associates, brothers Rocco and Ross Triulcio, to buy another property, Donola.

In his handwritten notes of a conference with one of Moses Obeid’s brothers and Mr Lewis on 7 November 2008, Mr Rumore outlined the proposal of the three landowners to jointly sell to their properties to the mining company that won the coal lease. "Sell @multiple not less than 4 times valuation," read Mr Rumore's notes. He also recorded that the group planned to gain a 30 per share of whichever mining company won the tender.

The Crown case is that Macdonald’s inside information on the bidders enabled the family to negotiate a stake in the winning bidder Cascade Coal. Their shareholding was later bought out for $30 million with the promise of a further $30 million. They had also negotiated to sell the three farms for quadruple their worth should a coal mine eventuate.

After the Crown closed its case on Tuesday afternoon the three defendants said they would not be calling any evidence. Justice Elizabeth Fullerton indicated that closing submissions would be heard in January 2021.

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