Chris Hartcher goes head to head with Icac counsel over illegal donation claims
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Version 0 of 1. The evidence of a former New South Wales Liberal minister accused of masterminding an electoral funding scam has descended into a furious slanging match between the witness and the barrister leading the Independent Commission Against Corruption (Icac) inquiry. The former energy minister Chris Hartcher, the last witness to appear before the current Icac hearing, snapped at accusations he had pocketed a $4,000 illegal donation after laundering it through his old law firm’s trust account. “I reject that absolutely,” he bellowed. “Don’t you dare resent anything,” counsel assisting the inquiry, Geoffrey Watson SC, roared back, forcing the commissioner, Megan Latham, to order both parties to “take a backwards step”. Hartcher faces allegations he was “at the centre of several electoral funding schemes” designed to funnel illegal donations to the Liberal party election campaigns of right-wing candidates on the NSW central coast. Questions on Monday centred on $4,000 in cheques paid to the Liberal party by an “avidly anti-socialist” Bondi accountant, Timothy Trumbull. The cheques, made out in the name of Trumbull’s employees, were deposited in a trust account at Hartcher’s old law firm, Hartcher Reid, and then paid to an IT services firm run by the partner of a Hartcher employee, Ray Carter. Both Carter and his partner have told the inquiry the IT firm, Micky Tech, was a sham company for hiding illegal donations. Carter said last week he passed the $4,000 on to Hartcher, who allegedly instructed him to tell Icac that he, Carter, had pocketed the money. Hartcher told the inquiry on Monday Carter’s evidence was “wrong” and that Carter himself had spent the money on a federal election campaign. Sebastian Reid, a solicitor at Hartcher Reid and Hartcher’s nephew, has told the inquiry his uncle instructed him to pass the illegal donations from the trust account to Micky Tech. Hartcher repeatedly said on Monday he “does not recall” the conversation with his nephew, or ever dealing with cheques from Trumbull. He said his nephew was “a truthful person” but that “what his evidence is on this issue, I can't comment on, because I don't recall the transaction”. "I've definitely tried to stretch my memory, because it's been an embarrassment for me, for my former family firm, but I don't recall it,” Hartcher said. The inquiry was shown a blue folder, recovered by Icac investigators when they raided Hartcher’s electorate office, containing a list of political donors, many of them prohibited, to seats in the area. The folder was found on a small table behind Hartcher’s desk. But the MP, who has withdrawn from the Liberal party and now sits on the crossbenches, denied ever seeing the list and said the materials in the folder were “more likely than not” put there by one of his employees. Hartcher answered “no” repeatedly as Watson put it to him that he had used slush funds including Micky Tech, Eightbyfive and the Free Enterprise Foundation “as a means of washing donations from prohibited donors”. Earlier, Icac heard Eightbyfive paid the personal expenses of a state MP in the months before the 2011 election so he could devote himself fully to winning a marginal central coast seat. Darren Webber, the first Liberal to win the NSW seat of Wyong, was paid $45,000 by Eightbyfive in the months before the 2011 election for “collating” Liberal party press releases. He denied he was being paid for “entirely irrelevant services”. Webber was unable to produce any evidence of the work he had done for Eightbyfive, saying his records were on computers “used at the time that I no longer possess”. The invoices Webber provided Eightbyfive were for “IT consulting and electrotechnology advice”, but the MP said on Monday this was “simply an oversight, a mistake”. Watson put it to Webber that the money was paid by Eightbyfive to sustain him during the election campaign and to "free you for doorknocking". Admit it,” Watson said. "I'm not in a position to admit that at all,” Webber said. |