A friend of corrupt WA bureaucrat Paul Whyte has denied paying him "kickbacks" in return for being given government work, as he was unable to explain how his company ended up being paid more $1 million in public funds.
Kent Hunter was giving evidence at a Corruption and Crime Commission (CCC) hearing into whether Whyte, who is in jail awaiting sentence for stealing $22 million of public money, fostered a "culture of cronyism" to benefit his personal associates, to the detriment of the taxpayer.
Mr Hunter, an accountant, ran companies — including one called Mining Corporate — that were awarded government work when Whyte was executive director of property registry agency Landgate, and later general manager for the Department of Housing.
Today Mr Hunter testified he became "pretty good friends" with Mr Whyte in the early 2000s because of their "shared passion" for horses.
He said they would punt together at the racetrack and lend each other money mainly for betting, but at one point, Whyte had also paid his $12,000 or $13,000 mortgage payment for three months.
Mr Hunter said they also owned a number of horses together.
He said his company started doing work for Landgate after discussions with Whyte, which included consulting on a couple of projects and devising business plans.
When asked if during that time he had paid any money into Whyte's bank accounts, he said he did not think so.
Bank statements reveal payments
But Counsel assisting the Commission, Nadia Pantano, then produced bank statements which showed a total of eight payments in 2009 from Mr Hunter's business account to either Whyte's mortgage or his betting account.
The sums, totalling tens of thousands of dollars, were transferred within days of Mr Hunter being paid by Landgate.
Mr Hunter was unable to explain the payments, describing them as "a bit unusual".
At that point, CCC Acting Commissioner Scott Ellis suggested an "obvious explanation" was that he was paying kickbacks to Whyte for procuring work for him.
He denied the allegation and also the claim that Whyte may have said to him something like "I'll get a job at Landgate but I expect some money in return", telling the CCC "absolutely not".
Later, when Mr Hunter was asked if he had ever done any work for the Department of Housing, he initially answered: "As far as I can recall, no, but possibly."
But Ms Pantano then revealed that between October 2009 and June 2011, Mr Hunter's company received $1.28 million from the department.
"That makes no sense," was his reply.
'I just like to help people out'
Under further questioning, Mr Hunter then said he had done work, describing it as "a couple of consultations" and "general high level discussions" on a range of projects.
He denied the suggestion that no work was actually done for the money.
Ms Pantano then revealed that as he had done when he was doing work for Landgate, Mr Hunter had made payments, this time totalling $53,000, to Whyte's mortgage, personal and betting accounts.
When asked why, he replied "I just like to help people out … that's what I did, I'm generous", prompting Acting Commissioner Ellis to say that was something he found hard to believe.
The hearing was told in total, Mr Hunter's company received a total of $1.322 million in taxpayers' money, while he paid around $120,000 to Whyte's accounts, including $80,000 to his betting account.
CCC told 'culture of cronyism rife'
In an opening statement, Acting Commissioner Ellis said the purpose of the hearing was to look at whether Whyte "infected" the Department of Housing with corruption.
"Or was Mr Whyte merely the most obvious symptom of an underlying malaise?" he said.
In her opening address, Ms Pantano said the CCC's current investigations had identified that "a culture of cronyism was rife" in the departments run by Whyte, "resulting in conflicts of interest going undeclared and unmanaged".
She said the hearing would explore "what impact the culture had on enabling cronyism to flourish and how Whyte was able to engage in systemic corrupt practices".
Mr Hunter made no comment as he left the hearing.
