There was a great deal of interest when one of the state's most accomplished and costly barristers stood to announce his appearance at the Independent Commission Against Corruption on Monday morning.
Whoever was briefing Tony Bannon, SC, who had a junior barrister and a solicitor in tow, wouldn't get much change from $7000 a day. It was soon revealed that Mr Bannon was representing Senator Arthur Sinodinos.
Mr Bannon's arrival could not have come at a better time for the beleaguered senator, given the devastating evidence against his client that followed.
At 11.30am Kerry Elizabeth Schott, one of the key witnesses at the inquiry into the breathtaking corruption within Australian Water Holdings, settled into the witness box.
The former Sydney Water chief executive told the inquiry that not long after Mr Sinodinos - as he then was - became chairman of AWH in November 2010, they arranged to meet in the city to talk about the company's out-of-control expenses it was billing Sydney Water. With her was John Brown, who was on Sydney Water's audit committee.
In measured tones Dr Schott told the inquiry AWH's expenses had shot up from $200,000 a month to $600,000 but that the infrastructure minnow had refused to provide any details of the costs. This refusal of his company to co-operate over the ballooning costs was detailed to Mr Sinodinos, Dr Schott said.
But there was worse to come. ''We suggested to Mr Sinodinos he might be careful with company he was keeping. We thought that they may be dishonest,'' offered Dr Schott.
Given Mr Sinodinos' legendary political nous, one might wonder why he didn't run a mile. This was the second warning that Mr Sinodinos received that all was not right in AWH.
Six month's before Dr Schott's admonition, financier Rod De Aboitiz, who had invested $1 million in AWH, told Mr Sinodinos the directors were paying themselves ''extremely high'' salaries and racking up excessive costs while the company was in a parlous financial state. He said he told Senator Sinodinos: ''Arthur, you know that solvency is a big issue for a director.'' De Aboitiz, the former chief financial officer at investment bank Rothschild, also pointed out to Mr Sinodinos the mysterious payments going from AWH to the Liberal Party.
The inquiry has heard that more than $75,000 of money being billed to Sydney Water by AWH was being donated to the Liberal Party. At the time Mr Sinodinos was the treasurer of the NSW branch of the party. Dr Schott wasn't the only one of the opinion that AWH were a dishonest bunch.
Although she kept trying to tell AWH that Sydney Water was not a bottomless pit of money, they went behind her back blackening her name and trying to persuade Labor ministers to do their bidding. As the water minister, Nathan Rees was one of those whose door was constantly pounded by the AWH folk. Dr Schott said that Mr Rees was not fooled by the visitors, He used to refer to them as ''a bunch of crooks''. As for minister Tony Kelly's attempt to forge cabinet minutes, Dr Schott remarked that it was ''a terrible abuse of government process''.
Mr Bannon will have his opportunity to earn his keep when he cross-examines Dr Schott when the inquiry resumes on Tuesday.
It is not just Senator Sinodinos who has suffered from ICAC's probing. Peter Canaway, from the engineering firm BG &E, has inherited a sewer pit in the form of AWH. As soon as stories began to appear in the media that AWH was linked to the family of corrupt Labor power broker Eddie Obeid, Mr Canaway said chances of selling the company evaporated. ''Any white knights that may have been around started finding something else to do,'' he said.
And while his predecessors were paying themselves millions, Mr Canaway said of his AWH earnings: ''I'm still waiting for my first dollar.''
His accountant wrote in February 2012 that AWH was ''currently insolvent and living in an overhead world they can't afford''.
Due diligence also revealed ''some personal usage of the company account for limousine services''.
Mr Canaway was generous in his praise of former treasurer Michael Costa, who took over after Mr Sinodinos' departure for the Senate.
