The bombshell came in the last five minutes of former finance minister and rightwing powerbroker Damien Tudehope’s examination before the Independent Commission Against Corruption (Icac).
At ۳.۳۰pm on Tuesday, Tudehope was shown an email which he sent in February ۲۰۲۳, attaching a leaked draft parliamentary report into branch stacking in the Hills area by the Reformers, the shadowy group at the centre of Icac’s Operation Rosny.
It has probably imperilled his parliamentary career.
“Would you regard yourself … as being bound by keeping it confidential?” asked counsel assisting, Peggy Dwyer SC. Tudehope visibly tensed.
“Did you send that report in draft to Mr Greenwood?” she asked, showing him the email. “It appears that I did,” Tudehope replied quietly.
Jeremy Greenwood is one of the group of conservative Catholic men who set up the Reformers, recruiting like-minded conservatives to the Liberal party in order to take over branches from the moderate and centre-right factions.
In ۲۰۲۳, during the parliamentary inquiry, the key Reformers and associates – Christian Ellis, the then premier’s brothers Jean-Claude Perrottet and Charles Perrottet, and Greenwood – had left NSW to avoid being called to the parliamentary inquiry.
Tudehope told Icac he had had a conversation with the premier, Dom Perrottet, who said he knew his brother had gone to Fiji.
Leaking a draft parliamentary report is a serious breach of parliamentary rules and contempt of parliament. It may even constitute corrupt conduct depending on the motivation of the leak.
Tudehope has not been named as a person of interest in Operation Rosny but has stood down as shadow attorney general.
Wednesday’s evidence, however, raised questions of just how tightly Tudehope was tied into the activities of the Reformers and the donations they are alleged to have taken to fund their branch takeover activities.
The day started well enough. A politician for ۲۰ years, Tudehope was happy to talk expansively about his alignment with the Reformers’ causes on conservative social issues.
He’d been happy to be a speaker at events advocating for safe schools and opposing gender fluidity and marriage equality.
But when it came to questions about whether funds flowing into the Reformers were political in nature, the lawyer in Tudehope emerged.
“I don’t necessarily accept the premise that every event where someone signs up to a party as a result of attending the event is necessarily a contribution for the benefit of a party, and I think I identified to you that there are people who may sign up to a party to provide no benefit to a party,” Tudehope said.
“So, to the extent that you identify for the benefit of a party, I think that’s a very moot point about the definition of a benefit to the Liberal party.”
Dwyer wasn’t letting him off the hook so easily. In painstaking detail, she ran him through text messages and WhatsApp groups that she alleged showed knowledge of the secret money trail.
Tudehope’s close friend and former law partner Michael O’Hara, who became a successful hotelier, became a major donor to the Reformers, giving $۱۶۵,۰۰۰ to a number of entities after introductions at a function at Tudehope’s home where the News Corp columnist Miranda Devine was the speaker.
Tudehope agreed he might have introduced Ellis to O’Hara, but denied he had encouraged illegal donations.
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“If you think that I would expose a friend of mine to that level of scrutiny that he was exposed to, ۸۳ years of age with stage three/four cancer, you think that I would have done that in circumstances where I knew that he would be a prohibited donor for the purposes of the Electoral Funding Act, not on your life!” he said.
Under sustained questioning, Tudehope agreed that using invoices to public relations firms to channel payments was “concealment” as the commissioner, Fabian Gleeson, phrased it.
The other major backer of the Reformers was Catholic Schools NSW and here Tudehope has several connections. He was friends with the CEO, Dallas McInerney, also a powerful key figure in the right, while his son James worked in communications at Catholic Schools NSW.
Icac heard on Wednesday that at a Sunday lunch, James Tudehope told his father he was being pressured to pay an invoice from Ellis. He was “very agitated” because he didn’t think they were getting value for money, Damien Tudehope said.
Tudehope said he recommended his son take it up with McInerney, his boss.
In Dwyer’s opening address we learned that Ellis, who has moved to London and declined to appear, had used his public relations firm, Beckington, to take donations for Reformer work.
Tudehope was also an employer of key Reformers in his ministerial office.
In August ۲۰۱۹, the federal member for Berowra, Julian Leeser, who was unaligned to a faction, went public with his concerns about the branch stacking in the Hills in the Sydney Morning Herald.
Icac heard that Ellis had said publicly at a Reformers event that “Leeser was a lefty and had to go”, drawing the ire of several in the party.
Dwyer tabled an article by Tom Rabe written in ۲۰۱۹ about the factional war and the involvement of two of the Reformers, Ellis and Jean-Claude Perrottet, who were employed in Tudehope’s office. He suggested Liberals were concerned the pair spent most of their time on branch stacking.
By October ۲۰۱۹, Tudehope’s office let Ellis go, concerned about the adverse publicity his activities were drawing. Tudehope said it was the chief of staff who made the call.
Tudehope was on Tuesday also shown messages from ۲۰۱۸ between members of the Reformers in which they said MPs “were getting scared about ICAC,” and that “Scott and Damien are afraid”.
Tudehope denied knowing what they were about. But by the end of the day, he could have little doubt he now had reasons to fear Icac.
