Organiser of right-wing group Robert Assaf tells ICAC of hosting Tony Abbott, Dominic Perrottet

Former prime minister Tony Abbott, then-future premier Dominic Perrottet and then-future Nationals leader Matt Canavan spoke at events of a right-wing group that funded the stacking of Liberal Party branches with social conservatives, an anti-corruption inquiry has been told.

Robert Assaf, a former Liberal Party staffer, told the Independent Commission Against Corruption’s Operation Rosny inquiry on Thursday that Mr Abbott, now the Liberal Party’s Federal president, Mr Perrottet as then-State treasurer and Senator Canavan as Federal resources minister addressed Sydney recruitment events run by the Reformers group in early 2018.

He also confirmed he had emailed then Liberal State MP Kevin Conolly, the member for Riverstone, about the need to keep a March 2018 event with Mr Perrottet a secret so there would be more attendees who weren’t Liberal Party members who could be potential branch recruits.

“You explain in that email to Kevin, ‘Once again, your discretion is important as not everyone is aware or invited to this event. This is because we are wanting a large contingent of non-members in the room’,” counsel assisting Peggy Dwyer said.

“That’s right,” Mr Assaf replied. “There would have been a lot of people who wanted to suck up to Dom and that so we wanted to protect the seats for non-members, yes.”

Mr Assaf was also a key organiser of a February 2018 event with Mr Abbott and conservative State Liberal member for Epping, Damien Tudehope, that encouraged attendees to fill out forms to join the Liberal Party.

“This was our first big event,” he said.

“It would have been effective enough for us to keep doing it — it would have been about a hundred people there; with those numbers, maybe 10 people would be a good event, 10 forms out of it.”

The Reformers modelled themselves of a conservative operation in Victoria run by conservative Marcus Bastiaan, who was then a Liberal vice-president in his late 20s.

Former Liberal senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells also spoke at Reformers events and was among the 40 Right-faction Liberal MPs the Reformers had approached.

Mr Assaf had joined the Reformers when it formed in 2017 as someone campaigning against same-sex marriage during a nationwide postal vote survey.

With Christian Ellis, the director of lobbying firm Beckington, he was able to persuade conservative Liberal MPs to address their events.

“Christian and I went to the many of the conservative-aligned MPs in the Right that would listen to us and explain to them what we were trying to do and they loved it,” Mr Assaf said.

“From their self-interested perspective, they saw two young guys who were happy to do some branch work, and they were naturally happy to support that.”

He also confirmed to the hearing he had attended Redfield College in Sydney’s Hills District with Mr Perrottet’s brothers Jean-Claude and Charles and had joined the Liberal Party after hearing a speech by Mr Tudehope.

The inquiry also heard petitions were sent out against euthanasia and abortion to create a database with the NationBuilder software program.

“Whenever someone signed, their data would be sucked into the central database and then they’d be tagged with what they’ve signed,” Mr Assaf said.

In the early stages of setting up, the Reformers were able to capture the Liberal Party’s Coffs Harbour branch on the mid-north coast from the left of the party, but in an area where the State and Federal electorates were held by the National Party.

Mr Assaf said he wanted the Right of the party to be organised like the Left had traditionally been.

“The Right faction was like - I’m not sure if you’ve seen Braveheart - they would slaughter each other, the left was a bit more well-oiled,” he said.

The inquiry continues on Friday when Mr Assaf provides more evidence.