ICAC finds true source of $100,000 cash donation to NSW Labor was gambling account of Chinese billionaire

Donation accepted by NSW Labor came from funds withdrawn from the Sydney Star City high roller account of Chinese billionaire Huang Xiangmo.

Exiled Chinese billionaire Huang Xiangmo.

Chinese billionaire Huang Xiangmo handed an illegal $100,000 cash donation – stashed in a plastic Aldi shopping bag – directly to then NSW Labor boss Jamie Clements, a corruption inquiry has found.

The NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption said it did not accept it was “mere chance” Mr Huang met Mr Clements on April 7, 2015, just four days after the cash was withdrawn from the businessman’s gambling account at Sydney’s Star City ­casino.

In a series of highly damaging findings for NSW Labor, the commission also found former upper house MP Ernest Wong engaged in serious corrupt conduct by misusing his privileges as a member of the Legislative Council in a scheme to circumvent electoral funding laws.

In a report released on Monday, the corruption watchdog found Mr Wong also tried to procure a witness to give false testimony to investigators over whether the man had made a donation in connection with a 2015 Chinese Friends of Labor fundraising dinner.

ICAC’s Operation Aero investigated a scheme to secure for NSW Labor and Country Labor a $100,000 cash donation received in connection with a fundraising dinner held in the lead-up to the 2015 NSW state election.

The investigation focused on a Chinese Friends of Labor dinner held on March 12, 2015, at The Eight Modern Chinese Restaurant in Haymarket to raise money for the party’s campaign for the NSW state election.

Then federal Labor leader Bill Shorten and then NSW Labor leader Luke Foley attended the dinner.

There is no suggestion either was involved in corrupt conduct.

Mr Wong and Jonathan Yee, who with his family owned The Emperor’s Garden restaurant, entered into an agreement where Mr Yee would procure waiters and kitchen staff to sign forms falsely stating they had each ­donated $5000 to the event.

Ernest Wong leaves the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC).

“The aim was to conceal the true source of donations that Mr Wong had arranged, or was intending to arrange,” the commission found.

The result was that 12 “putative” donors – 10 associated with the Emperor’s Garden restaurant – falsely signed declarations that they had donated cash.

The commission found Mr Huang was the true source of the $100,000 donation, handed over in bundles of $100 notes at Labor’s Sussex St headquarters, and the money came from his “junket account” at The Star Sydney casino.

The commission rejected Mr Clements’ denial he had received the cash from Mr Huang, and that it had been handed to NSW Labor community relations director Kenrick Cheah.

The commission described the relationship between Mr Clements and Mr Huang as “inappropriate … fuelled by financial payments that had the potential to compromise public decision-making” but there was “in­sufficient admissible evidence to prove to the criminal standard that Mr Clements knowingly gave false evidence to the ­commission.”

ICAC recommended changes to the law to require senior political party figures to report reasonably suspected contraventions of the Electoral Funding Act.

It also examined claims that longstanding NSW Labor lawyer Ian Robertson instructed party boss Kaila Murnain to “forget about” the potentially illegal $100,000 donation and not tell anyone about it. It found Mr Robertson did provide Ms Murnain with some advice but that it did not have the evidence to conclude he gave the advice she claimed.

The commission is seeking the advice of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) on whether prosecutions should be commenced against Mr Wong, Mr Huang, Mr Cheah and more than a dozen other people and entities.

Mr Huang is now believed to be in Hong Kong after losing his Australian residency visa when ASIO rated him a “foreign interference risk”.