‘Christian values’: The godly mission to control the NSW Liberals that drew ICAC’s attention

The group of hard-right Liberals at the centre of a looming corruption probe held a series of high-profile events to attract conservatives to the party by arguing Christian values were disappearing from society.

To their factional rivals, however, they seemed less concerned with defending Christianity than thwarting the centre right. “[The split in the right faction] was a Henry VIII-level cleave in the church, and they’ve never forgotten it,” one Liberal figure said.

These events, held between at least 2018 and 2021, boasted guests including the now-sidelined shadow attorney-general Damien Tudehope and Catholic schools boss and right faction powerbroker Dallas McInerney. They formed a key plank of the group’s plans to control the NSW division of the Liberal Party by stacking branches with conservatives.

The Independent Commission Against Corruption last week announced an explosive investigation into allegations of illegal donations to the NSW Liberals, centred on the fugitive property developer Jean Nassif’s links to party powerbrokers and councils.

The wide-ranging inquiry, set to begin this month, will examine whether Liberal Party figures including Christian Ellis, Jeremy Greenwood, Robert Assaf and Jean-Claude Perrottet (the younger brother of Dominic Perrottet) “solicited or accepted political donations, including from prohibited donors, in amounts that were not declared and exceeded applicable donation caps, for purposes that included the recruitment and/or renewal of members to the Liberal Party”.

The four men were all activists from the Liberal Party’s hard-right faction who had previously been linked to a group called the NSW Reformers.

The group was set up in 2018 with the goal of pushing conservatives to sign up to the party in a bid to stack local Liberal branches. A series of invitations seen by the Herald show the Reformers were actively courting members via a series of events focused on conservative issues such as euthanasia, “radical gender ideology” and vaccine mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A NSW Reformers document, first reported by the Herald in 2019, stated the group aimed to control the state division of the Liberal Party by signing up members to win preselection ballots.

“If we do nothing today, the likelihood is that in 10 years and possibly even less, Christian values will no longer be the foundation to our society,” the document said.

But multiple party sources said despite the Christian ethos, the long-running feud between the hard right and federal MP and Liberal powerbroker Alex Hawke’s centre-right faction was the animating force behind the group’s activities.

The activities of the Reformers were the focus of a NSW parliamentary inquiry in 2022, which centred on claims of interference in preselection ballots in The Hills Shire Council in north-west Sydney.

However, they appear to have been active in several other areas.

In the federal electorate of Macquarie, for example, documents seen by the Herald show the NSW Reformers had access to a database of names drawn from various petitions related to conservative causes, including the marriage equality debate.

The database of about 160 names included the phone numbers, email addresses and home addresses of voters in the electorate, along with the petition or database from which their data was drawn. It is unclear how the Reformers accessed the data.

A second document titled Blue Mountains SEC Plan obtained by the Herald identifies the 160 names as people within the Blue Mountains/Hawkesbury Region who the Reformers planned “to call to get to a meeting who are not signed up”.

It details plans to hold two events per month, and a goal to sign up five members at each event. The group also set itself a goal of “1 coffee sign up per week”.

The document includes the name of two people tasked with booking venues, calling people from the database and arranging coffee meetings.

The 2022 inquiry also heard allegations that their activities were more widespread, including claims that Ellis and Perrottet approached Sydney businessman Frits Mare for $50,000 to fund a branch operation to unseat Hawke from his federal electorate.

A party member in Farrer, previously held by Liberal leader Sussan Ley, also claimed Ellis had told her he wanted to run in the seat and that there had been an “unusual influx” in Liberal Party memberships during the pandemic.

The events were a key part of the operation and boasted a series of high-profile Liberal figures.

In 2018, an event advertised at the Castle Hill RSL included “conservative warrior” Tudehope’s attendance while he was NSW finance minister.

A “Conservative Q&A” focused on education in February 2020 also included McInerney, the head of Catholic Schools NSW and a close ally of federal Liberal leader Angus Taylor.

While this masthead is not suggesting wrongdoing, McInerney last week resigned from the powerful curriculum and assessment board after ICAC revealed its probe includes whether he signed off on illegal political donations to recruit party members.

Tudehope stood down as shadow attorney-general last week because he had been called as a witness to the inquiry.

Tudehope said that while there was “no suggestion of any wrongdoing by myself, nor am I under investigation” the probe involved “several people with whom I have had close relationships during my political career”.

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