Sydney mayor says he was ‘badgered’ into inviting Eddie Obeid to his wedding

Canterbury Bankstown Mayor Khal Asfour said he was badgered into inviting then Labor kingmaker Eddie Obeid to his wedding by former Labor colleague Tania Mihailuk but he had “a stronger backbone now”.

Asfour, who has been endorsed as an upper house candidate for Labor in the state election, said he was “not a fan of” Obeid, who is now serving a jail sentence for corruption, and had no contact with the disgraced former MP or his sons. “[I] haven’t visited Eddie in jail,” Asfour said.

Khal Asfour, Tania Mihailuk and Eddie Obeid.Credit: SMH

Mihailuk, the member for Bankstown, told parliament under privilege in September that having Asfour as a candidate would be disastrous for Labor, saying she had concerns about his links to Obeid and his “unprincipled actions” in furthering the interests of developers.

She was sacked from Labor’s front bench as a result, and has since quit the party.

Asfour is also under fire over a taxpayer-funded master of business administration and an overseas trip taken by he and other councillors, for which a council press release said they were paying themselves but which actually cost ratepayers almost $150,000.

In an interview with 2GB host Ben Fordham on Wednesday, Asfour said it was Mihailuk who “badgered me to invite Eddie Obeid to my wedding back in 2010,” he said. “She rearranged the seating arrangements at my wedding.” Asfour said she wanted to sit next to Obeid.

“She was the mayor at the time trying to get into parliament, and he was at the time a senior NSW powerbroker, and she used his patronage to get into parliament. It wasn’t to help me, it was actually to help her,” Asfour said.

When asked why he would allow other people to arrange the seating at his own wedding, Asfour said she was the mayor at the time and was “relentless … I did say ‘no you’re not [changing the seating]’, but she continued to harass me.

“I do have a stronger backbone now.” He said Obeid gave him flowers and a few hundred dollars in an envelope for his wedding.

Asfour said Mihailuk had been “coming after me for 10 years … this isn’t new. When I became mayor and she became the state member of parliament, she wanted me to be her puppet, she wanted to be my puppet master. I refused.”

Mihailuk said the allegations were untrue.

Labor leader Chris Minns said Asfour’s connection with Obeid was historical, as was that of many politicians who worked with the disgraced former MP at NSW parliament. “Obviously, that’s a dark period when it comes to Labor administration in NSW, and no one would argue otherwise,” he said.

“But I think most fair-minded people … would understand the connection, particularly when, as [Asfour] identified earlier, it was a casual connection associated with the encouragement of the member for Bankstown Tania Mihailuk.”

When asked why Asfour did not ignore Mihailuk’s views on his own guest list and seating arrangements, Minns said he could not pick through the social circumstances of a wedding he did not attend more than a decade ago.

Asfour also justified the American trip, saying there was a return on the investment. He said he did not write the press release that said councillors would pick up the bill, even though it actually cost taxpayers almost $150,000.

When asked about his taxpayer-funded masters of business administration, Asfour said, “it’s important I have the skills to do the job to the best of my ability. I want to be at the best of my ability, the top of my game.”

He would pay it back if anyone could show he had done anything wrong.

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