Sacked former minister Tim Crakanthorp will not be returned to cabinet despite the NSW anti-corruption watchdog announcing it had terminated its investigation into his failure to declare his family’s “substantial” property holdings because there was “no reasonable prospects” he would be found corrupt.
“The report has been furnished to the secretary of the Cabinet Office, and the premier of NSW, who are the relevant public authority and responsible minister for the purposes of this matter,” the ICAC said in a statement. After the ICAC issued its statement on Wednesday afternoon, a spokesperson for Premier Chris Minns said the government was seeking legal advice over whether it could release the report.
Crakanthorp’s wife, Laura Crakanthorp, and father-in-law, Joe Manitta, own a substantial property portfolio in Broadmeadow. “I do have to report to the House that there may have been matters over the preceding four months that may have caused other breaches or caused … an investigation by the corruption watchdog particularly in relation to those undisclosed properties and his actions as a minister,” Minns said in August last year.At the time, Crakanthorp insisted the failure to disclose the property interests was an “omission” and that he had self-reported it.