Campbell Newman man Jon Grayson to keep stake in Eddie Obeid firm

QUEENSLAND’S  top public servant intends to retain his major stake in a company set up last year with Nick Di Girolamo and Eddie Obeid Jr.

QUEENSLAND’S  top public servant intends to retain his major stake in a company set up last year with former Australian Water Holdings boss Nick Di Girolamo and Eddie Obeid Jr.

Jon Grayson, picked by Campbell Newman to become director-general of the Department of Premier and Cabinet because of his business experience, says he has only a passive interest in Gasfield Water and Waste Services and is not aware of any dealings by the company since he joined the Queensland government, in March 2012.

Mr Di Girolamo and Mr Obeid were among six equal shareholders in GWWS when it was set up last May but transferred their shares to Dennis ­Jabour, the company’s sole ­director and Mr Obeid’s cousin, in August.

Mr Grayson said GWWS was created to “facilitate the exit of AWH’’ from an earlier joint venture, Gasfields Water Management, he had with the water infrastructure company in Queensland.

The NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption has heard allegations that AWH ­secretly billed the taxpayer-owned Sydney Water — with which it had a contract to provide infrastructure — for expenses it incurred in Queensland.

Barry O’Farrell resigned as NSW premier last week after ­admitting he had misled ICAC when he denied receiving a gift of Penfolds Grange from Mr Di Girolamo, who as chief executive of AWH was lobbying the state government for further work.

An AWH board minute of 2011, tendered to ICAC, reported Mr Di Girolamo saying AWH largely bankrolled Gasfields Water Management, in which Mr Grayson held a 25 per cent stake.

“The CEO explained that as AWH would be the company’s main financier, it was appropriate we take a controlling interest (75 per cent) in the company,’’ the minute said. Mr Grayson had been providing advice to AWH, through its subsidiary Australian Water Queensland, as it pushed for contracts in the state.

ASIC records show Gasfields Water Management was deregistered in December, six months after GWWS was set up. Mr Grayson now holds a one-sixth stake in GWWS, with Mr Jabour holding 50 per cent and the balance held by Labor-aligned veteran board director Wayne Myers and former Treasury official Tony Bellas.

Mr Grayson has told Newman government officials he will retain his stake in GWWS. In a statement issued last month he said he had no role in its management. “Mr Grayson became aware of these shareholdings after GWWS was established,’’ the statement said of his knowledge of Mr Di Girolamo and Mr Obeid Jr initial shareholding.

The ICAC hearings have been told AWH made more than $500,000 in Queensland, and had negotiated a $5 million contract with a developer before it closed its subsidiaries late last year amid the corruption investigations. The board minutes also show AWH created its wholly-owned subsidiary Australian Water Queensland in 2009 around Mr Myers. The 2009 AWH board minutes say “the CEO (Mr Di Girolamo) discussed the proposed appointment of Wayne Myers as a director’’.

However the minutes say “we cannot continue to use him as a consultant due to new legislation ... that prohibits government board members to act as lobbyists (Wayne is on the Queensland-owned Ergon Energy Corporation board and is chairman of Stadiums Queensland, a Queensland government authority).”