http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/tripodi-in-line-for-top-job-at-marconi-20100713-109if.html
Tripodi in line for top job at Marconi
ERIK JENSEN
July 14, 2010
EXCLUSIVE
oe Tripodi is poised to be an unlikely beneficiary of the resignation of senior executives at Club Marconi amid an investigation into the club's books.
The Labor powerbroker's name has been put forward by selected directors for the general manager's job, for $400,000 a year, at the western Sydney institution - an incentive for him to leave Macquarie Street.
The package, which includes a car, would be on top of the $106,165 parliamentary pension he will receive each year after he leaves politics.
''The view was that Joe be approached to step down,'' a source familiar with the meeting said. ''If he did step down, this could be a position for him.''
The Herald understands Mr Tripodi, a life member at Marconi, was approached with the proposition on Monday night. The backbencher refused to comment last night.
Sources inside Sussex Street have been pushing for Mr Tripodi's resignation since he was a minister, because of a perceived taint about his associations and his position as a backroom man in the party.
The calls have intensified since Nathan Rees's speech in December, on his last day as premier, in which he hinted at Mr Tripodi's role in a ''malign and disloyal group'' in the party and damned any future leader as ''a puppet of Eddie Obeid and Joe Tripodi''.
This week, Mr Tripodi was referred to the Independent Commission Against Corruption for creating a position at NSW Maritime in 2006 when he was ports minister, for which he then recommended two associates.
The Marconi position became vacant in the course of a private investigation into irregularities in the club's books, during which the chief executive and president resigned.
The investigation alleged resources from the club had been misdirected to a pub owned by Marconi's departed president, Tony Campolongo, and that significant renovations to a coolroom at the pub had been concealed in bills charged back to Marconi.
The pub was run by the son of the club's chief executive, Deborah Feening, who was also the authorised signatory on the pub's bank account.
She has since resigned and is now general manager of the Cronulla Sutherland Leagues Club. She and her son deny the claims of misused resources.
The secret meeting of club directors drew up three other contenders for the position: a former adviser to Mr Tripodi, Rocco Leonello; a present director and chartered accountant, Graziano De Bortolio; and a Fairfield Liberal councillor and former club director, Frank Oliveri.
The acting chairman of the club, Vince Foti, denied the meeting took place but would not rule out Mr Tripodi as a candidate.
''We are looking for a CEO and in due course we will be interviewing people of that calibre,'' he said. ''They are four candidates in a field of 1000.''
