Calls for probe into Neville Wran-era corruption in NSW

Support for an inquiry into new claims of corruption during the era of NSW premier Neville Wran is growing.

Former NSW premier Neville Wran in 1978.

Support for an inquiry into new claims of corruption during the era of NSW premier Neville Wran is growing as Clarrie Briese, former NSW chief stipendiary magistrate, has joined the late premier’s former staff in calling for an independent probe.

Mr Briese, a vital witness at judicial corruption inquiries in the 1980s who was attacked by Wran, has declared “wholehearted” support for an inquiry into the circumstances of the unsolved Luna Park ghost train fire in 1979 that killed six children.

The call from five of Wran’s former senior staff for an inquiry to clear the former premier’s name followed an ABC program that examined allegations late crime boss Abe Saffron had ordered the fire to get a lease for the site and was protected because of a relationship with Wran.

Former ABC chairman David Hill has slammed the broadcaster for implicating Wran in the cover-up of the investigation of the Luna Park ghost train fire and for alleging a social relationship with gangster Saffron.

Mr Hill, who ran the ministerial advisory unit in the Wran government and the State Rail Authority, said the documentary, Exposed: The Ghost Train Fire, should never have been broadcast with those slanderous assertions. “Making these sorts of extremely damaging alle­gations I just find are unacceptable. I never saw anything that Wran ever did that would even suggest any merit or credibility for these claims,” he said.

Mr Hill and four other senior Wran staff, in a letter to The Australian on Monday, called for an inquiry into the aftermath of the 1979 Luna Park fire in the interests of the families of the victims and to give Wran the chance, posthumously, to clear his name “after a false allegation made by an ABC TV program”.

Mr Briese, in a letter to The Australian on Wednesday, says the ABC program highlighted that evidence before the coronial inquiry into the Luna Park fire was “false or inadequate in significant respects”.

“It had the effect of hiding the truth,” he says. “The truth or otherwise of these allegations needs to be investigated by a body with sufficient powers to do that comprehensively.”

Mr Briese gave evidence to parliamentary inquiries and NSW trials relating to corruption allegations involving former NSW chief stipendiary magistrate Murray Farquhar, who was found guilty, Wran and High Court judge Lionel Murphy.

Before the ABC program, Mr Briese produced new evidence in his book from NSW police in relation to judicial corruption and allegations of Wran using Farquhar to interfere in a case against former Balmain Rugby League boss Kevin Humphreys.