NSW Liberal MP John Sidoti takes the stand for fourth day in ICAC inquiry

Embattled Liberal MP John Sidoti has denied ‘threatening’ a female councillor while jogging in the inner west.

John Sidoti has accused the NSW corruption watchdog commissioner of being “disrespectful” for suggesting the embattled Liberal state MP wasn’t giving straight answers in a Friday hearing.

It came as the former minister said that any benefit to his family’s property interests that could have come as a result of his involvement in City of Canada Bay council business would have been incidental.

The Drummoyne MP also denied “exploding” at and making threats against a female councillor on a jog in Sydney’s inner west.

Mr Sidoti said despite email records showing him suggesting specific language for Liberal councillors to use in relation to the zoning of an area where his family had property interests, he was “indifferent” to the outcome.

Mr Sidoti was asked about an email he sent to City of Canada Bay councillors suggesting language they could use in a 2016 meeting about zoning in the Five Dock neighbourhood.

John Sidoti has accused the corruption watchdog commissioner of being ‘disrespectful’. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Christian Gilles

“Hope this helps,” Mr Sidoti wrote in an August 2, 2016 email to councillor Tanveer Ahmed that was also forwarded to other councillors.

“I move that,” he continued in the email before copy-pasting a block of text with instructions for what to say at the meeting.

“Tanveer is moving,” he added when forwarding the email to mayor Helen McCaffrey.

The counsel assisting, Rob Ranken, suggested to Mr Sidoti that the email showed he wanted the motions passed as worded.

Mr Sidoti said he didn’t agree with that view, suggesting he didn’t care what the outcome would be.

It prompted Mr Ranken to say: “It is absolutely ridiculous, is it not, to suggest that you were indifferent to whether or not a resolution of this kind passed.

“It was a resolution that directly favoured your family’s property interests,” he continued.

“It may have, that’s the reality …” Mr Sidoti began before getting interrupted by Mr Ranken.

“May have? It definitely would have,” the counsel assisting said.

“I had a hat as an MP, I was representing all the views. And if that came into contact with the private interests of my parents – to their interests, and everyone else in the block – that was not my intention,” Mr Sidoti said.

Later on in the hearing, he said: “There was never any pressure, it was all about me passing on information.”

Mr Sidoti maintained that he only came to understand in 2019 that he was the beneficiary of a family superannuation fund through which one of the family’s properties, on 120 Great North Road in Five Dock, was held.

Canada Bay councillor Mirjana Cestar at the Bay Run in Sydney’s inner west.

He maintained that position even after Mr Ranken presented to him a disclosure form he had signed in 2014, declaring that “a super fund with which I am a member has invested in a unit trust which holds investment properties on 120 Great North Road, Five Dock” among other properties.

Mr Sidoti, who had just been made parliamentary secretary for planning at the time, said he didn’t understand what it was he was writing when he prepared the document.

“So, you didn’t understand it,” the commissioner asked.

“No, I just copied that off some financial document because I was just going through Mum and Dad’s stuff,” Mr Sidoti said.

“Because I always thought planning was controversial, and hence I wanted to over-disclose.”

Mr Sidoti was also asked about an exchange with councillor Mirjana Cestar that happened after they ran into each other at the Bay Run in the inner west in December 2016.

Ms Cestar wrote to her council colleague Michael Megna in a text message shortly after the run-in that Mr Sidoti was “exploding” at her and “making threats etc etc”, the commission was told.

Mr Sidoti agreed he and Ms Cestar spoke about a planning proposal for Five Dock that was to be dealt with by the council at an upcoming meeting.

But he denied “exploding” or making threats, instead saying she was the one who was loud and argumentative.

“It was a Saturday morning, I had been running. I was hot,” Mr Sidoti recalled.

“I said to her, ‘The items coming up, the Five Dock town centre, are you across all the detail?’ And I got a strange look. I was huffing and puffing still, and I said, ‘Have you read it yet?’

“And that’s as far as we got because she became very defensive,” he said, adding that in his recollection Ms Cestar raised her voice and accused him of calling her lazy.

Independent Commission Against Corruption chief commissioner Peter Hall said Mr Sidoti (left) was ‘obfuscating’ and making speeches instead of directly answering questions. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Joel Carrett

When Ms Cestar was asked about the same encounter while giving testimony earlier in the month, she said the MP’s behaviour made her feel “compromised” and that she thought he was trying to “leverage” her position on the council to benefit his family.

Throughout Friday’s hearing, Mr Sidoti frequently butted heads with Mr Ranken and Independent Commission Against Corruption chief commissioner Peter Hall, who at one point said the Drummoyne MP was “obfuscating”.

He said the way Mr Sidoti was answering questions – by making “speeches” in the words of the commissioner – wasn’t appropriate.

During one heated exchange, Mr Sidoti suggested the commissioner was “disrespectful” and didn’t let him finish his answers.

“Commissioner, I’m trying my best, but you won’t allow me to finish, and it’s quite disrespectful,” Mr Sidoti said.

At another point in the hearing, Mr Ranken asked the MP: “Are you incapable of understanding the questions I’m asking?”

“No, I’m answering your questions,” Mr Sidoti replied.

“It’s got a bit hot this morning,” Mr Hall said after both Mr Sidoti and the counsel assisting the commission raised their voices at each other.

The ICAC is investigating whether Mr Sidoti, a former NSW minister, misused his position to improperly influence councillors and lobby them on behalf of his family’s property interests.

Mr Sidoti has consistently denied the allegations. Friday’s hearing is the fourth day in a row he has been testifying before the ICAC.

More to come