Marie Ficarra denies gives false evidence to Icac investigators
|
Version 0 of 1. A New South Wales Liberal MP has denied giving false evidence to corruption investigators and shifting the blame for an illegal political donation on to a former colleague. In a charged hearing at the Independent Commission Against Corruption, the upper house MP Marie Ficarra again denied accusations she arranged for a property developer, Tony Merhi, to give the banned $5,000 donation to an alleged Liberal party slush fund. Merhi alleges that in a meeting shortly before the 2011 election, Ficarra suggested that the property developer might “need a lobbyist” to secure a favourable planning outcome and recommended a company, Eightbyfive. A $5,000 cheque from Merhi was paid to Eightbyfive the next day. The commission has heard that Eightbyfive was a Liberal party slush fund run by Tim Koelma, a former staffer of the central coast MP Chris Hartcher. Money from banned donors was allegedly paid to Eightbyfive as invoices for fake services and then passed to the Liberal party, in exchange for political favours. “You knew all about Eightbyfive, didn’t you?” counsel assisting, Geoffrey Watson SC, asked Ficarra. “You told Tony Merhi about it, didn’t you?” “Absolutely not,” she replied. “You knew it was a scam when you did it, didn’t you?” Watson asked. “Absolutely not,” she said. “You knew that Eightbyfive had emerged from the office of Chris Hartcher, didn’t you?” Watson pressed. “Absolutely not,” Ficarra repeated again and again, eventually adding: “The truth prevails.” "Yes, it certainly does,” Watson said. Ficarra says that in her 2011 meeting with Merhi, she had informed the developer he was banned from donating to the Liberal party but said one of his non-prohibited friends could give money to the Young Liberals if they wished. She says she then contacted the former vice-president of the Liberal youth wing, Charles Perrottet, for the appropriate bank account details, and passed them to Merhi to give to his friends. But the account name attached to the numbers “sounded weird”, Ficarra said. She asked Perrottet for an explanation but he had assured her it was a legitimate account, she said. Watson accused Ficarra of trying to “drag down Charles Perrottet”, a former Hartcher adviser and brother of the finance minister, Dominic Perrottet. “Recognising you’d been caught in a lie, you decided to drag Charles Perrottet’s name down into the mud … motivated to save your own skin,” he said. He highlighted several inconsistencies in the evidence Ficarra gave Icac investigators last July and what she was telling the public inquiry, including her claim in the stand on Thursday that she had found the bank account name Merhi was given “strange” and “weird”. “Why didnt you mention this [in July 2013]? That you'd become concerned by the strange or weird name and called Charles Perrottet?” Watson asked. Ficarra said the claim had been implied in her 2013 evidence, and that Watson was pointing out “pedantic” differences. She said her recollection of the day she met Merhi was hazy because her miniature schnauzer, Leisel, had been ill. "I had a very sick dog. Acute thrombocytopenia [low platelet count] is life-threatening," she said. Merhi’s barrister, Peter Silver, accused her of using the dog as a distraction. "The reason that you have emphasised the sick dog aspect of your evidence is to distract this commission and to make a joke of what is a very serious sequence of events," he said. The commissioner, Megan Latham, also grew impatient with Ficarra’s testimony, repeatedly chiding her for fudging details, and asking her to “please, concentrate”. The inquiry continues. |