The Vast Majority

In 2008, a new shape appeared on a map of New South Wales. A coal exploration area called Mount Penny, in the Bylong Valley.

Years later, the minister responsible was asked, at a public inquiry, how he knew where to put it. He said he was pretty good at geography.

When Mount Penny was granted, its boundary covered, in the corruption commission's own words, "the vast majority" of a cattle property a politically connected family had bought the year before, to retire on. And all of the two farms next door.

Ian Macdonald, Edward Obeid and Moses Obeid were convicted in 2021 of conspiring to commit wilful misconduct in public office. Every appeal was dismissed, the last by the High Court of Australia on 4 February 2026.

The family received $30 million. Thirteen years, a public inquiry, a criminal trial and two appeals later, not one dollar of it has ever come back.

Built entirely from the public record.

New episodes weekly.

CHAPTERS
00:00 A new shape on the map
01:38 1906: the minister nobody could convict
03:28 The farm
05:54 The minister
07:36 How you open a coalfield
09:14 The bid that lost on purpose
10:54 What a shape on a map is worth
12:52 The room
14:55 Thirteen years
17:37 Where the money went
20:17 The valley

SOURCES
R v Macdonald; R v Edward Obeid; R v Moses Obeid (No 17) [2021] NSWSC 858
R v Macdonald; R v Edward Obeid; R v Moses Obeid (No 18) [2021] NSWSC 1343
Macdonald v R; Obeid v R; Obeid v R [2023] NSWCCA 250
Obeid v The King; Macdonald v The King [2026] HCA 1
Independent Commission Against Corruption, Operation Jasper report, July 2013
Mining Amendment (ICAC Operations Jasper and Acacia) Act 2014 No 1 (NSW)
NSW Crime Commission, Jasper II report, 24 April 2025
ABC News, 1 February 2013 and 24 October 2021

Everything named in this episode is a matter of criminal conviction or the public record. Sources are above. If you find an error, tell me and I will correct it and note the correction here.

Audit This takes one story at a time and follows it to the end.

Audit This takes one story at a time and follows it to the end.

Every episode is built from the public record: court transcripts, sentencing remarks, corruption commission findings, Hansard and auditor general reports. No speculation. No dramatisation.

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