Former mining minister Ian MacDonald’s wife Anita Gylseth (pictured) sent a list of complaints to the New South Wales premier including the hefty visiting bills
The wife of a jailed former Labor minister has sent a list of complaints about her husband’s imprisonment to the New South Wales premier.
Ian Macdonald was jailed in June 2017 for a maximum of 10 years for criminal misconduct in the mining industry – something his wife Anita Gylseth believes is an injustice and inconvenience to her family.
Ms Gylseth sent a fuming email to NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian claiming her husband was being held in custody too far from her family home in the Blue Mountains, making the prison visits expensive and timely.
Ian Macdonald (pictured) was jailed in June 2017 for a maximum of 10 years for criminal misconduct in the mining industry
Ms Gylseth told Daily Mail Australia she visited her husband roughly once a fortnight, making it a costly exercise however, she wasn’t ‘the only one who travels to see their loved ones’.
The former bureaucrat said her family was suffering a ‘nightmare’ because her husband had been moved to correction centres in Junee and Cooma, both in NSW.
‘(Cooma) is a nine-hour round trip or if I stayed overnight the cost of accommodation was added to the hefty fuel bill,’ she wrote in an email last month obtained by Sydney Morning Herald.
‘My husband is innocent and should not be in jail let alone be trucked all over the state to ensure maximum harm comes to his mental state and mine.’
The business owner confirmed she wrote an email to ‘half a dozen’ Labor MPs and liberal ministers in June.
‘I never read a reply from anyone,’ she said.
The former Labor minister’s wife also claimed the ’email was leaked by a Labor member’.
Ms Gylseth told Daily Mail Australia she visited her husband (pictured in a blue tie) roughly once a fortnight, making it a costly exercise but she wasn’t ‘the only one who travels to see their loved ones’
In emails obtained by Fairfax Media, the criminal’s wife said her family was suffering a ‘nightmare’ because Mr Macdonald had been moved to correction centres in Junee and Cooma (pictured), both in NSW
The former mining minister was put behind bars for giving a coal exploration licence to now jailed former boss union John Maitland.
Ms Gylseth said it was a ‘mistake’ to contact the particular parliament members after the government was ‘deceived by a rogue organisation’.
‘The bigger picture is what I perceive to be a Corrective Services department under immense pressure from cost cutting measures,’ she told Daily Mail Australia.
The disgraced minister’s wife wrote in the emails that Mr Macdonald’s annual colonoscopy and hernia operation were overdue, according to Fairfax Media.
Ms Berejiklian would not comment on the matter.
The former mining minister (pictured) was put behind bars for giving a coal exploration licence to now jailed former boss union John Maitland