The NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) is investigating alleged illegal donations to the NSW Liberal Party, which involve a conservative Christian faction.
Operation Rosny is looking into allegations that Catholic Schools NSW made donations which were not declared and exceeded caps. The payments were allegedly made at the behest of its former chief executive Dallas McInerney.
Evidence presented to ICAC shows that members of the far-right Reformers group, employed by Catholic Schools NSW, recruited and renewed members to the Liberal Party, during their work time.
The inquiry is looking into the illegal use of Liberal parliamentary resources to fund branch-stacking operations by the Reformers, co-founded by Robert Assaf and Christian Ellis in 2017.
Assaf told the inquiry about how the donations were collected. He said a bucks party was paid for and then reimbursed, using funds raised for the Reformers. He also said he received kickbacks for introducing clients to Beckington, a Reformer-linked company, which received money from hotelier Michael O’Hara and Catholic Schools NSW.
Assaf said he first received money after securing a contract between Catholic Schools NSW, via McInerney and Beckington. The inquiry heard that the money was paid to Assaf’s wife.
O’Hara gave tens of thousands of dollars to the Reformers. He said he believed he was donating to a group that would return conservative values to the Liberal Party. According to the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH), he told ICAC he was “disgusted” when he discovered how the Reformers did its work.
The August 2 SMH reported that Peggy Dwyer, ICAC Counsel Assisting, alleged that “three NSW Liberal apparatchiks struck a deal with now-fugitive Sydney developer Jean Nassif to be paid $2 million”. Dwyer said this was in return for helping the accused fraudster have the then-building commissioner, David Chandler, sacked and a cabinet minister replaced.
Other evidence showed there were attempts to remove David Elliott, a former Coalition NSW police minister, a factional opponent of the Reformers. Elliott became the subject of a Reformer dirt file designed to undermine him.
The Independent Education Union (IEU), whose membership covers teachers within the Catholic school system, said on August 12 that evidence presented to the inquiry showed that up to $265,000 in Catholic Schools NSW funding may have been diverted to the conservative Liberal faction.
The IEU said that NSW Catholic diocesan schools in 2024 received $2.9 billion from the federal government, $749 million from the NSW government, $550 million in school fees and $100 million in private income, donations and investments. This accounts for almost 80% of its income.
Catholic Schools NSW, the governing body for almost 600 schools, distributes this to the diocesan school system.
Carol Matthews, IEUA NSW/ACT branch secretary, said its members expect full transparency in how public funding is used by non-government schools. “This funding should be used to improve student academic outcomes and enhance the learning experience for students,” she said, adding that members would be “concerned” if any public funding for non-government schools was diverted from its intended purpose.
“Responsible school expenditure includes professional learning for school staff, development of curriculum materials, support for students with disabilities, and adequate pay and working conditions for staff who deliver quality education.”
Matthews said the IEU wanted reforms to ensure that the public funding of non-government schools is transparent. She said the NSW government “closely scrutinises expenditure at the individual school level and at the school proprietor level” to ensure it is used solely for the operation of each school but that “similar scrutiny is not applied to ... Catholic Schools NSW.”
The union wants greater transparency at all stages of the funding process.
Meanwhile, Jean-Claude Perrottet, brother of former NSW Liberal Premier Dominic Perrottet, told the inquiry he undertook factional work while doing paid parliamentary work for a Liberal MP.
These are just a few of the startling revelations from the hearings, which is only half way through its deliberations.
[Jim McIlroy, a former public servant and life-long unionist, is running in the NSW elections for Socialist Alliance.]