FORMER NSW mineral resources minister Ian Macdonald faces more time in jail after a court found he corruptly handed a coal exploration licence to a company linked to an ally.
But former CFMEU national secretary John Maitland, who chaired the company awarded the mining deal, has been acquitted following the pair's NSW Supreme Court retrial.
The court on Tuesday found Macdonald had no reasonable cause or justification to grant two licences to Hunter Valley company Doyles Creek Mining in 2008.
The process Macdonald employed lacked real scrutiny, was contrary to departmental advice and bypassed a competitive tender process that could have reaped larger rewards for the state, the court said.
At the time, large miners including BHP and China Shenhua were bidding far above expectations for exploration licences, amid a rise in coal prices, the court was told.
While satisfied Macdonald wasn't bound by departmental advice and was hardworking and committed to his portfolio, Justice Hament Dhanji said the minister was required to use his powers for a proper purpose.
Instead, Macdonald's driving force was to benefit Mr Maitland and DCM, leading the judge to find the now-73-year-old guilty of two counts of misconduct in public office.
"The combination of circumstances is such as to exclude any reasonable possibility that the decision to grant DCM consent to apply was motivated by a proper purpose to an extent inconsistent with guilt," Justice Dhanji said.
Macdonald, who left parliament in 2010, will face a sentence hearing in February.
He's already serving a nine-and-a-half-year jail term for corrupt practices concerning another mining licence related to Eddie Obeid.
Mr Maitland, 76, also faced trial for being an accessory before the fact, accused of unlawfully encouraging or assisting the then-minister in awarding the contract that allegedly cost the state up to $100 million.
But he was acquitted on Tuesday after Justice Dhanji was left with doubt that Mr Maitland intended for Macdonald to act unlawfully.
Both men have long maintained their innocence.
Macdonald gave evidence that he'd not acted improperly while both disputed the characterisation of their relationship.
The Crown called them mates but Maitland testified it was not "a close friendship".
The court was told DCM centred its application for the exploration licence around a proposal to build a training underground mine to increase safety and boost skills.
The proposal was supported by Mr Maitland and fed into Macdonald's interest in mine safety.
But the training mine was only a small part of the entire proposal, incorporating a commercial operation projected to generate a $1 billion profit over its lifetime.
If the underground training mine was considered essential, it could have been made a prerequisite in any competitive tender process, the judge said.
A public servant told the court that tendering the licence could have netted the state between $50 million and $100 million.
But Justice Dhanji placed no weight on the estimate as there was no evidence Macdonald knew of it or factored it into his corrupt decision.
The judge-alone retrial occurred after earlier convictions were overturned by an appeal court due to a misdirected jury.
In a separate trial in 2021, Macdonald was found guilty along with former Labor minister Eddie Obeid and his son Moses Obeid of conspiring to commit wilful misconduct in public office over Macdonald's awarding of a coal exploration licence that granted the Obeid family a $30 million windfall.
He has lodged a conviction and sentence appeal.
Australian Associated Press
