Dallas McInerney denies asking Angus Taylor for money for Reformers at Icac inquiry

A factional ally of Angus Taylor has denied ever asking the federal opposition leader for money for a group of Liberal party Christian power brokers who allegedly solicited illegal donations, suggesting a Reformers associate may have “lied” about a $15,000 commitment.

The Catholic Schools NSW chief executive, Dallas McInerney, gave evidence at the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (Icac) on Thursday. Icac is investigating whether McInerney arranged and approved donations from the governing body for 600 Catholic schools to support alleged branch stacking efforts of the conservative Christian group the Reformers.

On Thursday, McInerney was asked about a message to Reformer Robert Assaf in March 2021.

In the message, which Assaf shared with other members of the group, McInerney said he had a “breakfast club with ministers”, asking for an update on “SCD [state council delegate] progress in the last six to 12 months”.

“I want to shake down Angus for 10k,” McInerney wrote. On Thursday, McInerney said the message referred to a breakfast meeting with NSW Liberal ministers, as well as a separate request to Taylor, but said the money would have been for “support for upcoming internal elections” and not the Reformers.

He said any money would have gone to “printing brochures, pamphlets, postage, mailout”.

McInerney was asked about a subsequent message sent by Reformers associate Dylan Whitelaw to members of the group days later, in which he wrote: “Dallas has told me he got the commitment from Angus, the 15k injection plus a 3k monthly donation!”

He said: “The only explanation I can venture, noting this is not my exchange of correspondence, is that I did emerge from that meeting [with Taylor] with an in-principle support … [for] the internal elections for the conservative faction.”

Pressed by counsel assisting, Juliet Curtin, on why Whitelaw might have thought the money was for the Reformers, he said that one of “a number of explanations” was that Whitelaw had lied. “He lied … He boasted. He lied,” suggested McInerney.

When asked about the messages at the inquiry last month, Whitelaw said he did not recall sending them, nor did he recall Taylor making a financial contribution to the Reformers.

McInerney, who said he had never asked Taylor for money for the Reformers, said he could not recall if Taylor made a commitment of $15,000, or an ongoing commitment of $3,000 for internal elections.

The only senior Liberal he could recall having contributed directly to the Reformers was the late former federal vice-president, Teena McQueen, who died in June.

Taylor has not been named in Icac’s allegations and has repeatedly denied he ever made payments to the Reformers. On Thursday he reiterated to a press conference that he would not provide a running commentary on Icac’s hearings.

One of Taylor’s staffers, Kane Silom, was criticised after he rebuked Network Ten journalist Ashleigh Raper for asking Taylor whether he had spoken with McInerney about sending money to the Reformers.

After the press conference ended, with cameras still running, Silom said to Raper: “Are your ratings that bad? Seriously, that’s a fricking disgrace.”

The inquiry has heard the Reformers wanted more conservative policies on issues such as same-sex marriage, abortion and euthanasia. A document drafted around the group’s inception proposed to recruit 5,000 Christian conservatives to join New South Wales Liberal party branches “and thereby take control of the NSW division of the Liberal party”.

McInerney on Thursday admitted he first became aware of Reformers’ recruitment events in late 2018 and 2019. He said he was “mostly” supportive of their goals.

Curtin asked: “What’s the qualification here, Mr McInerney?”

“They were spectacularly unsuccessful in their ambitions,” he replied. “I never thought the model was right.”

McInerney stood aside from his role as CEO before the Icac hearings began “to allow the work of Catholic Schools NSW to continue its important mission”, he previously said in a statement.

McInerney on Thursday accepted he had begun to speak frequently to Reformers Christian Ellis, Robert Assaf and Jean-Claude Perrottet by 2020. Asked if he knew that the men were “fervent” in the pursuit of the Reformers’ goals, McInerney said the word was “very subjective”.

Asked if “passionate” was a better word, he said: “I actually don’t think there was a passion there. I think it was a calling for them, a duty.”

Nearly 80% of funding managed by Catholic Schools NSW comes from federal and state sources, or about $3.8bn in 2024.

Icac has previously heard that Catholic Schools NSW paid monthly retainers to two lobbying firms controlled by members of the Reformers for consulting services.

It paid Beckington, run by Ellis and Jeremy Greenwood, $130,900 between August 2019 and August 2021, and JPG Advisory, run by Greenwood, $135,000 between December 2021 and December 2023.

On Thursday, the inquiry heard that McInerney, the only CEO of Catholic Schools NSW since its founding in 2017, joined the Liberal party while at school in the late 1980s or early 1990s. He remained a member until June this year, when he also ceased being the president of the Mittagong branch.

McInerney admitted to having his own political ambitions “off and on for several” years, but said he was “at peace” with not taking over the late federal Liberal senator Jim Molan’s seat. Molan died in January 2023 but McInerney missed out on the Senate spot.

He was read messages exchanged between him and Greenwood in which he wrote: “I know I’ve been fucked.”

“Yeah it’s fucked, it’s fucked, it’s fucked,” McInerney wrote in March 2023.

After evidence on Wednesday, the NSW opposition leader, Kellie Sloane, removed upper house member Chris Rath as her representative on the Liberal party’s state executive. The commission heard evidence that Rath helped Reformers avoid summons for a 2023 parliamentary inquiry which preceded Icac’s probe.

The shadow planning and arts minister, who received a caution from the parliamentary privileges committee in 2023 and recused himself from the parliamentary inquiry, has been referred to the privileges committee a second time over the incident. He has not been named as a person of interest in Icac’s allegations, and remains on the front bench.

Icac’s inquiry continues.