The buzzword 'metadata' has been thrown around in the
political realms recently, but very few have an in-depth
understanding of what it is and what it can do. Even the
government's own spokesman Mr George Brandis famously struggled
to explain it in an interview on Sky News (see link at the
end).
Let us not forget the important role metadata played in
combination with the infamous bottle of Grange that caused the
demise of former NSW Premier Mr Barry O'Farrell. A key piece of
ICAC's evidence was the phone call metadata proving that
conversations between Mr Barry O'Farrell and Mr Nicholas Di
Girolamo took place on specific dates. Although ICAC has no idea
what the content of the calls were in their exchange of phone calls
in early 2011, Mr O'Farrell's inability to explain why they
took place, and together with the later revealed handwritten thank
you note, ended his political career in spectacular fashion.
