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Former NSW Labor MP Ian Macdonald Sentenced To Ten Years In Prison

Found guilty of misconduct in a public office, he is eligible for parole in 2024.
Justice Christine Adamson told the court Ian Macdonald had betrayed the people of NSW.
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Justice Christine Adamson told the court Ian Macdonald had betrayed the people of NSW.

Former NSW Labor Minister Ian Macdonald will serve at least seven years in jail after being sentenced on Friday to a maximum 10 years imprisonment for misconduct in a public office.

Macdonald, 68, was found guilty in March of granting a mining licence to a company run by former Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) boss John Maitland in 2008 while he was the NSW Minister for Primary Industries and Mineral Resources, according to the ABC.

In handing down the seven-year non-parole period, Justice Christine Adamson told the court Macdonald had betrayed the people of NSW and also sentenced Maitland, as an accessory to the crime, to six years in prison without the opportunity for parole until 2021.

"The coal resources of New South Wales, which should have been used for the benefit of the whole society, were squandered by the criminal conduct of the very person who was trusted to safeguard them," she said.

"He was brazen about it. He bragged to his staff about the authority the legislature had given to him... Mr Macdonald did the wrong thing."

The sentencing comes as the second conviction of a former NSW Labor politician after Eddie Obeid was sentenced in 2016 to a minimum three years in prison for misconduct over business dealings.

A Supreme Court jury found Obeid guilty of misconduct in public office after he lobbied a former NSW Maritime bureaucrat give favourable conditions to Circular Quay leaseholders without revealing he had an interest in the businesses.

Obeid, 73, was sentenced to a minimum three years jail, non-parole, and a maximum of five.

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