Labor has continued its attack on the cabinet secretary, Arthur Sinodinos, over the New South Wales Liberals’ political donations scandal.
The NSW Electoral Commission is refusing to pay the Liberal party’s NSW branch more than $4.4m until the party reveals the secret donors who poured about $700,000 into its coffers before the 2011 state election, when Sinodinos was its treasurer and finance director.
“It beggars belief that the treasurer and finance director of the Liberal party of NSW didn’t know about an elaborate arrangement to channel hundreds of thousands of dollars of illegal donations to the Liberal party,” the deputy opposition leader, Tanya Plibersek, told reporters in Sydney on Friday.
Plibersek claimed it was extraordinary that the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, had not sacked or stood aside Sinodinos, his “numbers man”, over the scandal.
“It is very clear that there is a substantial cover-up of the secret identity of prohibited donors in NSW,” she said.
“You really have to ask yourself why won’t the prime minister act. Why is he protecting his numbers man and what secret is the Liberal party of NSW keeping that’s worth $4m to them?”
On Thursday Sinodinos threatened to take legal action against the Electoral Commission over what he called its “flawed” report.
“I had no role in the NSW division’s decision to decline to update information disclosed in that declaration, as was requested by the commission,” he said.
“For my part, my lawyers have written to the commission to draw its attention to errors of fact in its statement in relation to me. I was not given the opportunity by the commission to comment on its statement before its publication and I was not aware of the publication until shortly prior to its release.”
Sinodinos said the statement had already been extensively cited by media.
“In a number of instances, there has been erroneous commentary to the effect that I ‘concealed’ illegal donations and that my actions were somehow corrupt or illegal,” he said. “That media commentary is a direct consequence of the NSW Electoral Commission’s flawed publication.
“In light of these matters, my lawyers on my behalf have invited the commission to immediately retract all references to me in the publication. The commission has been invited to publish a correction to that effect on its website.”
• Australian Associated Press contributed to this report
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