ICAC: Former prime minister Tony Abbott slams inquiry into Liberal Party as ‘stitch up’ by rival faction.

Former prime minister Tony Abbott has accused a faction of his own party of “weaponising” an anti-corruption inquiry after it was revealed he spoke at an event organised by a right-wing Christian group to recruit conservatives to Liberal branches.

Robert Assaf, who worked part-time for Mr Abbott in 2019, told the Independent Commission Against Corruption’s Operation Rosny that he arranged for Mr Abbott to address a forum of the NSW Reformers in February 2018.

Mr Abbott, who is now the Liberal Party’s Federal president, has told The Nightly he saw nothing wrong with addressing a group that aimed to recruit new socially conservative members.

“I’ve addressed any number of Liberal groups over the years, some more ‘conservative’, some more ‘progressive’,” he said.

“It’s part of supporting the ‘broad church’. So, no regrets at all from me.”

Mr Abbott, who hails from the conservative side of the Liberal Party, said it appears a rival faction was seeking to undermine the Right, with ICAC this week hearing the Reformers had sought to end the political careers of Centre Right faction Liberal MPs in the early 2020s, including former immigration minister Alex Hawke and former NSW police minister David Elliott.

“I should add that this whole business looks like a stitch up,” he said.

“One faction weaponising ICAC against another. Just shows the dangers of factionalism.”

The Reformers were financed by lobbying group Beckington, run by right-wing Liberal Party powerbrokers who had Catholic Schools NSW as a client.

Mr Assaf confirmed to ICAC on Friday, in his second day of evidence, that his wife Carmel was made director of a lobbying firm, Beckington, despite not doing any work.

“I accept that,” he said.

Beckington had used money from its client Catholic Schools NSW to fund the work of Reformers to recruit new members to Liberal Party branches, with former NSW premier Dominic Perrottet’s younger brother Jean-Claude Perrottet paid to do this work.

Mr Assaf, who co-founded the Reformers in 2017 during the national vote on same-sex marriage, started a job with Catholic Schools NSW in 2019.

He confirmed to the inquiry that listing his wife as a Beckington director was a way of disguising his dual connections with both Beckington and Catholic Schools NSW, then run by Dallas McInerney.

“Did you want to use Carmel for Beckington to distance yourself from Beckington because Mr McInerney was about to engage them for Catholic Schools,” counsel assisting Peggy Dwyer SC asked.

“Very likely, yes,” Mr Assaf replied.

He agreed with Ms Dwyer’s suggestion that he didn’t want any link to the fact that he was receiving money to fund Reformers’ work “that was supposed to be under the guise of a government relations service”.

Ms Dwyer also asked him about hotelier Michael O’Hara, a designated prohibited political donor, in 2020 donating to the Reformers via Beckington director Christian Ellis sending him fake invoices of $5000 a month or $60,000 a year purporting to charge for consultancy work.

“With your knowledge, Beckington sent invoices to Mr O’Hara purporting to be for a consultancy,” she asked.

“Yes,” Mr Assaf replied.

“And you knew the plan involved no consultancy would be provided?” Ms Dwyer asked.

“I would have seen it as for the Reformers. That would have been seen as part of the process to get that money, yes,” Mr Assaf replied.

Asked if this was designed to concealed payments to the Reformers, he said: “It definitely wasn’t good accounting. I don’t know if I would characterise it as concealment.”

The inquiry’s presiding commissioner Fabian Gleeson asked if he thought the arrangement was dishonest.

“From a straightforward honesty question, as between two parties to the arrangement. I’m asking you to put aside for the moment the question of whether or not it’s appropriate from a tax perspective,” he said.

“Do you think it’s honest at the time?

“Do you think it was honest for Beckington to issue an invoice claiming money for consultancy services that it said it was providing Mr O’Hara’s company when in fact no such consultancy services were being provided, as we understand the evidence?”

Mr Assaf replied: “I would have thought it was tricky.”

“Why do you have a difficulty, Mr Assaf, distinguishing between tricky and honest conduct?”

“At the time, I wasn’t aware of how problematic it was.”

The inquiry continues.