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Despite being presented with a record of a mobile phone call, a receipt from the courier company and a signed handwritten thank you note, Mr O'Farrell has said he still cannot recall nor explain what happened to a gift of an expensive bottle of wine from businessman Nick Di Girolamo.
After being grilled in the ICAC witness box and denying under oath he had received the bottle of Penfolds Grange, valued at $3,000, Mr O'Farrell issued a media release and held a media conference denying the claims.
Steve van Aperen, a behavioural expert, has analysed the media conference and shares his views on Mr O'Farrell's body language on Insight.
While behavioural analysis has its limitations, and is subject to a number of variables - meaning it is not an exact science - Mr van Aperen's analysis provides an extra view of events over the last week.
The qualified polygraph examiner has conducted behavioural interviews on numerous homicide investigations and relies on three areas – verbal, non-verbal and paralinguistics – to help him look for changes between what a person says and does.
"Usually what I look for is conflict or contradiction, between what a person is saying with their body language is in fact stating. Now at one stage he said 'I did not receive a bottle of grange', but he was actually nodding his head in the affirmative … that's contradictory," Mr van Aperan told Insight.
"Another body language thing was every time questions were asked about the Grange; he would take the lapel of his suit and actually close it. It's almost like self-protective mechanism, almost like a self-pacifying gesture, and we saw that only during the times of questions related to the receiving, or anything to do with the wine."
Mr van Aperan said as the questions and the probing started to increase, Mr O'Farrell started offering less information.
"He was very specific about the 1959 bottle of Grange, and then later on, throughout the interview, it starts to change. 'I would remember' or 'I don’t believe', or 'I don't recall'," he said.
"Now that's a total lack of confidence in what he's saying ... so it's wishy washy. One minute it's yes, it could've been, probably, maybe, and then later on it's I did not, so there's inconsistencies there."
As the questioning became more intense and there was more scrutiny of his answers, Mr van Aperan told Insight he saw an increase in distressed signals coming from Mr O'Farrell.
"All human beings exhibit the same facial expressions of happiness, sadness, anger, contempt, surprise and so on. Now when he started feeling a little uncomfortable, we saw the look of contempt, which is a unilateral movement of the lip to one side, so obviously those questions made him feel very uncomfortable," he said.
"The other thing I look for is how many times he deflected. Now often when a question becomes a threatening stimulus, and people feel uncomfortable, they'll deflect or change the subject or move on. Now a number of times he bought up Sydney Water, Australia Water Holdings … that’s all very nice and well, but it's actually taking us away from the subject about whether or not he received that bottle of wine."
In a statement made after resigning, Mr O'Farrell reiterated that he did give evidence to the best of his knowledge.
"In no way did I seek to mislead, wilfully or otherwise, the Independent Commission against Corruption … But this has clearly been a significant memory fail on my part, albeit within weeks of coming to office, but I accept the consequences of my actions," he said.
Former New South Wales Premier Nick Greiner, appearing on ABC's 7:30 Report said he accepts Mr O'Farrell's recollection of events and said he too would have accepted a bottle of wine under the same circumstances.
Political commentator Gerard Henderson said the fact Mr O'Farrell was so adamant is consistent with forgetting.
"He's not a silly man, and if he remembered he'd done all this, he wouldn't get up and say the opposite because he would know he would lose his job," Mr Henderson said on ABC's Lateline.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott said Mr O'Farrell apparent memory lapse was plausible and deeply regrets the necessity of his resignation.
"If you're in public life, you meet lots of people; from time to time people give you things," the Mr Abbott said.
"They might give you ties, they might give you pens, a bottle of wine and, sure, a bottle of Grange is pretty special, no doubt about that, but given that premiers and other senior politicians have very crowded, busy lives, I don't think it's reasonable to expect everything from some years ago to be front of mind."
Catch the Insight discussion on April 22 for a scientific, psychological and philosophical journey into the tangled webs we weave when we practice to deceive. Tune in at 8.30PM on SBS ONE or live stream.
