Eddie Obeid and his “left testicle”, former minister Ian McDonald, may be gone, but the stench of corruption around NSW Labor is still fouling the air at Sussex Street. About all that seems to have changed is that Labor politicians have ditched environmentally-friendly paper bags for their “cash donations”. Tut-tut, not very environmentally-aware at all, fellas.
A corruption inquiry into NSW Labor donations has opened with sensational claims that one key witness died by suicide rather than give evidence, while Chinese billionaire Huang Xiangmo delivered $100,000 in cash in an Aldi plastic bag to former party boss Jamie Clements at ALP headquarters in Sydney.
In his opening address to the hearing, counsel assisting the commission Scott Robertson alleged Mr Huang, who was barred from Australia earlier this year, dropped $100,000 in cash at Labor’s headquarters in 2015.
Huang, it should be remembered, is the Communist Party-linked billionaire donor whose close association with former Labor federal senator Sam Dastyari led to Dasher’s ignominious exit from politics. Dastyari was caught out after a hurried, late-night visit to Huang’s mansion, where he offered special counter-surveillance advice before warning him that he was likely under ASIO investigation. Huang’s visa was cancelled on character grounds, and Dastyari forced to resign in shame.
The astonishing evidence has been provided by NSW Labor’s community relations director Kenrick Cheah, who said he was handed an Aldi plastic bag by Mr Clements after Mr Huang’s visit in April 2015.
Mr Cheah privately told ICAC last year that Mr Huang attended Labor headquarters a few weeks after a Chinese Friends of Labor fundraising dinner to deliver the cash.
He told the inquiry the bag was full of bundles of cash, bound together with elastic bags adding up to $100,000 when he counted it in Labor’s open-plan office.
At the time Mr Huang was a prohibited donor, and therefore banned from making political donations.
But Labor is nothing if not creative when it comes to getting their hands on piles of dodgy cash.
The 2015 fundraising dinner attracted concern from the NSW Electoral Commission after several restaurant workers and family members of Jonathan Yee, owner of Emperor’s Garden Restaurant in Chinatown, claimed to have donated $100,000 in cash, which was supposedly raised on the night.
“The associations, along with the implausibility that restaurant workers would have the financial capacity to make lump sum donations of $5000 or $10,000, as well as other factors, led the Electoral Commission to suspect that the $100,000 in cash was donated on behalf of a person or persons other than those who appeared in NSW Labor and Country Labor’s disclosures,” Mr Robertson said.
smh.com.au/national/nsw/cash-deliveries-and-suicide-notes-icac-hearing-opens-with-sensational-claims
One of the so-called “straw-donors” has taken the stand at the ICAC, to detail how the donation-laundering scheme worked.
Steve Tong […] is one of the 12 people named by the inquiry as a donor at the 2015 Chinese Friends of Labor dinner.
Tong was in fact the man who wasn’t there.
Mr Tong has just given stunning evidence to the inquiry, saying he did not donate $5000 to NSW Country Labor and did not attend the Chinese Friends of Labor dinner in March 2015 where he supposedly made the donations.
Mr Tong has also just told the inquiry he was instructed by [property developer] Dr Liao to fill in a donations disclosure form to the NSW Electoral Commission in 2016 […] Mr Tong said he had “no choice” but to go along with the false disclosure because he had already been implicated and feared repercussions from his bosses.
smh.com.au/national/nsw/icac-nsw-labor-inquiry-live-kaila-murnain-to-be-grilled-over-donations-scandal
The ICAC will get even more interesting over the next few days, as first current NSW Labor boss Kaila Murnane, and later, Dasher himself, are called to give evidence. Dastyari’s political career is deservedly history: it seems very likely that, after this, Murnane’s will be, too.