Jailed politician Eddie Obeid still getting pollies pension

Disgraced former Labor minister Eddie Obeid is still receiving his parliamentary pension.

Obeid was sentenced to five years in jail, with a minimum non-parole period of three years after his conviction for misconduct in public office in June last year. Now the New South Wales Government is under pressure to explain why it has not changed the law to stop him still receiving the cash. According to a Sky News report last year, Obeid’s lifetime annual pension is worth more than $120,000 a year.

Changes would mean former MPs charged with serious offences after they had left office would lose their superannuation. Currently, this only happens if they are charged while in office.

In December last year, then-premier Mike Baird said when Parliament resumed in 2017, the Government would move to amend the Parliamentary Contributory Superannuation Act 1971. Nothing has been done and Greens MLC David Shoebride wants to know why, reports ABC News. “This is a man who potentially will be getting hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars of public funding, you know when we’re making hard funding decisions about public education, to think that amount of public money is going to a disgraced former politician is itself disgraceful,” Mr Shoebridge said.

Mr Shoebridge said the public had the right to know when Obeid would stop receiving his parliamentary pension. A spokeswoman for the State Government said the legislation would be amended “as soon as possible”.

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