Face of Nation : NSW Labor’s former financial controller has admitted to an anti-corruption inquiry that $50,000 was received from a 2016 fundraising dinner without knowledge of who the donors were.
Maggie Wang told the Independent Commission Against Corruption on Thursday that the $50,000 contribution to the federal party was made by 10 donors and was banked after the 2016 Chinese Friends of Labor event.
The donation came one year after a now infamous $100,000 contribution was made to the NSW Labor party from a CFL dinner in 2015. The ICAC is examining whether Chinese billionaire Huang Xiangmo, who is now banned from Australia, was the actual source of the $100,000 said to be donated by 12 people at the 2015 event.
Mr Huang, a property developer, was prohibited by law from making donations to NSW political parties. In her compulsory private evidence ahead of the public inquiry, Ms Wang said she was on leave at the time the $100,000 donation was made.
But, it was revealed on Thursday that while Ms Wang wasn’t in Labor’s Sydney office in Sussex Street, she was working from home and received emails about the donation. Counsel assisting Scott Robertson asked whether this was an attempt to distance herself from the donation. Ms Wang replied: “No I am not purposely distancing myself from anything.”
