With all eyes on ICAC, both sides of NSW politics are taking out the trash

August 6, 2026 — 5:00am

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John Ruddick isn’t a name many people outside the insular world of NSW politics have heard of. But since the Independent Commission Against Corruption’s Operation Rosny inquiry began last week, Ruddick, a Libertarian Party upper house MP elected with 3.5 per cent of the statewide vote in 2023, has been on a lonely crusade to convince anyone credulous enough to listen that the anti-corruption watchdog is leaking to The Sydney Morning Herald.

Last week, he went on Ben Fordham’s 2GB show to opine that, because the Herald keeps breaking stories about the inquiry, they must be coming from ICAC itself.

The evidence seemed a little thin, beyond the fact we sometimes cite anonymous sources. But what he lacks in proof, Ruddick makes up for in conviction. On Tuesday, he was up in parliament asking Special Minister of State John Graham about it. This time he came with a smoking gun: printouts of six articles he’d read on the Herald’s website.

I can’t speak for my colleagues, but, as the co-author of some of the articles Ruddick cited, all I can say is: “I wish.”

It is a reminder that crisis breeds opportunity, and no one in NSW politics is letting Rosny go to waste.

While right-faction Liberal figures such as Damien Tudehope have sweated through their turn in the ICAC witness box, the denizens of Macquarie Street and their associates have been hard at work.

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© The Sydney Morning Herald