While Rob “Mr Ten Per Cent” Assaf’s capacity to recall crucial details about tax dodging, branch stacking or issuing sham invoices was unfortunately lacking, his capacity to deflect blame was remarkably sharp.
The way the 30-year-old tells it, he was merely a backseat passenger who was too young and naive to know about any of the above allegations.
Instead, it was his former friend Christian Ellis, 34, whom he threw under the ICAC bus. “Christian’s a liar. He’s greedy. I don’t trust him,” Assaf recalled telling the then head of Catholic Schools NSW Dallas McInerney.
The revelations came on Friday during the commission’s wide-ranging inquiry into Liberal Party branch stacking and illegal donations codenamed Operation Rosny.
The inquiry has heard Assaf began working at Catholic Schools NSW in October 2019. But weeks earlier he had landed a 10 per cent “referral fee” for securing Catholic Schools NSW as the first client for Ellis’s newly established lobbying firm, Beckington.
But in the witness box, Robert Assaf could recall very little about how his windfall came about.
The 10 per cent payments, or “kickbacks” as counsel assisting Dr Peggy Dwyer, SC, preferred to call them, were paid to Assaf’s wife Carmel.
The inquiry has heard that Ellis and Assaf, two passionate conservative Christian ideologues whom Assaf said shared “faith, values and politics”, founded a group called the Reformers in 2017.
The Reformers planned to stack Liberal branches with like-minded folk to install candidates sympathetic to their cause. To do this, they needed money.
Ellis and Jeremy Greenwood, two other persons of interest to the ICAC, established Beckington in July 2019.
However, Beckington did little or no government relations work for Catholic Schools NSW but issued fake invoices for services that were not supplied. The funds were then used for the Reformer’s Liberal Party scheming.
Assaf said the issuing of sham invoices was done by Christian Ellis, whom he said had explained that it was merely tax minimisation.
Commissioner Fabian Gleeson, taking off his glasses to direct his attention more fully to Assaf, asked the witness in measured tones if he thought it was honest for Beckington to issue invoices for consulting services, when no such services were performed.
Assaf replied: “I would have thought it was tricky.”
“Why do you characterise them as merely tricky, but you seem to baulk at the characterisation that it’s dishonest conduct?” asked the former Supreme Court judge.
Assaf claimed youthful ignorance of tax matters and maintained he viewed it as “tricky” not dishonest.
Later in the day, it was revealed that Assaf’s 10 per cent cut for securing clients was disguised by sending fake invoices totalling $20,000 to Beckington. The invoices were in his wife’s name for work that she had not done.
Assaf offered that he “may have been sloppy” in relation to the sham invoices. But once again, he volunteered Ellis as the scapegoat for suggesting this way of channelling the money.
“Because he was dodgy?” asked Dwyer. “I would say so, yes,” Assaf replied.
In August 2023, the state executive of the NSW Liberal Party unanimously voted to expel Ellis for bringing the party into disrepute. This was due to his unsuccessful branch stacking, including trying to enrol a group of silent nuns near Deniliquin in an attempt to unseat former opposition leader Sussan Ley in the federal seat of Farrer.
A crucial figure in Operation Rosny, Ellis has moved to England and is not expected to give evidence during the eight-week-long inquiry.
Toward the end of the day on Friday, there was evident frustration with Assaf’s inability to “refresh” his memory.
When Assaf asked for a five-minute bathroom break, the commissioner replied tersely, “Three minutes.”
Assaf’s examination will continue at 9.30 on Monday.
Further reading
Here are some of the highlights from the first week of our coverage.