It shows that the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption certainly makes high office in this country more accountable – and vulnerable.

And so it should.

It’s now resigned to history that Mr O’Farrell failed to note the gift of a bottle of Penfolds Grange wine on his MP interests register and could not recall receiving the 1959 vintage wine from Liberal Party fund-raiser Nick Di Girolamo when asked about it at an ICAC hearing on Tuesday.

Mr O’Farrell, who built his government on a platform of honesty and integrity, was left with only one option when ICAC produced a handwritten note he had sent to the Mr Di Girolamo.

Australian National University expert in political ethics Professor John Uhr weighed into the drama yesterday and is right when he says there is a “big lesson” for all politicians to learn from this.

“He probably has done the right thing (in resigning)," Professor Uhr said.

“He went out of his way [Tuesday] night to give a kind of exaggerated defence of his honesty and all it takes is a piece of paper to show you if you are not right on that, what else aren’t you right on?”

That sums it up pretty well.

Sadly, at the federal level of politics there is little to enforce ethical behaviour and conflicts of interest.

Professor Uhr said there is no honest third-party examination to act like an ethics council or ethics commissioner forcing them to do a bit better in their due diligence obligations.

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