“A cult” is how former NSW MP David Elliott described the Reformers, the secretive sub-faction of the NSW Liberals at the centre of the sensational Independent Commission Against Corruption investigation, which has just completed its first week of hearings.
Akin to a Scottish tribe from the movie, Braveheart, was how one of the Reformers, Robert Assaf, described it, telling Icac the group sometimes slaughtered their fellow rightwingers in the Liberal party but came together for the big fights.
Icac is investigating whether, in pursuit of funding these battles, the Reformers took illegal donations and broke electoral funding laws, by taking funds from banned donors, including developers and hoteliers and in amounts that exceeded NSW’s donations caps.
It is also revealing the outsized influence of conservative Catholicism in the NSW Liberal party and its right faction.
Icac heard how the young men who joined the Reformers were, at first, motivated by a strong conviction that they needed to take back the Liberal party in NSW from the godless, “woke” moderates faction, and install more conservative rightwing candidates.
One of the donors, the 84-year-old hotelier, Michael O’Hara, told Icac he funded the Reformers to the tune of $165,000 to advocate for policies more aligned with his conservative values.
Sign up for the Breaking News Australia emailDocuments before Icac show he wanted action to restrict abortion and euthanasia, and “stopping the crap being fed to our vulnerable children in the schools on gender identity”. He wanted a more pro-family stance and tougher drug laws. He wanted an end to the “lie” on climate change.
One of the reasons most democracies have political donations laws is to ensure transparency. There are different models but the underlying philosophy is that shining sunlight on giving will ensure that people can draw their own conclusions about influence.
As the branch stacking moved to the Hills, an area in north-west Sydney peppered with churches, the Reformers’ mission also became the demolition of a rival faction, the centre right, aligned with Alex Hawke, Elliott and former prime minister Scott Morrison, whose power base lies within the evangelical Christian movement.
Elliott’s career was cut short in 2022. Allegedly, the Reformers engineered a highly successful branch-stacking and smear operation, which ensured that when his own seat of Baulkham Hills was abolished, no other seat was available.
But there is a far more sinister allegation to be fleshed out in the coming weeks: that the Reformers – or some of them – ended up doing the bidding of the fugitive developer Jean Nassif, who was in the sights of the building commissioner, David Chandler, over shonky building standards.
A question hovering over the inquiry is: how did this group of committed Catholic men allegedly stray so far from their Christian values to allegedly breach donations laws, run campaigns to destroy people’s reputations and join hands with one of Sydney’s dodgiest developers?
And how did Catholic Schools NSW end up allegedly funding this vicious subterranean campaign with $260,000?
Several of the Reformers had known each other from Redfield College, a conservative Catholic school that is aligned with the highly conservative Opus Dei movement.
Robert Assaf and Jeremy Greenwood, two of the key Reformers, met and became friends at the school. The Perrottets – Dominic, the former NSW premier and his brothers Jean-Claude Perrottet and Charles Perrottet, also attended, as did some children of Damien Tudehope, an upper house MP and Liberal power broker.
He and Dominic Perrottet have not been named as persons of interest but Tudehope is expected to give evidence in the inquiry and is represented.
Within the Catholic church Opus Dei is controversial because of its aggressive recruitment practices, its practice of corporal mortification and its influence within rightwing regimes including historical ties to Francisco Franco in Spain.
The organisation officially maintains that it does not endorse political projects and encourages members to act with personal freedom in public life, but the evidence so far at Icac about the Reformers suggests otherwise and critics frequently accuse it of pursuing an ultra-conservative political agenda.
Giving evidence, Assaf, who briefly trained as a priest, referred to the Reformers’ mission as their “cause”. In one email he said: “Great news. God’s granted us a victory. We’ve officially taken the Coffs Harbour branch away from the left wing.”
The other major financial supporter of the Reformers was allegedly Catholic Schools NSW, with the evidence suggesting so far that $260,000 was paid to the group.
A key figure still to give evidence is Dallas McInerney, who has stood down as chief executive of Catholic Schools NSW.
Judging by the letters to the Sydney Morning Herald, the payments have deeply disturbed Catholic teachers.
“These allegations affect all those principals, teachers, support staff and administrators in Catholic schools in NSW who, day in and day out, are dedicated to the growth and flourishing of the children and young people in their care. After 50 years’ experience as a Catholic educator, including many years in leadership, I wish to speak up on their behalf and to assure parents of their integrity,” wrote Anne Benjamin from Toongabbie.
Also still to be fully explored are suggestions in texts that the federal opposition leader, Angus Taylor, contributed $15,000 and a $3,000 monthly retainer to the group. Taylor has said “no payment was made,” and he has not been named as a person of interest by Icac.
But with the mountains of forensic and text evidence uncovered by Icac, it may not be the end of the matter.
So far there has also only been a brief mention of the $2m contribution from the developer, Nassif, and what the Reformers did in return.
Council assisting Peggy Dwyer SC said in her opening address it had been shared by two of the Reformers: Ellis and Greenwood, and Reformer associate, Charles Perrottet. She also played an expletive-ridden phone intercept, in which Nassif claimed he would be delivered the head of the building commissioner, David Chandler, on a platter. She stressed her opening was not evidence but an outline of the case she intended to present.
While there is no line of evidence to suggest the Catholic church endorsed what the Reformers and Catholic Schools NSW are alleged to have done, the public will no doubt wonder whether religion is interfering in politics.
The Liberal party now faces an uncomfortable reckoning about whether the party is indeed the broad church it once claimed to be.
Elliott has called for a review of preselections ahead of the next state election in March, in the light of the branch-stacking allegations.
