Two of the central figures from a years-old probe into a Labor Party straw donor scheme are facing prosecution over allegations they circumvented donor laws in Premier Chris Minns’ electorate of Kogarah a decade ago.
On Tuesday, the NSW Electoral Commission confirmed former Labor MP Ernest Wong and restaurateur Jonathan Yee will both face prosecution over allegations they were involved in a scheme to circumvent NSW donor laws 11 years ago.
“In the proceedings, it will be alleged that between 28 October 2014 and 12 August 2015 at Sydney and at other places in the State of New South Wales, Mr Yee and Mr Wong carried out a scheme to circumvent a prohibition or requirement under Part 6 of the EFED Act,” the commission said in a statement.
Minns himself has not been accused of any wrongdoing. The NSW Electoral Commissioner, Rachel McCallum, said no other individuals had been referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions over the donor scheme, or were under “active” investigation.
Asked whether the allegation was that Minns’s campaign had benefited from an illegal donor scheme, she said: “Yes.”
It comes after the Herald last month revealed the Electoral Commission had reopened its probe into the scandal after former Labor official David Latham alleged Minns was involved in evading donations laws over cash received at a Hurstville fundraiser before the 2015 election.
Minns has vehemently denied any involvement in the alleged scheme, and in its statement on Tuesday the commission said “no other matters” had been referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions arising from the investigation.
McCallum, who appeared at a parliamentary inquiry probing donations to the Kogarah campaign shortly after the statement was released on Tuesday, said: “We do not have any active lines of inquiry in relation to this investigation.”
She would not say whether Minns had been interviewed as part of the fresh investigation.
The allegations about the Kogarah donations were first raised during the ICAC’s 2019 probe into the $100,000 illegally donated to the NSW Labor Party by property developer Huang Xiangmo.
The inquiry’s public hearings heard Wong and Yee – who were both subject to adverse findings in relation to the broader investigation – were also involved in concealing the source of about $10,000 in donations to the Minns’ campaign made at a Labor Party fundraiser at the Sunny Harbour Seafood Restaurant in Hurstville in 2014.
However, the Minns fundraiser was not pursued by the corruption watchdog.
Scott Robertson, the counsel assisting the ICAC, said at the time that his questions were not targeted at Minns’ conduct, but to “shed light on the conduct” of Wong, Yee and others.
When the use of straw donors in his campaign was first revealed during the Operation Aero investigation in 2019, Minns said he would repay the donations.
The Electoral Commission’s statement revealed it had first begun investigating the Kogarah donations in 2019 and initially referred briefs of evidence to the NSW DPP in August 2023. It began conducting fresh inquiries after receiving the Latham affidavit in November, and between March and May this year gave further information to the DPP.
Pressed by committee members on whether the commission was investigating any other matters from Kogarah, McCallum said: “We have determined what we have said in our statement is what is appropriate to make public at this stage.”
McCallum said she would not “discuss matters that may come inevitably become before the courts as a result of the prosecution” of Wong and Yee. But, she said, they were “the only two people who have been referred for prosecution [and] we do not have any active lines of inquiry in relation to this investigation”.
It comes after the ICAC last month revealed Wong and Yee would escape prosecution over charges they hindered an investigation for what it said were evidentiary and discretionary reasons. Instead, the two men will face lesser charges for allegedly giving misleading evidence to the ICAC and procuring false testimony from a witness. They will appear before court next month.
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Max Maddison is a state political reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald.From our partners
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: www.smh.com.au
