Face of Nation : A prominent NSW MP is set to hand back about $10,000 in donations after they were exposed as fraudulent before an anti-corruption inquiry.
Mr Yee told the inquiry he and nine other apparent donors wrote the $900 cheques in the knowledge that soon afterwards they would be reimbursed in cash via backbencher Ernest Wong.
Restaurant manager and former political hopeful Jonathan Yee on Monday told the Independent Commission Against Corruption he arranged for a series of cheques to be issued for the benefit of Kogarah MP Chris Minns in February 2015.
The cheques were among 12 totalling $10,600 made out to “ALP Chris Minns” and tendered to ICAC on Monday. “All donations were accepted in good faith via a cheque and not in cash in 2015, but given the revelations in the ICAC inquiry Mr Minns will forfeit any funds associated with Mr Wong or Mr Yee,” a spokesman for the MP said on Monday.
“There are no suggestions or allegations of impropriety levelled against Mr Minns.” The inquiry has not heard any evidence that Mr Minns knew the true source of the money. It was told Chinese billionaire Huang Xiangmo took the cash – in bundles of $100 notes in a plastic Aldi shopping bag – to NSW Labor’s head office in April 2015.
Mr Yee said Mr Wong, the CFL patron, asked him in February 2015 if he had people that could “write a few cheques out” to the Chris Minns ALP account.
“I went to them and said, ‘Can you basically write $900? If you can’t, can you go to the bank to draw a bank cheque?'” Mr Yee said. “I would have handed (the cheques) to Ernest, and Ernest would hand me the cash.”
The former local election candidate said the scheme flew under a $1000 donation threshold and hid the true source of the money, which Mr Wong did not reveal. Weeks after that episode, Mr Wong approached the restaurateur again, wanting up to 10 people to put their name to $5000 donations.
“He said that he will find the money … through several people, but he didn’t mention who it was,” Mr Yee told the inquiry. Mr Yee said he was surprised to get an email from NSW Labor head office – with the specific names he should use to sign those forms – given most on the list had been involved in the Minns cheque scam.
He eventually signed-up himself, his brother, his mother, a friend, the family business and five employees. Mr Yee said he was not told the true identity of the donor until 2017, a claim ICAC Chief Commissioner Peter Hall QC said “beggars belief” and led to demands that he “tell the truth”.
This led the former local election candidate to breathe heavily and pause before telling the inquiry Mr Wong did not specifically name the true donor after the March 2015 dinner. “But I would assume it would come from (Mr Huang),” he said.
“Previously, Mr Huang has donated to the party and he was one of the biggest donors at that time.” As a property developer, Mr Huang was banned from donating to NSW political parties and does not appear on the public NSW donation disclosure log, going back a decade.
Mr Yee conceded he had co-ordinated with Mr Wong to run interference throughout NSW Electoral Commission and ICAC’s investigations into the cash-in-a-bag scam, including telling straw donors exactly how to answer specific questions. But, while admitting he had “most definitely” abused their trust, he denied pressuring or threatening anyone to falsely declare as a major political donor.
Mr Wong, in evidence to the commission in early September, said he had never asked Mr Huang for a donation and the billionaire volunteered to personally deliver a bag of cash raised at the event to Labor head office.
