NSW Labor boss Kaila Murnain saw Huang Xiangmo’s shopping bag of cash, ICAC hears

NSW Labor’s head office boss Kaila Murnain allegedly saw an Aldi bag packed with $100k, ICAC hears.

Kaila Murnain, right, with NSW Labor community relations manager Kenrick Cheah.

NSW Labor’s head office boss Kaila Murnain allegedly saw an Aldi shopping bag packed with $100,000 cash after Chinese billionaire Huang Xiangmo brought it into the party’s Sydney headquarters.

The claim today by Kenrick Cheah, a NSW party official and key witness at NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption hearings, puts the NSW party secretary at the centre of an investigation into the alleged circumventing of state electoral funding laws.

Ms Murnain was deputy to then party boss Jamie Clements when Mr Huang allegedly brought the cash-filled Aldi bag into the NSW ALP’s head office a month after a Chinatown fundraiser for the March 2015 state election.

The ICAC is hearing evidence to determine whether the donations to Labor were legally made by individuals — or one or more “straw” donors behind the Chinese Friends of Labor event.

The NSW ALP claimed at the time that donations totalling more than $100,000 came from many individuals in the Chinese community with each one of $5000 below a capped legal limit.

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Mr Cheah, the NSW ALP’s community relations director, claimed under oath in an ICAC hearing yesterday that Mr Huang personally delivered $100,000 in cash in an Aldi bag to Mr Clements. He said Mr Clements asked him to count the cash before it was banked.

In further evidence today, Mr Cheah claimed Ms Murnain saw the bag in the office and asked him about its contents.

He said he made her aware it contained a “sizeable” amount of money, though he believed she was not aware of the total sum at the time.

Mr Cheah said he was “pretty sure” Ms Murnain told him to be careful, in terms of safety, when he did not finish counting the cash on the day it arrived in the office and he took the bag home overnight.

Asked today if he thought it was unusual for a billionaire to collect money from donors and personally deliver it to the party’s chief, Mr Kenrick agreed.

Stephen Lawrence, a lawyer for Mr Clements, accused Mr Cheah of making up his evidence and trying to make Mr Clements and Mr Huang “scapegoats”.

Mr Cheah dismissed the claim, saying: “I just told the facts as they happened to me, or as they occurred to me.”

Mr Lawrence quizzed Mr Cheah about whether he knew that Ms Murnain “hates (Mr Clements’) guts”.

He replied that it was well known the pair had an “intense dislike” of each other.

Ms Murnain alleged during an earlier compulsory private examination by the corruption body that Ernst Wong, a former NSW Labor upper house MP and close associate of Mr Huang, had told her Mr Huang was “the true source of funds said to have been donated”.

Ms Murnain will appear as an ICAC witness tomorrow where her account, which appears to conflict with those of others, will be tested.

Mr Cheah today stood by his claim that Mr Huang delivered $100,000 in cash, and said Mr Wong delivered a separate sum of $19,000 that was also raised at the March 2015 fundraiser.

ICAC chief commissioner Peter Hall QC asked Mr Cheah today if he thought it was unusual that Mr Huang would allegedly deliver $100,000 in cash when the separate $19,000 sum delivered by Mr Wong was the usual mix of cash, cheques and credit card payments.

Mr Cheah agreed it was “unusual” but could offer no explanation.