Icac’s drama and dirt files show NSW’s ‘guns for hire’ problem. But neither major party is serious about reform

Chris Minns is trying to address the threat of undeclared lobbying but falls well short of what the commission recommended five years ago

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A dirt file on a state minister peddled to journalists. A subterranean campaign to discredit the building commissioner. Convincing the Liberal party to unseat councillors in the Hills district who were blocking a developer.

The New South Wales corruption watchdog’s recent inquiry, Rosny, revealed the ease with which the key protagonists – a group of rightwing Liberal operatives known as the Reformers, all of whom were former staffers – could move along the corridors of NSW parliament.