Queensland had the Fitzgerald Inquiry and the Moonlight State. New South Wales has Eddie Obeid.

Meet Australia's most corrupt politician whose brazen misdeeds were said to be on a scale "unexceeded since the days of the Rum Corps".

From the shadows Obeid ran the state as his fiefdom, making and unmaking premiers.

His tentacles stretched through all levels of government, encircling almost every precious resource - coal leases, Circular Quay cafes, marinas, even the state's water. All of them were secret money-spinners for Obeid and his family.

Above ground, below ground, in the air, on the water, there was no domain beyond Obeid's grasp. Now, many of the key politicians of his era have given a candid account of Obeid's pernicious backroom influence.

Following their groundbreaking investigations, the award-winning journalists Kate McClymont and Linton Besser have unearthed the vast but secret empire Obeid built over decades, producing an authoritative account of how he got away with so much for so long.