Arfur (Daley) Sinodinos knows nuffin’ … Exculpatory evidence missing in action … SharriLaw … Liberals tried to wriggle off ICAC’s hook, only to be caught by Keith Mason at the Electoral Commission … Rorts of the Free Enterprise Foundation 

You’ll remember News Corp hacks were running the line, fed by Team Sinodinos, that ICAC was hiding exculpatory evidence, which would have cleared the senator of any hint he was up to something dodgy with election funding. 

“The NSW anti-corruption body deliberately kept evidence supporting the defence cases of former police minister Mike Gallagher and cabinet secretary Arthur Sinodinos secret while releasing information damaging them.” 

Sharri was referring here to advice from the NSW Crown Solicitor, which addressed different legal issues to the ones currently raised by the Electoral Commission of NSW. 

The commission says the Liberal Party (NSW division) has not disclosed individuals who donated to the party anonymously through the Free Enterprise Foundation. 

Some of those donors are also prohibited under the legislation.  

Consequently, the party is a breach of the Election Funding, Expenditure and Disclosure Act and the Electoral Commission is refusing to hand over $4.4 million in public funding. 

Further, the commission’s report said there was evidence from Liberal Party officials to ICAC, “of the involvement of other senior party officials constituting the Party’s Finance Committee, including Mr Sinodinos the Finance Director/Treasurer, Mr Webster and others (ICAC transcript reference 7279T) in the arrangements touching the Foundation”. 

Keith Mason, former president of the NSW Court of Appeal, who chairs the NSW Electoral Commission released his reasons here.  

The state Libs are having conniptions, saying they need the money to fight the forthcoming federal election. At the same time Arthur is thrashing about, insisting that as the party’s honorary treasurer and finance committee chairman, he knew nothing about the tainted money. he also told ICAC that he refused to accept “any responsibility for money being raised from prohibited donors”. 

The donors too are unhappy – some are threatening to sue the NSW Libs claiming that their money should have been sent to the federal party. 

Sinodinos demands that the Electoral Commission remove his name from its report. At least he has forensic Sharri by his side who, on Monday, quoted from a leaked letter written by Arthur’s lawyers at Arnold Bloch Leibler. 

Had the senator known what was happening of course he would have stopped it immediately because, “it wouldn’t have passed the pub test”. Claims to the contrary are “irrational”. 

It requires a huge dose of suspended reality to believe that the party’s treasurer and head of its finance committee had no awareness that illegal donations were passing through the federal FEF and then back to the party, particularly as the foundation was the state branch’s largest donor leading up to the 2011 state election, sending more than $700,000 of washed money to the coffers. 

The finance committee had also earmarked companies for Arfur to target for money. 

Markson also complains that the Electoral Commission didn’t afford Sinodinos procedural fairness, yet she was mightily unconcerned when Inspector David Levine failed to give procedural fairness to Commissioner Megan Latham and ICAC prior to the release of his report into Operation Hale.  

Consistency in outpourings of media indignation is of no concern if there’s an agenda to pursue. 

Even so, the Electoral Commission has repeatedly written to Liberal officials explaining its position and what would happen if the party didn’t make the necessary disclosures. 

It also rejected the Libs’ argument that the FEF was a charitable trust with discretions on the part of the trustees not to send donations to the party.

Mason and the commission indicated this amounted to nonsense. The FEF was never a validly constituted charitable trust. Its purposes were not exclusively charitable, it was nothing more than an agent for the party’s donors and its function was to facilitate gifts for a political purpose.

The crown solicitor, in any event, addressed different legal issues and different parts of the legislation in his advice, “as well as resting on significantly different information made available through [ICAC’s] Operation Spicer”. 

So there goes the crown solicitor’s “exculpatory evidence” that News Corp hacks, Markson and Merritt, insisted exhonerated Sinodinos of any suggestion of impropriety. 

Discounting the bluster and the threats, the last place the Liberal Party really wants this to end-up is before a court. Arthur was stood aside during Abbott’s prime ministership and it might happen again if the toxic odour gets any stronger. The FEF, and the bright sparks who thought it could be used to get around the law, have been bitten on the backside. 

The Electoral Commission in making its findings said it relied on evidence given by Liberal machine men and others during Operation Spicer. ICAC has not yet reported its findings, but the Electoral Commission “is not required to wait for that report”.