DOES anyone care if a blind eye was turned to a government minister as he drugged and sexually abused young boys in his Parliamentary workplace? 

Do they care if a blind eye was turned as he did the same at an ALP State Conference? 

Does anyone even care if government colleagues looked the other way while he used and supplied drugs in the NSW Parliament? 

ROYAL COMMISSION

Former NSW Aboriginal Affairs Minister Milton Orkopoulos recently completed an 11-year prison term for such offences. He was convicted in 2008 of 26 charges of paedophilia and other drug related charges. The former Central Coast MP was released on bail on December 19, 2019.

While Orkopoulos has served his time, it appears many other senior politicians are “lucky” the recently completed Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse didn’t extend into the NSW Parliament.

According to witnesses, his was a crime in plain site. But resulted in almost complete silence.

Victims aside, the only person to raise an alarm was Minister Orkopoulos’s subordinate, Ms Gillian Sneddon, who was later sacked after defying “advice” to keep quiet.

At around the same time, Orkopoulos’s victims were issued police warnings telling them to stop “harassing” the minister. It took the media to raise concerns before action was finally taken.

QUESTIONS

While Orkopoulos has now paid for his crimes, it doesn’t feel as though justice has been served. There are too many questions for others to answer before these crimes can be put to rest.

The community – and the victims – deserve to know what’s been going on in the people’s house.

Whistleblower Ms Sneddon has sworn that senior government figures knew about Orkopoulos well before his arrest.

“If I’d have kept my mouth shut, it would have been covered up,” she is reported as saying.

“[The] treatment of me the whole way down the line, from the parliament, from my colleagues and from politicians [has] been a disgrace.”

One of the victims, who was 16-years-old at the time, has condemned politicians for “protecting” Orkopoulos and called for an investigation into who knew what.

“I honestly believe that … members of the upper echelons were told about the allegations before Milton was arrested,” he said.

“I will always believe that and I will always stand by it.”

LIBERALS

After rumours broke in the media, future NSW Labor Premier Nathan Rees, who worked as an Orkopoulos staffer at the time, abruptly transferred to then Premier Morris Iemma’s office. Why?

Liberal Party parliamentarians, then in opposition, accused a number of ALP MPs and ministers of being aware of suspicions around Orkopoulos as far back as 2004. But they were brushed off at the time. “It was a matter still before the courts,” they were told.

Now that the Liberal Party is in government, it’s past due to revive these accusations.

This matter is no longer before the courts, but it should be.PC