NSW Labor boss Kaila Murnain dragged into ICAC inquiry

The current boss of the NSW Labor Party has been dragged into explosive allegations involving a Chinese billionaire and $100,000 in cash.

The current boss of the NSW Labor Party has been dragged into explosive allegations involving a Chinese billionaire and $100,000 in cash.

Today the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) entered its second day of hearings examining alleged breaches of the state’s electoral finance laws.

It heard that Kaila Murnain, the general secretary of NSW Labor, had seen the bag of cash billionaire Huang Xiangmo handed to her then boss Jamie Clements in 2015.

RELATED: ICAC hears bombshell $100,000 allegation

NSW Labor’s community relations director Kenrick Cheah told ICAC he was “pretty sure” Ms Murnain, who was assistant general secretary at the time, had told him to “be careful in terms of personal safety” before he left the party’s head office in Sussex Street to take the cash home for the night.

“I don’t know if she knew how much was there, but she knew that there was a sizeable amount of money that I was taking home to keep safe, to bring back the next day,” Mr Cheah said.

Yesterday Mr Cheah said he was in the office when Mr Huang allegedly arrived with an Aldi bag stuffed with cash and donation forms. He then counted the money in the open-plan office before taking it home because it was “riskier” to leave it at work.

Mr Huang was a director and chairman of a property development company and therefore prohibited under electoral laws from making donations to NSW political parties.

Chinese billionaire Huang Xiangmo. Picture: The Australian

Labor staffer Kenrick Cheah and NSW boss Kaila Murnain. Picture: Supplied

The cash hand-off came a few weeks after a fundraising dinner hosted by a group called Chinese Friends of Labor at a restaurant called The Eight.

That dinner supposedly raised $100,000 via 12 donors. ICAC is investigating the suggestion that Mr Huang was the true source.

NSW electoral law back in 2015 limited donations to political parties to $5700 per person each year.

Most of the alleged donors at the dinner in question got around that technicality by giving $5000 to NSW Labor and a further $5000 to Country Labor, which is a separate entity.

The donations were properly disclosed in accordance with the law. But they still raised the suspicions of electoral officials.

Counsel assisting the commission Scott Robertson told ICAC a majority of the donors were “persons associated with Jonathan Yee”, the general manager of the Emperor’s Garden restaurant in Chinatown.

Five donors were employees or former employees of the restaurant. Two were Mr Yee’s family members (his mother and brother). Another was Mr Yee himself.

“Those associations, along with the implausibility that restaurant workers would have the financial capacity to make lump sum donations of $5000 or $10,000, as well as other factors, led the Electoral Commission to suspect that the $100,000 in cash was donated on behalf of a person or persons other than those that appeared in NSW Labor and Country Labor disclosures,” Mr Robertson said.

Two further donations were made by people associated with Wu International Investments Pty Ltd, a property development company based in Chatswood. Property developers are prohibited donors under electoral law.

Bill Shorten, who was the federal Labor leader at the time, and his NSW counterpart Luke Foley were both at the fundraising dinner. Mr Robertson specified there was “no suggestion on the available material” that either of them were involved in the suspect conduct.

Mr Huang is a controversial figure. He is known to have been a significant donor, at the federal level, to both Labor and the Liberal Party.

Earlier this year he was denied re-entry into Australia after his bid for citizenship was blocked and his permanent residency cancelled, leaving him unable to return to his multimillion-dollar home in the affluent Sydney suburb Mosman.

Mr Huang was also at the centre of the revelations that forced Labor senator Sam Dastyari to resign in 2017. Mr Dastyari had warned Mr Huang he was likely under surveillance from the Australian Government.

Mr Huang sat at the head table at the fundraising dinner on March 12, 2015 alongside Mr Shorten and Mr Foley.

NSW Labor leader Jodi McKay has said she supports the ICAC inquiry and it must run its course.

“People know that I stand for integrity in politics and I always will,” she said in a video posted on Facebook yesterday.

“The inquiry must run its course without fear or favour, but I won’t let it detract from all the good that our party seeks to achieve.”

Ms Murnain is due to give evidence tomorrow, as is Mr Dastyari.