By Anne Davies
In the Labor Party, creative insults hurled at political opponents, be they the Liberals or the rival faction, are a badge of honour, a skill honed at state conferences and perfected in Parliament. Who could forget former prime minister Paul Keating's ''a souffle doesn't rise twice'', directed at Andrew Peacock in 1989 as he attempted to regain the Liberal leadership a second time. Or his description of John Hewson as ''a feral abacus''.
Former Labor leader Mark Latham favoured the more pungent, branding the Howard government ''a conga-line of suckholes'' on foreign policy. Less often, though, are the tensions within a faction on public show, especially within the Left, where decades of numerical inferiority to the Right have promoted an outward solidarity.
A few choice insults: Paul Keating.Credit: Mike Bowers
At this week's Independent Commission Against Corruption hearings, the insults have flown thick and fast as those in the Left have sought to distance themselves from the disgraced former primary industries minister Ian Macdonald and responsibility for his 22-year-stint as a senior Left MP and minister.
ICAC is investigating Macdonald's decision to grant a coal exploration licence at Doyles Creek in the Hunter without tender to a group of investors which included former Left mining union boss and friend John Maitland. The proposal included a ''training mine'' but was vigorously opposed by the minister's department because they believed it was tantamount to writing a ''blank cheque'' worth millions.
Mark Latham.Credit: Penny Bradfield
At the heart of the matter is whether left-wing allegiances played a part in any corrupt conduct. A parade of senior Left figures have been called, not because there is any stain against them, but to give evidence of the power relationships within the faction.
The most vocal critic of Macdonald within the party was and remains Luke Foley, formerly the most senior Left party official - he was NSW Labor assistant secretary - and now leader in the upper house.
Known as Sir Lunchalot, Macca had a reputation for the high life and of bestowing patronage on those who were mates.
By 2006 Foley had formed a view Macdonald should be stripped of his preselection.
Ian Macdonald.Credit: Ben Rushton
Under the cloak of privilege provided by ICAC, Foley was able to vent his long-held view about Macdonald. ''I'd received over a number of years a chorus of complaint from senior figures in the NSW Labor government regarding Mr Macdonald's conduct, regarding his actions, and through my own observations as well I had formed the view that Mr Macdonald had abandoned Labor principle, had lost his moral compass and was not deserving of continued Labor preselection for Parliament,'' he told ICAC.
''It was very clear to me that Ian Macdonald was not loyal to the Left. He was loyal to other elements within the NSW parliamentary Labor Party. He was an agent and operative of Eddie Obeid and the Terrigal Group.''
And he didn't stop there: ''Well, one of Ian Macdonald's nicknames was bestowed by Bob Carr, that he was Della's [John Della Bosca] pet crocodile. Another nickname was that he was Obeid's left testicle.''
Only David Rowe, the cartoonist for The Australian Financial Review, dared to go where Foley's words suggested. But the word picture was conjured and the barb sunk deep.
Macdonald's counsel, John Fernon, SC, hit back, accusing Foley of disloyalty and self-interest.
Hadn't he once played cricket at Macdonald's country property? Hadn't he been the leaker behind an article in The Daily Telegraph outlining a deal struck at the Noble House Chinese restaurant among factional heavyweights for Macdonald to serve two more years and then retire? And wasn't he the ultimate beneficiary in that he took Macdonald's seat in Parliament?
A day later, Senator Doug Cameron fired back, saying Macdonald had ''dogged the deal''. After the Hawke-Keating Kirribilli agreement, such accusations have particular resonance.
ICAC also heard how Maitland's proposal for a training mine had poisoned relations within the mining division of the CFMEU.
The present president, Tony Maher, gave evidence that he initially regarded Maitland's proposal for a training mine as ''chasing rainbows''.
When Maitland asked him to sign a pro forma letter endorsing the idea of a grant of a new exploration licence in the particularly coal-rich Doyles Creek, Maher said no.
''I said to him that if, of all the people, of all the project proponents that could come to me and say would you support this concept, the last person I could do that for would be him, because he's a former official of the union. And I said, you know, I wouldn't lobby for you to get a mine, a training mine, and I won't sign a letter that makes it look like I would because, you know, it would be a bad look for the union, and I wasn't prepared to do it,'' he told ICAC. ''I don't think John ever spoke to me again … unless it was at an airport lounge somewhere.''
But Maitland, a larger-than-life figure in the mining union, did not rest there. He tried to win support from Maher's deputies and to effectively roll Maher.
The assistant secretary, Peter Murray, sought to bring the training mine back to the union's executive with the added idea that the union should invest in it. ''We told him: if it looks like a duck and walks like a duck, it's corruption,'' Maher said.
''You don't get something for nothing. It's a ridiculous idea and we weren't going to have anything to do with it, and from that point it wasn't raised again.''
Maher's relationship with his deputy, Murray, became so ''dysfunctional'' that he left another official, Andrew Vickers, in charge of the union when he went overseas.
He later learnt that Murray had gone behind his back and written a letter of support for the Doyles Creek project in his absence. Murray left in 2008 and went to work for the Doyles Creek project. As for the man Murray went to work for, Craig Ransley, Maher opined that he was ''the most offensive person I have ever met''.
Macdonald and Maitland are due to give evidence to ICAC in about a fortnight. The score-settling is sure to continue.