{"id":828041,"date":"2026-07-28T01:03:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T01:03:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/828041\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T01:03:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T01:03:18","slug":"operation-rosny-icac-how-michael-ohara-funded-a-nsw-liberal-party-takeover-from-the-reformers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/828041\/","title":{"rendered":"Operation Rosny ICAC: How Michael O\u2019Hara funded a NSW Liberal Party takeover from the Reformers"},"content":{"rendered":"

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ICAC\u2019s Operation Rosny is investigating property developer Jean Nassif\u2019s links to political powerbrokers, councils and Catholic schools. See all stories.<\/a><\/p>\n

Moments before the Independent Commission Against Corruption started prising open the juicy details<\/a> of a five-year campaign of personal greed and political ambition, an elderly man dressed in a red vest, yellow tie, charcoal suit and sparkling gold watch shuffled into the hearing room and took a seat in the public gallery.<\/p>\n

Regrettably for Michael O\u2019Hara, he was not a casual observer. Instead, the softly spoken millionaire hotelier had the dubious honour of being the first witness at a blockbuster inquiry probing the murky links<\/a> between the NSW Liberal Party, fugitive developer Jean Nassif, and a cluster of other questionable characters.<\/p>\n

To make his situation worse, the 83-year-old O\u2019Hara has stage-four cancer \u2013 a melanoma on his right lung \u2013 and is undergoing chemotherapy. His wife died last year.<\/p>\n

\"HotelierHotelier Michael O\u2019Hara outside the ICAC on Monday.Janie Barrett<\/p>\n

Looking as though he\u2019d be more accustomed to the plush wing chairs of the Australian Club than the witness box of a major corruption hearing, O\u2019Hara took notes on a tatty writing pad throughout the morning as the extent of Operation Rosny was outlined in breathtaking detail. At one point, he walked into a packed media room and said a polite \u201cG\u2019day\u201d before realising where he was and making a hasty retreat.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Hara is arguably a relatively small player in a series of complex schemes which have been unpicked by ICAC investigators since 2022. But his involvement demonstrates the lengths some went to conceal their activities.<\/p>\n

The funds handed over by O\u2019Hara and others propped up a long-running campaign by a group of right-faction agitators named the Reformers <\/a>to seize control of branches across Sydney. Some Reformers then also sought to use their growing influence within the party to do the bidding of Nassif and his now-collapsed property empire, Toplace.<\/p>\n

Counsel assisting the commission, Dr Peggy Dwyer, SC, used her opening address to warn fake invoices, dodgy bank accounts, shadowy corporate structures and other plots being investigated by the ICAC were much more than wrongdoing or potential criminality. It was, in fact, an assault on democracy which could undermine elections and government decisions.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Hara is alleged to have paid a total of $40,000 into a Westpac bank account controlled by the Reformers. One payment was made under the description \u201cDEPOSIT MICHAEL O\u2019HARA donat2reformers\u201d.<\/p>\n

Documents also show he paid a further $125,000 to the Reformers via sham invoices and monthly retainers, sometimes under the title \u201cstrategic wealth strategy investment advice\u201d.<\/p>\n

Dwyer told the hearings the \u201cbogus\u201d payments were a sham, with their true purpose to conceal donations designed to support the empire-building agenda of the Reformers. O\u2019Hara, a deeply religious and conservative man who liked the faction\u2019s views on issues such as gay marriage, abortion and euthanasia, was happy to stump up to support the cause.<\/p>\n

\"ICACICAC counsel assisting Dr Peggy Dwyer leaves day one of the hearings.Janie Barrett<\/p>\n

In the Reformers, O\u2019Hara saw kindred spirits. In O\u2019Hara, the Reformers saw a cash cow.<\/p>\n

However, O\u2019Hara\u2019s $165,000 in payments is dwarfed by the $2 million Nassif is alleged to have given various Reformers in the hope they might install councillors and potentially even cabinet ministers who would be supportive of his development agenda.<\/p>\n

But O\u2019Hara\u2019s $165,000 contribution was still well above the donations cap of $6100, and even if they had been declared, O\u2019Hara was a prohibited donor because of his line of work.<\/p>\n

When he took the stand after lunch, the lawyer-turned-hotel owner said he had been a member of the Liberal Party on and off since the early 1970s and was recently planning to resign because the organisation was \u201ca bit toxic\u201d. But party officials tore up O\u2019Hara\u2019s membership after he was subpoenaed for the ICAC\u2019s inquiry.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I didn\u2019t have to resign. They cut me!\u201d he said. He also criticised former premier Dominic Perrottet for going \u201cwoke\u201d after succeeding Gladys Berejiklian in late 2021<\/a>, and complained that some other Liberals in NSW had a worldview more aligned to teal independents or the Greens.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Hara recalled being approached by Reformers members Christian Ellis and Robert Assaf in 2018 to support their movement. \u201cI was happy to donate to people who had similar views,\u201d O\u2019Hara said.<\/p>\n

Ellis and Assaf are just two men in the spotlight at the ICAC. Others include the brothers of former premier Dominic Perrottet, Jean-Claude and Charles, and the powerful chief executive officer<\/a> of Catholic Schools NSW Dallas McInerney.<\/p>\n

Pressed by Dwyer, the 83-year-old O\u2019Hara repeatedly struggled to explain why he had not disclosed the donations. He appeared to suggest that he didn\u2019t think he needed to because the Reformers weren\u2019t a political party.<\/p>\n

\"MichaelMichael O\u2019Hara leaves the inquiry. He will return on Tuesday. Janie Barrett <\/p>\n

O\u2019Hara was also questioned on why he had reported donations to Fred Nile\u2019s Christian Democratic Party and the conservative campaign group Advance, but not the Reformers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was not donating to a political party,\u201d he insisted. \u201cThere\u2019s no way I would have given a cent to the Liberal Party.<\/p>\n

\u201cI now know \u2026 that it\u2019s an incredibly wide definition of what donations are as far as political parties, but I wasn\u2019t aware of that at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked whether the donations may have ever come up in conversations with Liberal MP Damien Tudehope, his longtime friend and former law partner, O\u2019Hara dropped a bombshell.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Jean<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI honestly can\u2019t recall. It may have. I think he may have probably been aware of it,\u201d he said. Tudehope, who has strong links to several key players in the ICAC probe, recently stood down from his frontbench role for the duration of the inquiry and has denied any wrongdoing. He is expected to be called as a witness in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n

As the afternoon wore on, O\u2019Hara\u2019s responses continued to come unstuck after Dwyer and commissioner Fabian Gleeson, SC, asked why many of the payments to the Reformers were issued under the guise of \u201cstrategic wealth strategy investment\u201d.<\/p>\n

Who came up with the idea to mask payments under that label? \u201cI don\u2019t really know,\u201d O\u2019Hara replied. \u201cIt\u2019s like what, eight years ago? I was never anticipating sitting in a courtroom having to answer these questions.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bad news for O\u2019Hara is the questions aren\u2019t over; he will be back for more on Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n

Start the day with a summary of the day\u2019s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\"BevanBevan Shields<\/a> is a senior writer, and former editor of The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":828042,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-828041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=828041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/828042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=828041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=828041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=828041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}