Jail break: Eddie Obeid enjoys first family holiday since prison release
Looking fit and relaxed, former Labor minister Eddie Obeid appeared not to have a care in the world when he enjoyed his first family holiday since being released from prison in December, The Sauce can reveal.
NSW
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Five weeks since walking free from jail, former Labor powerbroker Eddie Obeid looked not to have a care in the world as he enjoyed his first holiday post-prison with wife Judy and son Moses.
Dressed in a Nike T-shirt and a Rabbitohs cap, the former Carr government minister was spotted at a beachside cafe in Port Macquarie and also at his multimillion-dollar waterfront penthouse on top of the Rydges Hotel.
Obeid was released in December after serving a three-year sentence for misconduct in public office for failing to reveal his family’s financial interest in two Circular Quay cafes while lobbying a NSW bureaucrat over the plight of harbourside tenants.
Sources close to the family say Obeid has kept up the fitness regimen he began in prison during the holiday, rising at 5.30am each morning to walk from Port Macquarie to Oxley Beach.
At the same time, his son Moses was seen surfing and relaxing on the sand with an attractive woman in a black swimsuit and hat, helping him apply sunscreen.
The family has several property interests in Port Macquarie, including a major luxury beachfront residential development which is under way at Lake Cathie.
Named Catarina Village, the development includes houses and apartments with direct access to Rainbow Beach and surrounded by bushland.
The Obeids were seen taking a drive through the estate during their getaway.
THE HUMAN HEADLINE
He’s back. After 60 years in journalism, Derryn Hinch will return to television screens this year with a regular spot on Sunrise.
The former senator, shock jock and prisoner will join the popular morning show a few times a
week after his show on Sky came to an end.
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Hinch told The Sauce he was excited about his new role, especially as Seven’s ratings war with Nine heats up with the return of Karl Stefanovic.
It’s been almost a year since the “human headline” appeared on Sunrise in a fiery face-off with Pauline Hanson which Hinch believes was a contributing factor to him losing his senate spot.
He and host David Koch didn’t hold back, challenging Hanson over her party’s “anti-Muslim policies” in the wake of the Christchurch terrorist attack.
“I have never had so much shit flung at me as after that segment,” he said.
“I was never asked back.”
The 75-year-old admits his television career has taken him to “more stations than the Southern Aurora”, but said he was “coming home” to Seven where he fronted current affairs show Hinch between 1988 and 1992.
LANGUAGE WARNING
Union heavyweight John Setka seems to have given up any plans to tone down his creative language skills. At the end of 2017, on Twitter, Setka said one of his resolutions was to “cut the f**k back on swearing”.
But given the spectacle that was 2019, it will come as no surprise that Setka has thrown that ambition out the window.
In the latest CFMEU newsletter, a must-have for any summer reading list, he ruminated that he should simply change his name to Gordon Ramsay.
“He swears a lot more than me and he gets elevated to stardom,” Setka wrote.
“When I swear at a private delegates meeting they want to deregister (the) union and reopen Alcatraz.”
The proverbial will continue to hit the fan this year as Setka fights legal action from within the union, with national secretary Michael O’Connor challenging him on member-poaching. Whatever the result, The Sauce thinks a well-placed swear jar at CFMEU HQ would likely cover legal costs.
IT’S YOUR SHOUT
It’s been a very average month for Emergency Services Minister David Elliott.
He copped flak for going overseas in the middle of the bushfire crisis, received personal threats on his phone on two occasions (one leading to charges against the alleged offender) and had climate change graffiti sprayed on his Baulkham Hills electorate office.
Maybe things are slowly starting to turn though.
The graffiti has since been removed while a man charged with using a telephone to threaten and menace appeared in Ballina Local Court on Wednesday. He is due to reappear on February 26.
As for making amends with the community, The Sauce can reveal Mr Elliott returned to the fire-ravaged northern NSW town of Rappville four months after his first visit to fulfil a promise to buy every emergency services member a drink at the local pub.
While noting there seemed to a “suspiciously” larger group than he first had met, Mr Elliott confirmed no one missed out.
“Against all my Scottish instincts, I shouted the bar,” he said.
“It was the best money I’ve ever spent.”
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