Posted May 23, 2017 14:09:33

Photo: Former NSW Labor minister Eddie Obeid was jailed for five years. (AAP: David Moir)

The New South Wales Government will introduce legislation to strip former politicians of their super pensions if they are convicted of a serious offence after they leave office.

Currently only politicians who are convicted while they are in office lose their pension.

Former minister Eddie Obeid was jailed for misconduct in public office last December, and the Government announced it would change the laws as soon as Parliament resumed.

Six months after they flagged the changes, nothing had been done and an ABC News report two weeks ago revealed the Berejiklian Government was coming under increased pressure to take action.

"Unless these changes are made, politicians convicted of serious criminal offences will be able to live off their taxpayer-funded pension entitlement and that's just not fair," NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said.

NSW's most notorious powerbroker had a colourful career but his empire building eventually caught up with him.

The legislation means Obeid will lose his pension, estimated to be worth more than $100,000 per year.

"This is a man who potentially will be getting hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars of public funding, you know when we're making hard funding decisions about public education, to think that amount of public money is going to a disgraced former politician is itself disgraceful," Greens MP David Shoebridge.

The Government agrees.

"The days of Obeid, Macdonald and their cronies benefiting at the expense of the people of NSW are over," the Premier said.

The legislation will succeed as it has wide support in both houses of Parliament.

Members elected to Parliament before the 2007 election are entitled to a pension under a defined benefits super scheme.

Topics: government-and-politics, political-parties, alp, parliament, state-parliament, law-crime-and-justice, corruption, nsw